'The Colour of Magic' by Ali Mercer

The Colour of Magic

Part 1

When Lucy pushed her way through the coats hanging in an old wardrobe, she could never have imagined what she would find. Instead of a simple hiding place in a game of Hide and Seek, she steps into a whole new world, a world full of strange and magical things: a lamp in the middle of a frozen forest, a faun, a witch and a talking lion. She crossed a threshold from her mundane world into the magical kingdom of Narnia and she and her brothers lived alternative lives there.

Like many stories, The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe has many layers: a simple children’s tale of adventure and escapism, but full of metaphors and deeper meaning for those who wish to see them.

Magic doesn’t have to be supernatural though. We will all have seen things like the ‘top 10 most magical places to go on holiday’ or ‘the most magical classical music’. We may describe events in our lives as magical, such as wedding days and births of children. These things have that mysterious and enchanting quality we describe as magical. They are often things which we struggle to find other words to describe; places or events which have an ephemeral quality; moments in time which leave feelings traced on our hearts which cannot be contained in words.

In contrast to the land of Narnia, the story of The Secret Garden is set in our world, within the confines of an old house and its gardens. There are no witches, fauns or talking lions, but there is mystery and magic all the same.

When the twelve year old orphan Mary arrived from India at the cold, lonely and unwelcoming Yorkshire moorland home of an unknown uncle, she had no idea what awaited her. When a series of serendipitous events lead to her discovery of an enclosed and forgotten garden, she began to encounter what she would later talk about as ‘magic’: the magic of a beautiful place and growing things; of discovery and purpose as she begins to tend the garden; the magic of friendship when she meets Dickon, a boy who is friends with all the wild things of the moor and gardens; then the magic of restoration as the garden comes to life around them and feeds her spirit.

Later in the book, she meets an unheard of cousin, a ten year old hypochondriac, invalid boy, virtually disowned by his father, living in fear of turning into a hunchback and certain he would die before too long. As she slowly shares with him the discoveries she has made and the wonder of the world outside, Colin, the orator in our reading, begins to recover his health and throughout a summer in the secret garden he becomes more and more aware of this strange sense of ‘something’ working around and inside him.

The three friends spend time noticing the small things and the wider world around them: Colin lies in the grass to watch things grow and feels himself grow as he exercises his limbs; Dickon tends the roses and talks with his tame animals, sensible to all the life around him ; Mary notices how she starts to care about things other than herself and how the garden brings them all together.

She came to believe that something ‘magic’ had led her to discover the garden: not something supernatural, but rather something else, something impossible to describe exactly, but a bit like an unseen power which felt good and right. Perhaps the garden itself needed to be discovered, needed the children to observe and become a part of it. Colin certainly believed so and came to see and feel a magic in everything about him: he learnt to feel its power and it nourished them all as they tended their little sheltered world. They revelled in the wonder and beauty of their surroundings, of their friendships and in the joy of being young, healthy and optimistic again.

It’s no wonder that as adults, people so often look for those places and moments of ‘magic’; chasing those feelings which do so much to nourish us. They are so often fleeting and can be difficult to find in the challenges of daily life, especially under current conditions. Separated from the places and people we would usually share a close connection with, we are suffering from a kind of malnourishment of the heart and mind, hungry for the magic moments of peace, contentment, sharing, growth, wonder and so much more. 

But magic can appear in all sorts of places…

Part 2

The majesty and wonder of a starlit sky could truly be described as magical: it is mysterious and enchanting, as it is awe-inspiring. It is one of those things which reminds us not only of eternity and of our place in it, but of something else, something impossible to describe exactly. I can’t imagine that anyone would be moved by the sight of the night sky and not left with a sense of ‘something’ magical.

Other things, like a spectacular sunset, the crash of waves or our favourite view may remind us too of that ‘magical something’ we feel in and around us at those moments. I can imagine astronauts having similar feelings when seeing the earth below them for the first time. It’s often these big, ‘colourful’ moments in life which serve as reminders to us of an extra dimension to our lives, but there are other, more subtle colours too.

We watched a carriage full of people gradually, if a little reluctantly, come together to sing a song which brought smiles and laughter to what would usually be a group of individuals trying their best to pretend no-one else exists around them. Believe me, as a former London commuter myself, I can say this is close to a miracle and I’m absolutely sure everyone who was there has never forgotten it or the way it made them feel. They shared a simple joy, not just in the singing itself, but in the warmth of connection with fellow human beings. Being able to do this in a space in which other people are usually an obstacle and an annoyance is really a magical occurrence!

I wouldn’t be surprised if for the rest of that day and possibly longer, those people who had sung or just listened would have been readier with a smile or a kind word than usual and perhaps a little more open to seeing and feeling the small things which make big differences in our lives. Maybe they became more aware of their own thoughts and feelings and of how they were affecting others. Maybe they took time to appreciate things they might have otherwise dismissed as unimportant. Maybe they called someone they’d been meaning to contact for a while and change their whole day too. Who knows how far the ripple effect may have gone?

While the big, colourful moments when we are reminded of the magic of the universe and our incredible planet can be overwhelming, the smaller things can be no less effective. Taking a moment to wonder at green shoots pushing from the earth; to feel the warmth of giving and receiving a smile with someone; to give thanks for a vaccine going into our arms, is just as important as being transported by a breathtaking sunset. Like Colin, we can give ourselves time to feel the drawing in and out of that magic, in ourselves, in each other, in the smallest and the biggest of things.

Later on in his story, as he was tending the garden, Colin experiences a moment in which he felt so filled with simple joy that he wanted to “jump up and shout out something to anything that would listen”. He couldn’t find a way to express what he was feeling, so Dickon sang a song: 

“Praise God from whom all blessings flow,
Praise Him all creatures here below,
Praise Him above ye heavenly host,
Praise Father, Son and Holy Ghost.” 

The beauty of the song transported them all and helped them express their inner joy. Dickon’s mother explained to Colin, “Th’ Magic listened when tha’ sung. It would ha’ listened to anything tha’d sung. It was th’joy that mattered. Eh! Lad, lad - what’s names to th’ Joy Maker?” 

She was so right: what are names to the Joy Maker? There are hundreds of names we might use, not one of them can encompass that magic, that power, the spirit and essence we experience. We call might it the Divine, God, Chi or Tao. None of the labels do it justice. Perhaps it really doesn’t matter what we call it: what matters most is that we recognise and feel it at work in ourselves, in others, in the world around us.  

What Dickon’s mum calls the Big, Good Thing, the Joygiver, is in the roots and the shoots, in the rain and the sun, in the smile and the song, in the kind word and the loving touch. It is everywhere, drawing in and out: from the tiniest snowflake to the biggest wave; from the dormant acorn to the squalling newborn baby; from the quiet moment of contemplation to the song or shout of joy which just can’t be held in. We can, as Colin said, try an experiment and keep thinking about it and calling it. Alongside our own efforts it will nourish and energise us, just as he discovered. 

So let us open our minds and our hearts to all the colours of magic, from the bright to the subtle. Let us be danced by the dance and let the spirit move.

May it be so.

'Future of the Past' by Ali Mercer

The Future of the Past

Part One

We are the living products of our past; walking, talking bits of history. Our bodies contain the elements blasted into being at The Big Bang; they carry the signatures of all the food we’ve eaten and the water water we’ve drunk. We have been shaped by our environment and as humans have evolved, we’ve shaped that environment in our turn, creating a different world for the next generation to grow up in.

Our homes, schools, workplaces; the streets, villages, towns and cities; the countryside we value as natural but which is 99% man-made; it all shapes us every day. We walk in the past.

It’s not just the physical realm which shapes us. By accident of birth, we are born into a human body of some shape and colour, into a family which may be stable or not, which is itself part of a wider society with all its attendant requirements and expectations. In our bid to survive, we learn to conform to the patterns of that society, but there will be many challenges.

Depending on where that baby is born, it will grow up very differently. A female child in some parts of the world can be so unwanted, she is left to die. In many places, she will grow up under the strict control of a male dominated society, never realising her potential. If she is lucky to be born into a fairer society, she may succeed in some field, despite the obstacles in her way. To be homosexual may mean living with anything from personal and institutional discrimination, to being in daily fear for your life because of the beliefs and traditions of the society you live in.

A child of colour may grow up never seeing a white person, or forever be the second-class citizen in a country where they are a minority. Other children may not even have a home to call their own, often unwelcome strangers in a world where artificial borders divide up the earth. The Roma, Kurds, Uighur and Rohingya are peoples whose names we know because of the struggles they face in trying to survive in a present shaped by a history which excludes or persecutes them for who they were.

As more people are forced to leave their homelands to find safe refuge in other parts of the world, they face the discrimination brought about by lessons others grew up with: that foreigners are stupid, unclean, untrustworthy, lazy, frightening and unwelcome. The propaganda of two World Wars, vilifying Jews, Roma and Africans amongst others, lingers long in cultural memory. The echoes of Empire keep some in a false sense of superiority over others.

In religious matters too, we live in the past. For some, religious affiliation is a given: they will grow up within the dominant religion of their country. Others may be born into a family whose traditions see them as a religious minority, such as Christians in a Muslim dominated country. Which tradition is dominant in the present day is a direct consequence of the past: who conquered who, which faction seized power when. The advent of Protestantism in Europe centuries ago, made the creation of the Church of England a possibility when Henry VIII and his cronies wanted to wrestle power and money away from the powerful established church.

As Unitarians, our traditions are part of a long history of religious dissent against past forms of religion dominant at different times. Some of that dissent was based on fundamental disagreements about theology or practice: some of the fissures which fragmented the Christian church changed the very substance of people’s beliefs. Others were ‘fake fights’ over petty subjects, perhaps a cover for personal power struggles. Disagreements and fragmentation seem inescapable where human beings are concerned!

It’s interesting to note that the words we heard from Rev. McDonald Ladd were spoken in 2016, and yet today they seem as relevant as ever: we still hear the same responses to Black Lives Matter, still hear the same tired old excuses of “They were different times” or “You can’t judge historical figures by modern standards” or “But look at all the good things these people did”. Or the best one of all: “You can’t rewrite history”, which is ridiculous as ‘history’ has always been and will continue to be rewritten. The trope that ‘history is written by the victors’ makes the history of the downtrodden no less valid or important.

Part Two

Who knows where the time goes indeed. Time is a funny thing, sometimes stretching out interminably, while at other times it seems to go winging by ever faster! We simplify it in our minds as a single line, past at one end, present in the middle, future at the other end. But I get the feeling it’s more complex than that, as if our place on that line jumps about, or perhaps the line itself gets twisted and we live in this strange kind of past-present. What seems certain is that the tie to our past is unbreakable and that examining that past is important to our future. 

But examining history can be painful. It can dig up uncomfortable truths which rock the foundations of our present days lives. And so it should. The pain experienced by people today is a direct consequence of past decisions taken. We think of progress as a never ending trajectory towards improvement, but it’s not. It’s just change, some of it is beneficial, some is not. 

Take for instance our way of living. There’s no doubt that the Industrial Revolution, technical innovation and medical advances have given many of us us access to homes, work, transport and a longer, more healthy lifespan. But they have also brought about a decrease in environmental cleanliness, over-use of resources, a disconnect between human beings and the world they inhabit and a still-widening gap between the richest and the poorest.

In recent times, we have as a society been faced with the anger and demands for justice from those who have been wronged or believe themselves to be. When we hear of investigations into ‘historical child sex abuse’ we have to acknowledge both that it happened then and still happens now. When a terrorist commits an atrocity as their way of being heard, we are forced to examine where that level of hatred derives from and our part in creating it. When people of colour and their allies pull down statues of slavers, we have to look at the society which chose to put that statue up and the society which chose to leave it here for generations.

Admitting faults strikes at the heart of who we are, personally and at the level of wider society and national identity. How can we sing of Britannia proudly ruling the waves at the same time as acknowledging that our supremacy allowed us to profit from the use and abuse of so many others? How do we celebrate our heroes while admitting that they were terribly racist or sexist? How do we challenge the order of the society we live in without making ourselves unwanted outsiders? I’m not sure the answers are simple, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t ask the questions and explore the possibilities.

When we hear the voices of the oppressed rise up, we must listen. We have as individuals chosen to put ourselves under the Unitarian name at a time when we are free to practice our faith as full members of society. It wasn’t always so. Unitarians and others have known the bitterness of being outsiders, of being restricted and even persecuted. Perhaps that should make us more keenly aware of the importance of examining the past and the way it shapes our present.

We have at various times made changes which were not always comfortable for everyone: even the lighting of the chalice, so central to our services and identity now, is a recent addition which some saw as a part of other religions’ traditions, not ours. We are faced with questions about what we want to bring with us to give to those who come after and what we think we should leave behind.

As a faith group we also have to recognise where we stand, where we have done well and not so well. We helped shape the changes to laws on same-sex marriage, but perhaps we haven’t always been as welcoming to strangers as we like to think we are. We pride ourselves on our liberal, inclusive values, but if our churches and meeting houses are largely full of white, middle class, heterosexual people, we perhaps need to check that we aren’t just talking the talk.

As members of a wider society too, we should take a look at ourselves, personally and as a group. Are we prepared to stand by our principles, even if it makes life hard for ourselves? Will we challenge the status quo, call out the people and structures which continue to treat people unfairly? Jesus became the enemy of the establishment, both political and religious, unwilling to change his standards even if that might have out him in a position to make positive changes. We have found ourselves a home in a liberal religious tradition which has a tradition of standing up and questioning what it sees as wrong: members have been arrested, jailed, beaten and even died as they have joined their voices with others to call for justice and change.

I don’t know in which year the Rev. Nick Teape wrote his words. I do know it was before I was born. I find it a little sad that those words are still such a challenge today, but also it gives me hope: hope that the world is still full of decent people who will Stand on the Side of Love, who will be brave enough to try answering the big questions and look to make a new, happier, more peaceful and fair history for those who come next.

May it be so.