with Rev. Clay Nelson

Read below, or download the PDF

Clay Nelson © 13 October 2019

In a sermon preached to the Oxford Unitarian congregation, the Anglican bishop of Oxford, John Pritchard, opens by quoting the writer Julian Barnes, “I don’t believe in God but I miss him.” Barnes goes on to say: “God is dead and without him human beings can get up off their knees and assume their full height; and yet this height turns out to be quite dwarfish. Religion used to offer consolation for the travails of life, and reward at the end of it for the faithful. But above and beyond these treats, it gave human life a sense of context, and therefore seriousness… But was it true? No. Then why miss it? Because it was a supreme fiction, and it is normal to feel bereft on closing a great novel.”

With Rev. Clay Nelson

Read below, or download the PDF

Clay Nelson © 6th October 2019

I’m not sure why but I’m finding that with age I am spending more time in my long-term memory vault. The trade-off is I can’t remember why I went to the kitchen or where I left my keys. I think this is due in part because the memory vault is full to busting and almost anything my five senses encounter brings back a host of memories. For instance, I find colour to be a highly effective trigger for memories.

Institutional light green is one that brings back less than positive memories. It was the colour of choice in schools and hospitals, at least in America. Because we moved a lot when I was a kid, I associate it with the first day of attending a new school, which I always found intimidating.

Read below, or download the PDF

Go straight to the bottom of the page for the Bob Dylan video that provided our closing hymn.

David Hines © 29 September 2019

I’m sorry to change my sermon topic at the last minute, but I just got a major shock last Tuesday to discover that the proportion of Christians in our country has crashed to 37%!! It was 48% at our last census, so that is a huge drop of 11 percentage points.

Many of my atheist friends are over the moon, but I think they’ve not read the figures right, because the proportion of atheists is only 0.15%, which also came as a shock to me. I am shocked, because it shows I didn’t really know my fellow-New Zealanders as well as I thought.

With Clay Nelson

Opening words for this service, not included in the video above were ‘Anthem’ by Leonard Cohen

Read below, or download the PDF

Clay Nelson © 8 September 2019

Borrowing a line from T S Eliot’s The Wasteland, Terry Tempest Williams opens her book, Finding beauty in a broken world,with this reflection:

With Rev. Clay Nelson

Read below or download the PDF

Clay Nelson © 11 August 2019

We are living in a time I find exceedingly painful. It seems that all too many feel it is okay to treat others as if they are less than human. Part of the problem is I spend too much time following what is happening in my home country. This past week the mass gun shooting in El Paso where over 22 died and 48 were wounded was the 250th this year. According to the shooter’s manifesto posted online he was inspired by the shooter in Christchurch. The difference was he was seeking to kill Mexicans instead of Muslims. Just a few hours later the 251st mass shooting happened in Dayton Ohio. Police were able to stop the shooter in Dayton in less than one minute but he was still able to kill 9 including his own sister and wound 27 others.

with Rev. Clay Nelson

Read below, or download the PDF

Clay Nelson © 21 July 2019

I confess to being cursed. In case you haven’t noticed, I’m definitely not swimming in the mainstream. It may explain why I’ve ended up a Unitarian, where atheists go to church. Contradictions, which lead me to paradoxes, mesmerise me. What could be more exciting than when two opposing, irreconcilable truths seek to occupy the same space? What could possibly go wrong when an unstoppable force meets an immoveable object? While sometimes a clear right or wrong answer to life’s immutable questions would be comforting, they smell to me like a bottle of snake oil to cure all my ills that has passed its use by date. The rising hair on the back of my neck warns me that life is just not that simple.

with Rev. Clay Nelson

Read below, or download the PDF

Clay Nelson © 23 June 2019

There is a story in the Jewish Talmud about planting trees. A sage is walking along the road and sees someone planting a carob tree. The sage asks the person, “How long will it take for this tree to bear fruit?”

“Seventy years,” replies the gardener.

The sage then asks: “Are you so healthy a person that you expect to live that length of time and eat its fruit?”

The gardener answers: “I found a fruitful world, because my ancestors planted it for me. Likewise I am planting for my children.” (Talmud Ta’anit 23a)

This simple story is about hope and stewardship of the world gifted to us by those who came before, but it raises a question for me. If I went out this afternoon and planted a fruit tree, would there be anyone around to eat the fruit in seventy years? It may seem a long time away to the young, but to someone who is seventy it is the blink of an eye.

with Rev. Clay Nelson

Read below, or download the PDF

Clay Nelson © 16 June 2019

The first time I remember reflecting on the counter intuitive idea that not knowing is a gift was while visiting my father in the hospital. He had been there for a while suffering from kidney disease. It had been difficult to watch his decline. He had lost his appetite, but I convinced him to put in a feeding tube over his reservations to give the doctors time to work out an effective treatment. On a visit one evening he was more alert and engaged than he had been for some time. We had an amazing conversation about the past, present and future. I left that evening full of hope that we had turned a corner. I returned early in the morning only to learn he had died an hour before my arrival. I was devastated and full of guilt that I had not stayed through the night with him if I had only known. It would take a while but I eventually came to understand not knowing had been a gift. That last conversation would have been very different if I had known. It would have been shaped by death. Instead it was full of life and one of my most treasured memories.