Whitman and Williams

(Photos from our recent west coast trip are in posts beginning "Cliffs of Moher" and ending "Get the Frack out of Ireland.")

I have been active in Unitarian Universalist churches since I discovered them in 1985. The Northern Ireland equivalent of a UU church is the Nonsubscribing Presbyterian Church of Ireland. We found a member church, All Souls Church in Belfast, and attended today. Nonsubscribing means that, while the church remains within the umbrella of Christian philosophy, its members do not subscribe to the specific tenets of Presbyterian faith. It's a nondogmatic or nondoctrinal faith.

There is much to love here. The minister read Walt Whitman's Oh Captain! My Captain! to memorialize Robin Williams. The poem featured prominently in Dead Poet's Society, which celebrated nonconformist thought and the transcendentalist ideals of Whitman, who was a Unitarian.

The minister has been heavily involved in the peace movement in Northern Ireland and has long served on the board of Oxfam, one of my favorite charities. So I see good things ahead here. It is really nice to have somewhere to go on Sunday mornings, when I find myself singing songs of praise and missing my spiritual fellow travelers.
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