I grew up walking the line, being in those various queues of existence.
When I moved to the UK, I knew that the British took queue-ing very seriously and were, are, rightly proud of this cultural icon. I knew this, knew how I experienced it in the US and thought that I was quite well adapted to it within British culture. That is until the Queen Mum died. When it was announced that she would rest in state at Westminster Palace, I decided that I needed to go attend the viewing. Mostly due to the historical aspects of it, as well as the sight-seeing aspects of going into the palace where one doesn't usually get to go.
So on the day I set out to join the queue. I caught up with it around about Southwick Bridge. And this started a full afternoon of walking alongside the Thames. Which I must admit is still one of my favourite walks here in London. Many others joined the queue at the same time as I did, and as we walked to Westminster Palace, we found that there were many coming toward us to join up with the queue.
As the minutes went by so did the hours that were added to the time spent by those joining the end of the queue. So we slowly moved up the queue, early on most people spoke with their friends and companions, and then somewhere about hour three conversations broke out between strangers. I heard stories of when people met the Queen Mum, some of the traditions related to this, and their admiration of her.
I found that day that everyone wanted to tell me their stories of their queen mum. When we crossed the river and were getting closer to Westminster Palace, the mood suddenly changed. And then and there I learned just how seriously the British take the traditions of the queue. A woman, joined the queue when we were just off the bridge and going down a set of stairs.
The anger then began to appear. All these gentle, lovely grandmothers, swiftly turned. Ugly would be nice compared to what this was. Evil might be right, but.....the rapid change was downright scary. I wouldn't want to cross those women on that day. I grew up in lines, but the US variation was open and loopy, I don't know how we survived those undisciplined queues, and since I began learning the British tradition of Queue I don't think I can ever return to those standard and boring US lines.
I like the tradition of the queue. That is the thing of it, traditions are like queues. They give you a sense of place, of order and of historic connections. Without tradition life would be like a fiddler on the roof, to quote the musical, shaky and always on the edge. In other words tradition does give you security, and there is nothing wrong with that.
Yet the problem is when tradition becomes the rule unto itself. We cannot do that because it is against tradition. How dare you explore a belief like that, it dishonours God. If we allow them to marry than society will collapse. All sorts of evil happens when tradition is challenged or changed. We fall off the roof. Is that such a bad thing? Unitarian approaches to tradition are varied, and that reflects the variations of our denomination.
Some Unitarians came out of Presbyterian approaches to Christian faith, others from Anglican, and others from Baptist. Some of our congregations started as Unitarian and other started as Free Christians. I mention these because all of these traditions are within our Unitarian heritage. We Unitarians are not products of a singular tradition, save that of we are all from a variation of Dissenting Christianity. We are the ones that decided to step out of the queue so to speak.
Thus endeth the lesion, or does it. One of the things that has annoyed me in reading other's peoples definitions of Unitarian is the way of definition that they make. It is negative. Unitarians are anti Trinitarian. Now I am not opposed to the negative way. It is a part of our dissenting tradition. But it is not and should never be the end of the conversation.
At some point the positive must also be addressed. I am not anti Trinitarian, I happen to believe in the Oneness of God, I can discuss Trinitarian belief and how it can be used in a positive way, but that belief does not speak to my experience or understanding of the Divine. We Unitarians have a tradition and heritage to be proud of, one which we shouldn't forget, and one that is attractive to others.
We are not for everyone, but there is nothing wrong with that, our open questioning can be scary, but for some it is the entry for that exciting spiritual exploration that they need and desire. It is our gift to our neighbours, our nation and our world.
Pastor John
When I moved to the UK, I knew that the British took queue-ing very seriously and were, are, rightly proud of this cultural icon. I knew this, knew how I experienced it in the US and thought that I was quite well adapted to it within British culture. That is until the Queen Mum died. When it was announced that she would rest in state at Westminster Palace, I decided that I needed to go attend the viewing. Mostly due to the historical aspects of it, as well as the sight-seeing aspects of going into the palace where one doesn't usually get to go.
So on the day I set out to join the queue. I caught up with it around about Southwick Bridge. And this started a full afternoon of walking alongside the Thames. Which I must admit is still one of my favourite walks here in London. Many others joined the queue at the same time as I did, and as we walked to Westminster Palace, we found that there were many coming toward us to join up with the queue.
As the minutes went by so did the hours that were added to the time spent by those joining the end of the queue. So we slowly moved up the queue, early on most people spoke with their friends and companions, and then somewhere about hour three conversations broke out between strangers. I heard stories of when people met the Queen Mum, some of the traditions related to this, and their admiration of her.
I found that day that everyone wanted to tell me their stories of their queen mum. When we crossed the river and were getting closer to Westminster Palace, the mood suddenly changed. And then and there I learned just how seriously the British take the traditions of the queue. A woman, joined the queue when we were just off the bridge and going down a set of stairs.
The anger then began to appear. All these gentle, lovely grandmothers, swiftly turned. Ugly would be nice compared to what this was. Evil might be right, but.....the rapid change was downright scary. I wouldn't want to cross those women on that day. I grew up in lines, but the US variation was open and loopy, I don't know how we survived those undisciplined queues, and since I began learning the British tradition of Queue I don't think I can ever return to those standard and boring US lines.
I like the tradition of the queue. That is the thing of it, traditions are like queues. They give you a sense of place, of order and of historic connections. Without tradition life would be like a fiddler on the roof, to quote the musical, shaky and always on the edge. In other words tradition does give you security, and there is nothing wrong with that.
Yet the problem is when tradition becomes the rule unto itself. We cannot do that because it is against tradition. How dare you explore a belief like that, it dishonours God. If we allow them to marry than society will collapse. All sorts of evil happens when tradition is challenged or changed. We fall off the roof. Is that such a bad thing? Unitarian approaches to tradition are varied, and that reflects the variations of our denomination.
Some Unitarians came out of Presbyterian approaches to Christian faith, others from Anglican, and others from Baptist. Some of our congregations started as Unitarian and other started as Free Christians. I mention these because all of these traditions are within our Unitarian heritage. We Unitarians are not products of a singular tradition, save that of we are all from a variation of Dissenting Christianity. We are the ones that decided to step out of the queue so to speak.
Thus endeth the lesion, or does it. One of the things that has annoyed me in reading other's peoples definitions of Unitarian is the way of definition that they make. It is negative. Unitarians are anti Trinitarian. Now I am not opposed to the negative way. It is a part of our dissenting tradition. But it is not and should never be the end of the conversation.
At some point the positive must also be addressed. I am not anti Trinitarian, I happen to believe in the Oneness of God, I can discuss Trinitarian belief and how it can be used in a positive way, but that belief does not speak to my experience or understanding of the Divine. We Unitarians have a tradition and heritage to be proud of, one which we shouldn't forget, and one that is attractive to others.
We are not for everyone, but there is nothing wrong with that, our open questioning can be scary, but for some it is the entry for that exciting spiritual exploration that they need and desire. It is our gift to our neighbours, our nation and our world.
Pastor John
Thank you so much for this wonderful post. It really encapsulates much of my own thinking and also made me think deeper about some of my own assumptions.
ReplyDeleteTradition is valuable. It gives us a sense of history and continuity, binding us to what came before and providing us with a heritage to pass on. Tradition however is a means to an end not the end in itself. We must exercise cautious judgement to assess what of that which we have received is good, and what might actually be harmful. I agree that to define ourselves as simply anti-trinitarian, even though this is an aspect of our belief, is to diminish the breadth of our faith. A positive view of Unitarianism and a confident expression of our values and beliefs would go a long way to giving us something substantial that we can pass on to others, so that we too can be a link in a chain of rational, liberal and decent tradition.
When people ask me what I believe and/or what Unitarians believe, I say that I believe in justice, tolerance, peace, love, wisdom, reason, freedom and inclusiveness.
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