Speaker & Worship Leader:- Rachel Mackintosh

Violence and harassment in the world of work affects us all.
What is the spiritual moment we need to address it?

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Rachel Mackintosh © 4 May 2025

I begin this talk by reciting a speech I gave at the International Labour Organisation’s 2019 Conference in Geneva, when I was the Worker Representative for New Zealand and when a new international labour convention was passed, creating a new human right – the right to be free from violence and harassment in the world of work:

In this convention, we have a vision of a different and better world for all people.

Speaker & Worship Leader:- Rachel Mackintosh

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Rachel Mackintosh © 9 March 2025

Please take a moment to close your eyes and breathe.

Breathe in the possibility of tomorrow

Breath out what is done.

In our wedding vows, Clay and I said to each other, “I love you with all I am and hope to be. I promise to be with you as you are and as you will be.”

As we will be is not as we are. Everything changes us.

And change is loss.

Speaker & Worship Leader:- Rachel Mackintosh

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Rachel Mackintosh © 2 February 2025

Why do we repeat this ritual every year? It isn’t just to brag about our travels. When we share our water in the common bowl, it reminds us that while we are separate people, we are also part of an interdependent community.

You probably know about the water cycle.

Speaker & Worship Leader:- Rachel Mackintosh

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Rachel Mackintosh © 3 November 2024

Barbara Kingsolver, in her novel Demon Copperhead, has Demon say this:

“… she looked at me in the eyes, and we were sad together for a while. I’ll never forget how that felt. Like not being hungry.”

Like not being hungry.

She looked at me in the eyes, and we were sad together for a while.

I’ll never forget how that felt.

Like not being hungry.

Have you ever been seen like that by another person? Have you ever shared such a deep understanding, be it of sadness or of some other emotion? Do you know that feeling, of not being hungry?

Will you ever forget how that felt?

I will never forget how that felt.

Speakers:- The Macky family
Worship Leader:- Rachel Mackintosh

Meditation / Conversation starter

• What do you make of the whakatauki, “We walk backwards into the future with our eyes fixed on the past”?
• How do you conceive our past and our future?

Links

Chalice Lighting:- “We inherit this free faith from the brave and gentle” by Audette Fulbright Fulson

Reading:- “Good Bones” by Maggie Smith

Speaker & Worship Leader:- Rachel Mackintosh

No text this week.

Meditation / Conversation starter

• What have you learned about Matariki and how does it resonate with you?

Speaker & Worship Leader:- Rachel Mackintosh

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Rachel Mackintosh © 16 June 2024

It’s 1944.

It’s Hell.

Speaker & Worship Leader:- Rachel Mackintosh

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Rachel Mackintosh © 5 May 2024

I first came to this church in 2014 because I had met someone during a residential training course on community organising. The course participants came from community organisations, from trade unions (me), and from faith groups (the person I met).

He and I discovered that, not only did we have shared values and a shared vision for a better world, but that the internal dynamics and politics of trade unions closely resembled the internal dynamics and politics of churches. So much to talk about!

Some months later, the politics of the Anglican Church spat him out and he fell on his feet here, in this church, as your minister, Clay Nelson.

Speakers & Worship Leaders:-
Rachel Mackintosh & Betsy Marshall

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Rachel Mackintosh, Betsy Marshall © 14 April 2024

Unitarians are a mixed metaphor. Roots from flora, wings from fauna.

There is no exact Greek mythical creature to represent this idea but perhaps we can think of a dryad or tree-nymph, maybe combined with a phoenix, the bird who rises.

We are a mixed metaphor and a mixed faith, one that values pluralism and whose hymn book is called Singing the Living Tradition.