Let’s try an experiment. Make a list of what brings you joy/ fun. Without too much thinking jot down what opens you to joy and leads to fun. 1) The birds at the feeder, morning, noon and dusk. 2) Chuck whistling. 3) Poppy running full speed over the hills. 4) Norah (my 5-month-old grand niece) … Continue reading Let’s try an experiment.
When I was 3 we moved from Lindsborg, Kansas, to the NW edge of Chicago. Working farms were within a mile of our house. Mrs. Berry lived across the dirt road and lived on what remained of her small farm. She had chickens, ducks and geese. As the roads were paved, more houses sprung up … Continue reading Mrs. Berry
Reverend Michael Nelson leads Deepening Your Understanding of Unitarian Universalism, a class in three sessions, following Sunday services in February. We begin on Sunday, February 10, at 12:15 pm, and continue on Sunday, February 17, and February 24. While the focus is on the questions of newer members and friends, everyone is welcome to join … Continue reading Deepening Your Understanding of UUism
Learn and obey the rules very well, so you will know how to break them properly. … Dalai Lama What will call the promise of living meaningful lives into this new year? What will bring us into wider dimensions of spiritual authenticity? The willingness to expand beyond the strictures and structures of the way we … Continue reading The promise of living meaningful lives
Cut loose, without devotion, a man becomes a comic. His antics are passed around the family table and mimicked so well, years later the family still laughs. Without devotion, any life becomes a stranger’s story … Marie Howe, in her poem Without Devotion, explores the emptiness that results from having nothing to believe in; lacking … Continue reading Pluralism
Grateful for the pluralism which enriches and ennobles our faith, we are inspired to deepen our understanding and our vision. This sentence found at the beginning of our hymnal, Singing the Living Tradition begins the last paragraph of the covenant Unitarian Universalists agree to promote. I love the linkage between deepening one’s understanding and the … Continue reading Pluralism
Vacation and study leave give me the freedom to hurry less. I can read a book of poetry a couple of times, allowing the rhythm of the words to fully enter so that the images and their meaning have stunning power. “The Kingdom of Ordinary Time” by Marie Howe, continues to grip me. As the … Continue reading HURRY….
Unitarian, John Adams, the second president of the United States, labored for religious liberty until his death at ninety. His home state of Massachusetts prohibited Jews or Catholics from running for elective office until 1833. Religious bigotry and ignorance dominate the civic conversation of this country. The progressive and conservative divide and its dogma obstruct … Continue reading OUR HIGHEST ASPIRATIONS
Indra’s web, a symbol from Mahayana Buddhism, pictures the jewel-like connecting points of all that exists. When ever a force of destruction occurs there’s a rip in the fabric of all that is. In every day human relations we know there are moments when we can feel that rip—when we have felt, said, done something that causes harm. We are … Continue reading Interdependent Links
Clivia seen through old glass changes what I see. It is no longer just the clivia in the entry way, it sings a song that calls me to see it from the outside in. This reminds me of how much of what I see is because of the … Continue reading Windows of Perception
