This is an annual CREDO service presented by members of the fellowship. Selected members present their beliefs during this service.

Jan 7, 2018 Credos listed in order of presentation.

Joanna Henderson:

Good Morning!

My name is Joanna Henderson and I was a member of this UU Fellowship thirty years ago.  When we moved to Hopkinton from New London, I joined the Concord UU Church and have been a member there ever since although I have since moved back to New London! Several weeks ago when Henry announced that he was looking for credo speakers, I volunteered to be one of them.

When I think about what I believe, (and that has changed over time, )I realize my credo actually began to be formed  by, someone else, an elderly woman named Mrs. Curren.  Mrs Curren isn’t a real person,  but she is one of my favorite fictional characters.

Many years ago I read the novel “Age of Iron” by J.M. Coteeze.. Coteeze who you may not have heard of before, is no slouch  of a writer.   He won the Nobel Prize for Literature on 2003.  In “Age of Iron” his protagonist, Mrs Curren , has a singular belief  which really spoke to me when I first read this book and speaks to me still.

We never learn Mrs Curren’s first name, but we do know that she lives in South Africa in the 1950’s where she is a retired Classics professor.  Mrs Curren sees apartheid closing in around her and she is appalled.   She cannot believe what is happening to her country. That on top of the fact that she has just been diagnosed with an incurable disease although we never learn what that disease is.  What we do learn is that her only child has moved to America with grandchildren  and she believes she will never see any of them again.  She has no family left in her native country.   Things have piled up and piled on.

So in a long letter to her daughter, she puts on a brave front only letting us into her true feelings at the very end when she says to her daughter, “ I am trying to keep my soul alive in times not hospitable to soul.  And that is MY credo, to try to find something everyday  that keeps my soul alive, that feeds my soul by doing things that will satisfy it regardless of whatever else is happening in the world.

In order to keep my soul alive I wanted to learn what others had and have done to keep their souls alive.  Soul is elusive and is not helped by  the dictionary’s definitions.  “Soul is a moving spirit”, or “Soul is a person’s moral and emotional motive”. And finally, the worst definition of all, “Soul is the immaterial essence,  animating principle or activating cause of an individual life.

Whatever that means,  I am sure I do not know!

But if we can’t define soul, we know when something touches our soul,  We know when something is soulful.. What my credo is pushing me to do, is to make my soul sing over something, every day no matter how small.  What I believe is that if  I am aware of my soul’s need for nourishment, I will find that nourishment.

Here’s what Albert Schweitzer said about soul”,  You know of the disease in Central Africa that is called “Sleeping Sickness’  Well there also exists a sleeping sickness of the soul.  It’s most dangerous aspect is that one is unaware of its coming.  That is why you have to be careful.  As soon as you notice the slightest sign of indifference, the moment you become aware of the loss of longing, the loss of enthusiasm, of zest, you should take it as a warning.  You should realize your soul suffers if you live superficially.

.The poet Edna St. Vincent Millay once said,” My soul is fed when I keep my standard of living modest and work steadily, even shyly in the spirit of those medieval carvers who so fondly sculpted the undersides of choir seats.

Rabbi Lawrence Kushner says,” To keep my soul alive I pay attention to what’s going on around me long enough to behold a miracle.  And it doesn’t take long.  There are miracles everywhere.” And May Sarton once said, I have a deliberate exercise I use to feed my soul. I try to spot someone on the subway or bus or in the movies or in a mall who looks as though he or she is in distress or perhaps just tired or lonely and for a short time  I direct all my energy towards that person.

So here are some things you might want to think about pertaining to your soul, that is if your soul fits into your belief system in any way, as mine does :

• The soul speaks its own peculiar language in the messes and miseries of life.  It does not run from trouble or lift itself above the fray of  the everyday.  You don’t have to fix things about yourself for your soul’s sake.
• Your soul  likes complexity.  This is evident in your feelings and thoughts. It doesn’t enjoy skimming the surface.  It locates treasure by getting to the bottom of things.   And getting to the bottom of things is often hard work!
• All our souls are nourished by ritual and celebration so  punctuate your life with special occasions.  There is something to celebrate every day.  Something as ordinary as clean, drinkable water that runs out of a tap., a roof that does not leak, warmth inside a house on a cold day.
• Because the soul is a mystery, it has great respect for the inexplicable .   It likes other mysteries!  Your soul does not need you to try to figure things out.   Why and how come are not  good questions  for the soul. Simply give thanks and count your blessings.
• The soul loves it when you take risks no matter the outcome.
• Best of all, the soul is always on the lookout for fresh wonders.  That’s why it likes it when you take the long way home!

I can keep my soul alive by paying attention to a single rose.  By savoring simplicity and being amazed by complexity, by not suppressing either ecstacy or tears, by embracing people and things. And this is probably why Mrs. Curren is one of my favorite characters in fiction.  She is tough and brave and gets on top of that pile of bad luck and bad times and saves her soul a little bit every day.   She asks for help, she continues to give as she takes what she needs from others  and she gathers WITH others to show praise, support  and love.  I’d like to think that I’ll be like Mrs. Curren some day, that even as I’m going out I’ll have kept my soul alive.

I”d like to share with you the words of William Ellery Channing, and remember there were two William Ellery Channings ( uncle and nephew, the elder who was a Unitarian minister and the younger who was a poet. It is the poet who wrote;

“To live with small means

To seek elegance rather than luxury

Refinement rather than fashion

To be worthy, not respectable, wealthy, not rich

To study hard, think quietly, talk gently, act frankly

To listen to stars and birds, to babes and sages with an open heart

To bear all cheerfully, do all bravely, await occasions., hurry never.

To let the spiritual, unbidden and unconscious, grow up through the common..

This is my credo.  This is my symphony.”

 

Sandy Wells:

 

 

Roger Wells: