Maud Robinson
Profile
Since graduating from Trinity College Dublin (where she studied Zoology) in 1989, Maud Robinson has been a teacher, actor, and PR executive, as well as waitress, chamber maid, nanny, tomato picker, life-drawing model, and petrol-pump attendant. What, in a harmonious universe, could all of these diverse occupations be leading to? Her true calling is obviously to be a minister of religion! Maud is in the third and final year of her training at Harris Manchester College, aiming to add an MTh in Applied Theology to the Postgraduate Diploma in Theology that she was awarded in 2005. The subject of her dissertation is Unitarian liturgy, past and present.
Maud grew up in Galway in the west of Ireland. Her mother was Catholic and her father Anglican, which Maud says was quite a big deal in a country town in the 1970s. As a child she attended Catholic and Anglican churches alternately, which gave her a healthy disrespect for denominational differences. In her late teens she drifted away from church-going, but at the age of about 23 her deep need to explore the spiritual dimension of life led her to try out various religious communities, including evangelical Christians, Quakers, Anglicans, and Unitarians, as well as dipping a toe into Raja Yoga meditation, Transcendental Meditation, and Tibetan Buddhism, until she finally realised that her spiritual home was with the Unitarians (although she still attends services of worship with other faith communities). She says: “The Unitarian church in Dublin offered me a liberal approach to religion which I was able to embrace without making credal statements. I do not accept the doctrines of Incarnation and Trinity (although I am always open to re-evaluating my faith position), so – although the Bible remains a significant spiritual resource for me – I’m not sure whether I can actually call myself a Christian. I’m still pondering that one. I feel strongly called to what I have come to understand as a ‘ministry of uncertainty’. I see around me many people who, like me, want to open up their lives to God (however that term is understood), but who cannot accept the creeds of the Christian church or other faith traditions.”
Maud’s road to Unitarian ministry has taken many twists and turns. Unsure what to do with her degree in Zoology, she took a course in fashion design and sewing, which led to work experience in a theatre costume department. This in turn led her to spend a year performing with a children’s theatre company called ‘The Best Medicine’, taking interactive shows around the children’s hospitals in Dublin. This was followed by a year at drama school, but she realised that she would never be tough enough to survive endless auditions. At a loss for what to do next, Maud responded to an advertisement for English teachers in Japan. After two enjoyable years spent teaching adults and children in a very rural area, she decided that if she could teach in Japan she could surely do it at home, so she returned to Ireland and did a teaching diploma – “which turned out to be a big mistake. There were no jobs in Dublin, so I came over to London to do some supply teaching, followed by a term at a very tough comprehensive school in Essex. It nearly cost me my sanity, and I returned to Dublin with my self-confidence in tatters.” She took an administrative job with the Irish College of General Practitioners, which over the next five years she developed into the position of Communications Officer, responsible for all aspects of media relations and publications for the college. It was during this time that she became more committed to the Unitarian faith, taking a course in lay-preaching before (encouraged by Revd. Bill Darlison, himself an ex-Catholic) deciding to train for professional ministry.
During her training, Maud has led imaginative services for our congregation and also for the Unitarian Fellowship in Northampton, to which she is attached for work experience. Her own spiritual life has been nourished by attendance at retreats organised by the Meditational Fellowship. She agrees with a recent statement by David Dawson, the current President of the General Assembly: “Worship is multidimensional. It should be a spiritual experience, an aesthetic experience, an emotional experience, and an intellectual experience”, but although she is keen to experiment with innovative and participative forms of worship, she is conscious that they must be piloted with small groups first, and introduced sensitively. She acknowledges the role of social and political issues in public worship, but believes they should grow out of the spiritual experience at the core of the service, rather than forming the central theme. Her prime aim is to help to create what Quakers call ‘the gathered community’, whose members feel a deep sense of connection to each other and to the divine. I asked her how she sees the future of Unitarianism in Ireland and the UK. She replied: “It’s not about numbers. What is important is groups of people – large or small – who are exploring the life of the spirit together, at a deep level.”
The next stage of Maud’s journey, after leaving Harris Manchester College in June, will take her across the Atlantic to begin a nine-month placement as a part-time affiliated minister with First Parish, Bedford, Massachusetts, a large and lively Unitarian Universalist congregation near Boston; she hopes to combine this work with part-time study at Harvard Divinity School. By the time she is ready for full-time ministry on this side of the Atlantic, Maud will have absorbed a very wide range of religious influences, not to mention the lessons learned from her very varied career. It will be a fortunate congregation that secures her services.
Catherine Robinson, February 2007