Note from Pastor Isa
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
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
Reverend Michael Nelson reflects, “Earnestness, this seriousness about everything in our lives … this goal oriented, we’re going to-do-it-attitude, is the world’s greatest killjoy. There’s no sense of appreciation because we are so solemn about everything … A joyful mind is very open and relaxed. So lighten up.” These are a few words from our … Continue reading Comfort with Uncertainty
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….
The bones of this redwood reveal themselves slowly. When this giantess fell, she was well over 1,000 years old, probably around 1,400. Who knows how long she has lain on her side, how many fires reduced limbs to ash, how many square feet of its humus cushions the ground, has become ground??? Good questions to muse … Continue reading Majesty, Humility and the Election Season
Love calls us into the core of our creativity—into its depth and illumination. Like the stars in the vast distance, love brings its light into the interior of our lives. It challenges our imagination to sense the cosmic dimension in a speck of its reflected luminosity and share it with all the beauty and brio … Continue reading AT THE HEART OF IT
Has the Mew Year opened its window for you? Have you opened it? Have you spent time with a big tree? Have these first 30 days allowed for moments when everything in you focuses and you fathom the tick-tock of the eternal? If you have not taken time from daily tasks, business, toil and duty, to allow the … Continue reading OPEN WINDOW
