The (not so old) Crocks Cafe

debbiedeboo

Cool, I used to be in a choir when I was much younger, I loved it. I was second soprano. Unfortunately I haven't got the strength to sing now. It's surprising the things you discover you can't do anymore!

Trialia

Thanks, both of you!

Debbie, there's a lot I can't do anymore - I had to give up acting completely - but I would die before I'd give up singing. It would drive me crazy. There are some things I just have to do for my mental wellbeing, and choir is one of them. It's one of very few things that I attend regularly in an average week, because I push myself to go. It's a lot of fun, with my group. Plenty of dirty jokes! *cackle*

debbiedeboo

I'm almost tempted to start going to church again just for the singing at times!! lol I can listen even if I can't sing

Trialia

debbiedeboo wrote: »

I'm almost tempted to start going to church again just for the singing at times!! lol I can listen even if I can't sing

I know exactly how you feel! In fact, music is the only reason I really attend Christmas services - I sing at my Unitarian service, of course, and with another choir at Christmas if I've got the energy to be with them, but the music is more important to me than the content, essentially...

debbiedeboo

I've never been to a Unitarian service, I used to go to a Methodist Church so had all the Wesley hymns and a few modern choruses. Are they hymns much the same? I think your doctrine is a bit different so maybe that would affect the hymns...

Trialia

debbiedeboo wrote: »

I've never been to a Unitarian service, I used to go to a Methodist Church so had all the Wesley hymns and a few modern choruses. Are they hymns much the same? I think your doctrine is a bit different so maybe that would affect the hymns...

Very different doctrinally, yeah, because we don't really have doctrine. It's a part of the church that we try to avoid. We do have a relatively newly-published hymnbook of our own that we sang some recordings for with a choir gathered up from most local congregations, at my chapel in Manchester city centre last year. It's called Sing Your Faith. Lots more pagan content than you'd expect to find in a Christian hymnbook of any denomination, though we do have some hymns based on Christianity as well, because there're plenty of people who regard themselves as Unitarian Christians. (Me, I'm more like Buddhist/pagan Unitarian Universalist than anything.)

In choir pieces, we do draw from a lot of older stuff and some more secular humanist - in recent memory Mozart, Palestrina, Victoria, Parry, Tavener, Wood, Britten and Elgar.

debbiedeboo

Sounds cool, the good bits of Christianity without the troublesome doctines of the trinity and the incarnation! I don't belong to a religion anymore but I guess Buddhism would be closest to my beliefs. The music sounds really good!

Trialia

debbiedeboo wrote: »

Sounds cool, the good bits of Christianity without the troublesome doctines of the trinity and the incarnation! I don't belong to a religion anymore but I guess Buddhism would be closest to my beliefs. The music sounds really good!

Thanks

That, and we actually perform same-sex blessing ceremonies for civil partnerships. Unitarianism is the one faith I truly feel at home in, and no member of my church has ever told me I'm going to hell for being gay and not celibate like most of the Christian ones have...

debbiedeboo

I used to teach philosophy and religious ethics to sixth formers at a non denominational christian school and one of the topics on the syllabus was christian attitudes to homosexuality. Lets just say judging by the attitudes in the classroom I know what you mean.... it's difficult to be impartial sometimes in those circumstances!!

Oscar_The_Grouch

Woo Hoo!! We're on to religion and sexuality!! I'm Heterosexual Agnostic. Essentially it works like this: If someone walks up to you and says "I'm Gay", I say "Good for you, but you've obviously mistaken me for someone who cares". It works pretty much the same for someone saying "I'm God".

Now I don't want to start any arguments; I'm happy with my lack of prejudice against sexuality and religious beliefs, but felt that it was worth getting this in before someone decided to discuss the recent election and completely spoil the party.