Our Services

Sundays: morning Worship Service

10:45
evening Sacred Contemplation
6:00
Wednesdays: midday Meditation
1:15
Thursdays: evening Sacred Contemplation
6:15
First Sunday of the month:
Bring and Share Lunch in the Priestley Hall
Unitarianism is an inclusive approach to a
shared spiritual journey, a wisdom tradition
which emphasises freedom of conscience,
affirms the inherent worth of all humans and
acknowledges the validity of other religious and
spiritual traditions as well as science and
secular culture.

Contacts
Website: www.millhillchapel.org
Minister
Revd. Jo James
email jojames.email@gmail.com
tweet @jojames_
0113 243 3845
Facilities Manager/Lettings:
c/o Chapel 0113 243 3845
Chairman of the Congregation
Alan Hawkins: alan.c.hawkins@btinternet.com
Director of Music
Anthony Norcliffe: anthony.norcliffe1@homecall.co.uk
The Record Editor
Email millhillrecord@gmail.com
@millhillchapel
charity number: 1081978

THE RECORD
DECEMBER 2015

Mill Hill Unitarian Chapel

From an American Editor in 1897

Chapel Flowers
December

Dear Editor (of The New York Sun)

I am 8 years old. Some of my little friends say there is no
Santa Claus. Papa says, "If you see it in The Sun, it's so."
Please tell me the truth, is there a Santa Claus?
Virginia O'Hanlon
West Ninety Fifth Street

6th Birthday memories for Jim Cowling & in loving

memory of Vera Cowling
13th Flower Fund
20th In memory of Reverend & Mrs Brian L Golland
27th No Service
January

Francis Pharcellus Church, an ancestor of the late Unitarian

Minister, Frank Forrester Church IV, wrote a reply that rings
true over one hundred years later.

3rd
In

Virginia, your little friends are wrong. They have been affected
by the skepticism of a skeptical age. They do not believe
except they see. They think that nothing can be which is not
comprehensible by their little minds. All minds, Virginia,
whether they be men's or children's, are little. In this great
universe of ours, man is a mere insect, an ant, in his intellect
as compared with the boundless world about him, as
measured by the intelligence capable of grasping the whole of
truth and knowledge.
Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus. He exists as
certainly as love and generosity and devotion exist, and you
know that they abound and give to your life its highest beauty
and joy. Alas! how dreary would be the world if there were no
Santa Claus! It would be as dreary as if there were no
Virginias. There would be no childlike faith then, no poetry, no
romance to make tolerable this existence.

If anyone would like to make a donation to provide

flowers in memory of a loved one, to celebrate
anniversaries or remember a birthday, then please
contact me. Some dates are available. If you already
have a subscription for flowers please check that this is
kept up to date. Susan Coggan, Flower Secretary

This months cover is showing our nativity window.

Mill Hill Chapel and Hunslet Memorial Flowers are

memory of Alice Johnson

Music at Mill Hill

Anthems During December
6th
13th
20th
27th

Creator of the Starry Height Puer nobis nascitur,

arr. A.N.
Sleepers wake! (from St. Paul) Felix
Mendelssohn
Festival of Carols at 6:00
No Service

Anthems During January

3rd

What cheer? Good cheer! Peter Warlock

CHRISTMAS ORGAN CONCERT

Following hot on the
heels of the Carol
Festival Service on
Sun. Dec. 20th, our
Director of Music,
Anthony Norcliffe, will
present a Concert of
Christmas Organ
Music on Tuesday
Dec. 22nd
at1:00pm. Admission
is free, with a retiring
collection. All are
welcome.

Prayer
We gather for our brightest festival, a festival of
joyous singing and gratitude for the everlasting
gift of your hope. Infinite and eternal spirit of
love, as we come near to the shortest day of the
year let we stand close to people that are
troubled.
This time of year can bring distress and so let us
not forget the everlasting gift of your hope.
As families begin thinking of travelling to be
together,
we ask that You journey with them.
As parents wrap presents steam puddings and
make their preparations,
we pray that your Presence is with them.
As children's excitement grows,
let us see your Light that shines around them.
As we gather at the midnight point of year many
face difficulties and many are anxious, may we
not forget the everlasting gift of your hope and
love.
Help us to bring peace now and throughout the
new year.
Amen

A Christmas Landscape
Tonight the wind gnaws
With teeth of glass,
The jackdaw shivers
In caged branches of iron,
The stars have talons.
There is hunger in the mouth
Of vole and badger,
Silver agonies of breath
In the nostril of the fox,
Ice on the rabbits paw.
Tonight has no moon,
No food for the pilgrim;
The fruit tree is bare,
The rose bush a thorn
And the ground is bitter with stones.
But the mole sleeps, and the hedgehog
Lies curled in a womb of leaves,
The bean and the wheat-seed
Hug their germs in the earth
And the stream moves under the ice.
Tonight there is no moon,
But a new star opens
Like a silver trumpet over the dead.
Tonight in a nest of ruins
The blessed babe is laid.
And the fir tree warms to a bloom of candles,
And the child lights his lantern,
Stares at his tinselled toy;
And our hearts and hearths
Smoulder with live ashes.
In the blood of our grief
The cold earth is suckled,
In our agony the womb
Convulses its seed;
In the first cry of anguish
The childs first breath is born.

Laurie Lee

From Our Minister

We are coming close to the end of the year. Close to one of our
great remaining cultural milestones.
Pope Francis has said that in the face of spiralling inhumanity,
brutality and oppression Christmas must this year be considered a
charade.
And in many ways I agree with Francis. It is a sad joke that we
continue to keep our borders closed to refugees from the Middleeast, refusing hospitality to them while remembering that there was
once no room at the inn for the Holy family. And its an ironic
charade that we can sing of goodwill and peace to all while
conniving with war-mongers to firebomb the rubble of Al Raqqah.
But in the midst of all this, if we turn our hearts to stone we help no
one, heal nothing. We need more than ever the sense of joy that
Christmas can remind us of.
As the year comes to a close we must remind ourselves of the
childlike the wondering and miraculous, open ourselves to the
possibility of the infinite and ultimate, to stories and miracles however jaded and cynical we must have become.
This year we are decorating a Christmas tree with messages of
hope and prayer. There will be an opportunity to add your prayer,
wish or hope for the future whenever you come in to chapel in the
Christmas period; write on one of the tags on the table by the tree
and tie it on a branch.
This year we are also holding 'Labyrinth meditations' in the Priestley
Hall on Sunday 6th Dec at 6pm, Thursday 10th at 6.15 and
Saturday 19th from 2pm -5pm. Best wishes, Jo

Other Events at Mill Hill

No Service on 27th December
Vegan Interfaith Alliance food sharing evening after the
service on the 3rd Thursday of each month at 7.00 pm in the
Priestley Hall. Anyone is welcome to attend, either to help out
with cooking, cleaning or washing up or simply to share food
and fellowship.
The Spiritual Reading Group will NOT meet in December.
The next meeting will be on the last Tuesday of January, the
26th. Look for a copy of next months reading in the Priestley
Hall in the new year. Please tell Jo or email:
jojames.email@gmail.com if you have suggestions for reading
material.
Meet our General Assembly President on 16th January 2016.
The Reverend John Clifford, the GA will be attending the
Yorkshire Unitarian Union Quarterly Meeting. This is a
special opportunity to learn more about our denomination and
meet someone who is promoting Unitarianism throughout the
UK. The meeting will be held at Mill Hill and include a morning
Lay Preachers meeting to be followed by a lunch break and
Union business in the afternoon.
2015-2016 Worship Themes

Events during the Advent Season

December Birthdays: Ann, Joan, Wendy, Lily, Lucy & Geoff
All are requested to come to a Special Lunch on 6th December
after the service. The Bring and Share Lunch promises to be a
memorable event. So please plan to stay for conviviality and
fellowship after the service.
Brian Rollinson will be singing with the Giving Voice Choir, an
inclusive choir for adults with neurological conditions and their
carers. They will be performing festive music on 8th of
December from 6:30- 8pm at Holy Trinity Church on Boar Lane.
The Chapel will host on Saturday, 19th of December from
2:00-5:00pm a Labyrinth Walk. Come experience the sacred
practice of following a labyrinth in prayer.
The Festival of Carols will be an evening service on 20th
December at 6:00pm. This special event will replace the morning
service.
Concert of Christmas Organ Music on Tuesday Dec. 22nd
at1:00pm. Admission is free, with a retiring collection. All are
welcome.
A Candle Light Service on Christmas Eve at 5:50pm will be
followed by a labyrinth walk.
A Peace Service will take place Christmas Day at 4:00pm.

December: Wonder
January:
Hope
February: Resilience
March:
Rebirth
April:
Growth

Guest Worship Leaders

James Timiney 13 December
Stephen Carlile 24th January

Introducing Ourselves: We Share Our Biographies

Geoffrey Foster,
Our New Facilities Manager and Administrator
Hello everyone at Mill Hill Chapel. I am Geoffrey Forster
(Geoff if you prefer) your new facilities' manager and
administrator who began work on 1 October 2015. I am a 57year-old father of two boys who are not really boys any more.
Tom is 27 and Tim is 25. I love sport and gardening and
volunteer at my local community garden.
My home is in Baildon just north of Shipley though I
originally come from Wakefield. So I would appreciate your not
mentioning Leeds Rugby League Club to me. I was educated
at Queen Elizabeth Grammar School in Wakefield and at
Newcastle University where I read history. Later I attended
Sheffield University where I studied librarianship.
For a year, I worked on the documentary record for
Kirkstall Abbey. I have had two positions as a librarian. The first
one was graduate traineeship at the British Library near Boston
Spa and the second was a marathon of thirty years at the
Leeds Library in Commercial Street. So my connection with Mill
Hill Chapel and particularly with Joseph Priestley goes back a
long way - Gunpowder Joe having been the founding
secretary of the library in 1768 and its second president in
1769.
The library and the chapel have been closely linked for
two and a half centuries through families such as the Oates,
the Kitsons and the Luptons and ministers such as William
Wood and Charles Hargrove. A particularly close connection
was forged when Austin Fitzpatrick was minister. Austin took
over Mr Bonner's library share and joined the library committee.
He and I started the annual Pristley Lecture in 1992. Martin,
Austin's brother, gave the inaugural address. I forget how I first
met Tony Cleminson the former Facilities Manager. He and I
became good friends and through him I got to know the former
Minister, Paul (Travis) and many of the other people connected
with the chapel such as Dr and Mrs Boyle who serviced tea
and coffee when the Priestley Lecture was held at the Chapel.

Frank Watkinson who was another loyal supporter of the event and
Joan Gamble who arranged flower displays for the library. I also got
to know lots of other people in the area when Tony introduced me to
them often while he was tidying the car park as I passed through to
work.
I left the Leeds Library in June 2013 and since then have
worked at the National Media and National Railway Museums and
spent a few months managing Baildon Farmers' Market. I was for
more than twenty years the chairman of the Association of
Independent Libraries. For few years I was a trustee of the Joseph
Priestley Society. Recently, I have been researching the story of
Joseph Blackburn, a Leeds solicitor, who was found guilty of forgery
and met an unpleasant
end at York Castle in
1815. I have many other
irons in historical fires
and spoke of late about
the digging of the
Bramhope Tunnel and
the history of waxwork.
Joseph Priestley has
long been my private
research topic. I am
interested in his Leeds
ministry and his use of
books. He encouraged
growth of libraries.
I am really enjoying
my time at Mill Hill
Chapel even though it
usually means getting
up at 5.30 am. In
particular I am enjoying being part of the everyday team with Jo,
Rosemary, Roy and Alan and Tony C who comes in from time to
time to show me the ropes. Thank you to them and to everyone else
for giving me their help, support and encouragement as I get used to
my new job. I look forward to meeting you all and sharing in exciting
times in City Square.