The Summer School Diaries, Day 2, 16 August 2025

Brightly dawned the Hucklow morn, although for those of us who had a long journey and / or a pint of Eyam Best Bitter the night before, this may have been less appreciated than an excellent Hucklow Breakfast we didn’t actually have to cook for ourselves. The early risers had already done some meditating in the yurt. The agenda at Summer School is famously packed; here’s a picture of it:

Fortified by caffeine, toast and eggs, all of us together trooped off to see the opening theme talk by Sheena Gabriel and friends. Naturally, we did a singalong to that song you’ll most likely have thought of when you heard the title of Summer School this year. Apparently the song was not written (according to its author, Michael Stipe) about losing literal religion, but about unrequited same-sex love (it’s a southern US phrase meaning that something has pushed you so far you would lose your faith over it), although as as Sheena pointed, God as the absent lover who keeps ghosting you and never returns your calls works quite well. Here you are:

We heard about the tension between freedom and commitment, the challenges of sustaining a community without burning out, and how the true self never stops developing. Is finding God the same as finding our religion? You can see the talk online here:

Still absorbing the themes of the talk, we wandered toward the sunny patio to absorb a second coffee and a biscuit before moving into the Engagement Groups. I’m in Group A, facilitated by Rev. Dany Crosby, Rev. Arek Malecki and Molly the Havanese terrier, on the topic “’The Words We Speak Become the House We Live In’ (Hafiz): Constructing a Contemporary Unitarian Unity”, which is intellectually challenging, but very worthwhile. In this session, we thought about how before we could build our houses, we had to do some deconstrcution and decide what we didn’t want in them. We wrote this on a bit of paper, and buried it under some rocks in a tray, to the tune of some suitable musical accompaniment chosen by Arek:

I’d done enough with my mind in the morning, so following a bowl of courgette soup, I joined the ‘Whatever the Weather’ walk led by Sarah Tinker. We ambled past the famous Hucklow Horse Trough, which generations of young Unitarians have been ‘baptised’ in, patted a mossy wall and said hi to some cows.

We ended up in the marvellously-named village of Foolow, where the charming Church of St. Hugh was open for visitors, so we strolled in and took advantage of their honesty refreshments table – it was a warm day and a cold drink was appreciated!

We also attempted to answer the question ‘How many Unitarians does it take to open a locked gate?’ (The answer is “However many it takes to realise the chain has a clip on it, not a padlock’.) After an attempt at the scientific method of discovering whether walking around the field of turnips to the left or the right was faster – walking over them was discouraged by the presence of the farmer – we hopped over another ‘squeeze’ stile, as they are known round here. At that point, some of us went for the discussion session on the morning’s theme talk, and others ::cough:: were distracted by the local Eyam Brewery’s Brewery Tap Day to sneak off and have a quick sample of their wares.

Time once more for a excellent meal, followed by some moderately-energetic Body Flow (like yoga) in the yurt, led by Arek, then the Epilogue service, socialising, and a good night’s sleep. I should add that there are always three if not more options for the optional evening and afternoon sessions, but I can only report on the ones I was there for! See above re: packed timetable. Another excellent day complete. I could only hope my own Epilogue service the following Sunday would be up to the task!

Bonus track – here’s a song for deconstructing things before building a house:

Although if you prefer Miley Cyrus, this is also quite apt: