For some time now Paul Spain and I have been toying with the idea of extending the scope of the Dublin Calendar to enable it to become the prototype of a magazine which would eventually serve Unitarianism throughout Ireland. The somewhat archaic and misleading term ‘Calendar’ was dropped some time ago (nobody noticed!) and the beginning of 2005 seems like the appropriate time to take the next step – to take the word ‘Dublin’ out of the title and replace it with a new name, ‘Oscailt’. This name was chosen because it is the Irish translation of the Aramaic word ‘Ephphatha’ which means ‘Be open!’ (see Diarmuid Harte’s explanation page 2.) Aramaic was the first language of Jesus and the Apostles, and scholars have thought for centuries that, although Mark wrote his Gospel in Greek, he included certain Aramaic words and expressions because he was reporting the actual words of Jesus in his text. But I think they are there for a different reason: they are there to draw attention to some very important ideas. It’s as if Mark is saying, “Just so you will take notice of this word I’m giving it to you in Aramaic as well as Greek.”
If you read chapter 7 of Mark’s Gospel (and I hope you will!), you will notice that it is concerned with insular attitudes. Jesus rebukes the Pharisees for their slavish adherence to the traditions of their ancestors (and their twisting of these traditions for their own benefit), and Jesus himself is shown behaving in a particularly parochial fashion when he refuses, at first, to heal the daughter of a Gentile. At the end of the chapter he encounters a deaf man whom he heals with the word ‘Ephphatha’ – ‘Be open!’ – but this word is really an instruction to us, a warning against spiritual deafness. ‘Open yourself up,’ Jesus is saying. ‘Stop relying on ancient and outworn traditions and be receptive to the voice of the Spirit which makes all things new.’
What better name, then, for a Unitarian magazine? Unitarians, as one of our hymns declares, “Revere the past, but trust the dawning future more.’ We see ourselves as open to ‘every breath that comes from heaven,’ whether this be from the Judeo-Christian tradition, from one of the other great spiritual traditions of the human race, or from the insights of science.
I hope that members of the Dublin congregation will support this new venture by submitting articles, book reviews, and letters; and I hope, too, that Unitarians throughout Ireland will find in Oscailt a forum for debate and a source of inspiration.

Bill Darlison