ULSS

As promised here is a write-up on the Unitarian Layperson's Summer School, which was conducted in Ludlow in Shropshire in England from Aug 22-28. Starting this year they have renamed it from Unitarian Lay Leader's Summer School as more students were going on to the ministry than to lay leadership afterwards.

Ludlow is a very old medieval town on a hill near the welsh border and has some very narrow streets and quaint Tudor buildings. Registration was from 3:30 to 4:30 on Saturday afternoon and needless to say Howard managed to get lost in the maze of narrow streets, no entry signs and pedestrian precincts, and was late. The school was held in a residential Anglican training centre belonging to the diocese of Hereford with its' own chapel and library. The Saturday was fairly relaxed with 'Introduction to the school' and each other, 'happy half hour' during which we could buy alcohol, dinner, 'vespers' (1/4 hour) conducted by the school staff, and the last hour of the day was spent in 'credo' sessions in small groups of 4 or 5 discussing our personal religious experiences, feelings and attitudes. We had 'vespers' every evening during the school and on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday the three groups of students HAD to conduct 'vespers'. We had 'credo' sessions every evening except for Thursday when we had a 'final fling' which the students organised for the delectation of each other and the staff.

Sunday was a little more formal but still not as intensive as the following 4 days. The day started at 8:30 with breakfast followed by a service at 10:00 on the subject of Worship (subtle training). Coffee was at 11:00 followed by an 'introduction' to the three 'day groups' that we would be split into for doing practical exercises based on the preceding training material, and also for conducting 'vespers'. The period between lunch and tea was free time whilst the staff had a meeting, and I walked into Ludlow and discovered how easy it would be to wreck my credit card accounts in the book, CD and antique shops in the town. The only lecture of the day, on the subject of 'The theory and practice of worship' followed tea. Every evening preceding 'happy half hour' (the only time you could buy alcohol) was a 'show and tell' period in which 3 or 4 students each night stood up and talked for a few minutes about what was unique about their particular place of worship and 'showed' some item connected with it. My turn came during the first session on the Sunday; I 'showed' a pair of socks (a hosiery manufacturer had been a major benefactor) and quoted a line from one of my wife's poems 'an oasis of calm in a busy week'. After dinner, 'vespers' were conducted again by the staff and the day concluded with the usual 'credo' session. I went to bed on Sunday night in a state of trepidation as in one of my weaker moments I had volunteered to conduct the half hour worship session at 8:00 the following morning.

I needn't have worried. I was up early and arranged the room to my satisfaction in plenty of time, including borrowing a stephanotis and a croton plant from the greenhouse. I had arranged the previous evening for a member of the staff team to play the piano for the two hymns that I had selected; I had also asked two members of my day group help me; one to read the opening and closing words; and the other to lead the prayers. I used 'Look to this day' as my opening words and then I led the congregation into a period of meditation with the words 'It is our quiet time'. I then played a CD of Daybreak from the Florida Suite by Delius and invited the congregation to contemplate any of three rural pictures on the wall that took their fancy and imagine themselves into the landscape shown in the picture and experience daybreak there, as the musical daybreak occurred. We then sang the first hymn 'A Melody of Song' (God speaks to us in bird and song...). For my reading I read the section from a chapter about Florida in John Muir's '1000 Mile Walk to the Gulf' that deals with man's misconceptions about his place in the world viz. a viz. animals, 'The World we are told...'. I followed this with the prayer 'From arrogance and pompousness deliver us' and the hymn 'Glad that I live am I', and the closing words were 'The courage of the early morning's dawning'. The opening and closing words, the introduction to the meditation, and the prayer were all from 'Singing the Living Tradition'.

I got my breath back over breakfast. The first session of the day was 'vespers review' during which the group who had conducted vespers the previous evening got first shot at saying what they had and hadn't done right; after which the rest of the staff and students had their say. As the staff had conducted vespers the previous night they showed us how to criticise vespers constructively in a positive way. Optionally the person(s) who had conducted morning worship could have it assessed; I went for it; they had liked it. The lectures and day group sessions before and after coffee were on the subject of 'What a congregation needs'. Following lunch, my day group had to stay in the centre and work on preparing the vespers for that evenings; yes, I/we had drawn the short straw on the first day. The final lecture of the day was on the subject of Group Dynamics. I let the rest of my day group devise vespers; I just supplied the music in the form of tracks from the CD Officium by Jan Gabarek and the Hilliard Ensemble. The rest of the day group compiled a sequence of readings to intersperse the music and meditation. All went well.

My day group seemed to monopolise morning worship as another member had volunteered to take morning worship the next day; it was the first time she had conducted a service but she did it as if she did it on a regular basis. AND would you believe yet another member of our day group guided us through a meditation session the morning after; and to make the complete set yet another member conducted morning worship on the fourth and last volunteer morning as part of a group from NELUM. The Tuesday training sessions were on the subjects of Leadership, and Integrating Newcomers. The Wednesday sessions were on the subjects of Power, Change, and Volunteer Management. Thursday was mainly a review of the week's training and worship, and re-orientation to going back to our congregations, but did include sessions on 'What Leaders do' and 'Trusteeship'. And after breakfast on Friday we bid tearful farewells to each other and returned home.