Nice day at Underbank Chapel #underbankchapel #stannington #stanningtonchaple #unitarian

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Posts about Eighth Principle written by magicvalleyuu.

The Kettle is Singing Even as it Pours You a Drink, Guest Speaker Rev. Linda Whittenberg podcast by Unitarian Universalist Church of Spokane

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What are the transforming lessons of our lives, and how do these lessons pop up in different ways over and over again? We are our experiences and ...

11-13-2018 7:00 pm - 8:30 pm. Need a different room or to meet off-site. Contact: Lois Schneider. (510) 843-0281; pandl2@comcast.net.

11-14-2018 10:30 am - 12:00 pm. Fireside Room. A group for elders to receive and share matters concerning challenges of aging. Contact: Jane ...

Bells from our bell choir performance last week 🔔 #uu #princeton #unitarian #universalist #congregation #mercercounty #nj #instagood #bell #bellchoir #bells

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We had a wonderful service this morning...join us next week for another service led by Rev. Bill Neely #uu #princeton #unitarian #universalist #congregation #mercercounty #nj #instagood

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It may perhaps turn out that a great permanent Unitarian church as such never will be established in Japan. Nevertheless, this mission ought to be ...

The Healing Focus for Heart of Business this week is about Visibility. It is about allowing ourselves to be seen as who we are and as having the gifts we bring. The challenge after the Remembrance (a kind of Sufi meditation Heart of Business folks often share) was to write about our gifts and strengths in a larger audience than only telling them to ourselves or to one other person.

Just as we share Beloved Selfies in The Way of the River Facebook group, sharing our gifts “out loud,” as it were, helps us see ourselves as the Divine sees us:  Beloved, beloved, beloved, cherished with grace, mercy, compassion, and so much impossible love. Certainly, we are flawed, often struggling, and (I hope) trying to do better by the kind with whom we share this tiny, vulnerable planet.

Flawed, yes, and also able to be great shining lights in the sky of the murk of the world’s need… also able to be express our own deep joy.

And so that, expressing deep joy, is where I begin. 

One of my strengths is that I have disabilities–among them mental illness, especially bipolar illness and attention deficit disorder (which I think needs a new name, but that’s another story). How do these afflictions constitute strength, when they so clearly are also weaknesses?

For one thing, they make me who I am, and I am beloved upon Earth.

But that’s true of all our strengths, weaknesses, and problems. So what makes these different.

For one thing, as Carrie Fisher said (may her memory be a blessing, as my Jewish friends say), every moment, every day that we live with this disease (bipolar illness) is a triumph. It takes courage to claim life and face the world, and somehow I’ve done it 100% of the time so far. How that is possible, I don’t know. I really don’t know. Divine grace and native stubbornness, I suppose?

Another gift that has emerged from having these conditions, and further, from being a sexual assault survivor, and from being fat, is that I have a great deal of empathy for people who’ve had a hard hand dealt to them in life.

I can listen to people very different from me, people with different life experiences, and help them know that their feelings about the world are valid, that they are not only beloved but needed, and ultimately that they are incredibly gifted.

Not only that, but something that people have told me over the years, something I didn’t really know about myself, is that I have a great capacity for that deep joy I mentioned above. Sometimes what looks like joy can tumble over into “taking up all the air in the room,” and so I have to be mindful of that, especially in pastoral situations. Even joyful enthusiasm can be tedious if not minded carefully.

But joy also both stems from and creates gratitude. And gratitude is a great grounding force. There are so many reasons people in Twelve Step programs are encouraged to make gratitude lists or to attend gratitude-focused meetings. And one of them is that hearing about other people’s gratitude reminds us of our own and brings us our own joy.

Which brings me to the last of the gifts I have to share and which I would be remiss in not mentioning. I am a fat femme. Not just a femme, not just a queer woman who likes makeup (though I am that, for certain!). But a fat femme, and a really fat one at that. Why does this identity, this so-called strength, matter?

For a few reasons. One, my very being as a fat cis-woman, and as a chunky girl before that, called into question the possibility of femininity in my life. I was sort of neutered, in high school. “One of the boys.” And I was in some ways most accepted by queer men in college. So any feminine identity besides “Earth mama” (which, to be fair, has its own strength) felt beyond my reach.

But at heart, I am femme. I am femme with my fat, lumpy, unshaven legs. And I am femme with my passion for lipstick. I am femme with my nails cut short for the piano I’m getting. And I am femme with those nails painted. I am femme with my unbelievably epic ass. And I am femme with my turquoise, blue, and violet hair.

I push the boundaries of what people expect femme to be. I’m not thin, I don’t wear high heels, and I love my hair to be a crazy mess. I’m lumpy and bumpy, and at the moment I have a mad case of hives. I walk with a cane and I can’t get enough of flowers.

And femme is about joy for me, the “joy of self-expression,” as Belleruth Naperstek says. The joy of making my insides match my outsides. And yes, thanks to the trans, non-binary/gender-nonconforming people, and drag queens I have known for teaching me how to do it! How to claim that inside-outside match. Because in some ways, I think that is the beginning of wisdom: know thyself and then find brave places within yourself and out in the world where that self can be witnessed with love.

So that, dear comrades, is my answer to the Heart of Business challenge for the week.

Can you take it up, this challenge? Can you pick up a piece of yourself, a gift, warm and smooth and just fitted to the shape of you, perhaps something you’ve held close for years, an ember you blow on to keep alive? Can you open a space and let us see? Can you encourage us by encouraging yourself?

I welcome to The Way of the River Facebook group, or to the comments below. What is a gift of yours that blesses the world? How, as Rev. Rebecca Parker admonishes us, do you bless the world?

The post A Challenge: Let’s Share Our Gifts! appeared first on The Way of the River.

Recorded live Sunday, October 14, 2018 , Illegal: Reflections of an Undocumented Immigrant, by José Ángel N, guest speaker.

Click to play this service recording, or subscribe to our podcasts in the iTunes store to download new episodes automatically to your computer or smartphone. See the Podcast Guide for more help.

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Our Director of Religious Education shares a story for all ages with a little help from her friends... First Church #Unitarian in #littletonma #uu

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Our collection for October will be designated towards the Black Lives UU Fund. Rev Thompson's column in this UNISUN explains more about this fund ...

Oct: 21: The Promise and the Practice: We Will Story Our Own Lives, Part II This continuation from our October 7th service will include a Story for all ...

The KUUF Membership Committee asks “Who Are UU?” This is Visitor's Sunday, so we ask all regular members and friends to bring someone who ...

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Crow is back, and she’s worried about her new friend’s safety. 

The sermon was delivered on Sunday, October 14, 2018, at All Souls Unitarian Church in Tulsa, Oklahoma, by Rev. Dr. Marlin Lavanhar, Senior Minister, at the Humanist Service. DESCRIPTION At the heart of American democracy is... (wait for it...) “heart!” One of America’s foremost 21st century liberal theologians, Dr. Rev. Thandeka, teaches that when liberal religion displaces emotion from the moral equation, a contradiction of moral reasoning diminishes the impact of the liberal voice in American public life. Mainstream churches and liberal politicians will continue to lose ground unless this contradiction is reconciled. The most well-reasoned, documented and articulated facts, figures and solutions will continue to fail to move people to change. Thandeka says, “Liberal moral reasoning does not parse the American heart.” At All Souls, reconciliation is at the heart of our work. Join me to explore solutions we strive to achieve in our liberal religious faith.   SUBSCRIBE TO AUDIO PODCAST: http://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/all-souls-unitarian-church/id193096943 SUBSCRIBE TO OUR YOUTUBE CHANNEL: http://www.youtube.com/subscription_center?add_user=allsoulsunitarian GIVE A DONATION TO HELP US SPREAD THIS LOVE BEYOND BELIEF: http://www.allsoulschurch.org/GIVE or text LOVEBB to 73256 LET'S CONNECT: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/allsoulstulsa Twitter: https://twitter.com/AllSoulsTulsa All Souls Church Website: http://www.allsoulschurch.org  

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The sermon was delivered on Sunday, October 14, 2018, at All Souls Unitarian Church in Tulsa, Oklahoma, by Carlton D. Pearson, Affiliate Minister. DESCRIPTION William Cowper, the son of a minister, and 18th century poet, hymnodist wrote the phrase: “Variety's the very spice of life, that gives it all its flavor.” A friend and mentee of John Newton, who wrote Amazing Grace, was an abolitionist and seems to have understood while living in England, the beauty of diversity and human community. A community is a small or large social unit that has something in common—norms, religion, values, or identity. The word itself is a combination of the two words; common and unity. Communion is likewise, common and union. Jesus prayed, "That they may be one." We pray "that we may be one." Our vision here at ALL Souls is to be both a physical and spiritual example of unity, diversity, a rainbow of colors, flavors and love beyond belief. Join us all month while we present and re-present this unique trait, trend, and target of our church community! SUBSCRIBE TO AUDIO PODCAST: http://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/all-souls-unitarian-church/id193096943 WATCH THIS SERMON ON YOUTUBE: https://youtu.be/YINIBsYRXXA SUBSCRIBE TO OUR YOUTUBE CHANNEL: http://www.youtube.com/subscription_center?add_user=allsoulsunitarian GIVE A DONATION TO HELP US SPREAD THIS LOVE BEYOND BELIEF: http://www.allsoulschurch.org/GIVE or text LOVEBB to 73256 LET'S CONNECT: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/allsoulstulsa Twitter: https://twitter.com/AllSoulsTulsa All Souls Church Website: http://www.allsoulschurch.org  

Attached media: https://web.archive.org/web/20211109031000/https://hwcdn.libsyn.com/p/b/7/3/b73163638066e610/2018-10-14-CPearson--May-We-Be-One--Contemporary.mp3?c_id=24032216&cs_id=24032216&destination_id=16949&expiration=1636429711&hwt=8e8a74c3e482b1c7e572c2d33684b992

Date/Time Date(s) - 21/10/2018 12:00 pm - 1:30 pm. Location Auckland Unitarian Church. To get the widest range of feedback on what (if any) change ...

Green Bay Events has put together the most popular concerts, theater, festivals, kids and family events in Green Bay.

Recorded live at Arlington Street Church, Sunday, October 14, 2018.

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by Reverend Peter Newport and

Marty Blachly-Cross

Worship Associate

Loss of identity, not knowing who you are, is part of white supremacy culture—for white people, anyway. A personal look, this morning, from where one white person came from; some of the confusions that arose along the way; and the story of John Wampus.

_

Attached media: https://web.archive.org/web/20211109030741/https://s147.podbean.com/pb/df332aabb2b56eb04dbd13b410baf72f/6189e5fc/data3/fs137/341223/uploads/20181014_ActuallyThisIsWhoWeAre_excerpts.mp3?pbss=f989b6e6-e02d-508f-90a0-2970d1337342

READINGS 

The text foud on postcards that were distributed to first time attenders to the Unitarian Church in Cambridge during the late 1950s and early 1960s 



Guide by A. R. Ammons

          You cannot come to unity and remain material:
in that perception is no perceiver:
    when you arrive
you have gone too far:
          at the Source you are in the mouth of Death:

you cannot
    turn around in
the Absolute: there are no entrances or exits
          no precipitations of forms
to use like tongs against the formless:
    no freedom to choose:

to be
          you have to stop not-being and break
off from is to flowing and
    this is the sin you weep and praise:
origin is your original sin:
          the return you long for will ease your guilt
and you will have your longing:

    the wind that is my guide said this: it
should know having
          given up everything to eternal being but
direction:

how I said can I be glad and sad: but a man goes
    from one foot to the other:
wisdom wisdom:
          to be glad and sad at once is also unity
and death:

    wisdom wisdom: a peachblossom blooms on a particular
tree on a particular day:
          unity cannot do anything in particular:

are these the thoughts you want me to think I said but
the wind was gone and there was no more knowledge then.


During the last few weeks I’ve been exploring with you some of the implications of a phrase that was first used by our own Cambridge community on its publicity during the late 1950s and early 1960s, namely, the freedom, or right, to be tomorrow what we are not today. It was a phrase that, in part, helped me to the ideas which became my long piece for the Sea of Faith with a similar title which outlines what it is in general terms I’m trying to do here as your minister. In the terminology of my piece in a nutshell it’s an attempt to help create appropriately and genuinely free, religious spirits who not only claim the freedom or right to be tomorrow what they are not today but who, following any encounter with persuasive new evidence from the natural sciences and/or good, rational, philosophical thinking, also have the courage, wherewithal and opportunity actually to change their minds about various things, including their once deeply held ultimate premises.

Traditional religious communities and church traditions are rarely, if ever, concerned to encourage such an open-ended way of being because they are generally concerned to defend an ultimate truth which they believe has been revealed to them via some form of scripture, tradition or the insight of certain individuals; more often than not it’s a combination of all three.

The Unitarian movement has been no different in this respect. As a form of Radical Reformation Christianity its ultimate premises, its basic doctrines if you will, were first articulated in Poland and Hungary during the mid-sixteenth century. They were that “God is One” and that Jesus was fully human (albeit uniquely and divinely inspired and given a divine commission by that One God to act as the Messiah of the kingdom of peace). As the centuries have unfolded this doctrine of the strict unity of God has, particularly from the middle third of twentieth century onwards, allowed us to expand our thinking beyond its original, obviously Jewish and Christian beginnings into more pluralistic and universalistic expressions of religion and this is why Cliff Reed begins his book “Unitarian? What’s That?” with these words:

The historic Unitarian affirmation God is One is what gave the movement its name. Today, this stress on divine unity is broadened. Now Unitarians also affirm: Humanity is One, the World is One, the Interdependent Web of Life is One. But while Unitarians may share these affirmations, we do so in an open and liberal spirit. And there is a lot more to us than that.

Understood in the way Cliff does, the traditional Unitarian doctrine of the unity of God (our unquestioned answer) is such a beguiling and attractive idea that I’ve been utterly in thrall to it for most of my adult life. However, although I am still beguiled by the idea of an interdependent web of life the bewitching power over me of the idea of the unity of God has slowly waned.

But this is to get ahead of myself.

What I can say at this point in my address is that Wittgenstein speaks profoundly to my situation vis-a-vis the doctrine of the unity of God — and, I imagine, to many of you — when he says: “A picture held us captive. And we could not get outside it, for it lay in our language and language seemed to repeat it to us inexorably” (PI §115).

In a Unitarian setting the unity of God lays deep in our language and, in one way or another, it repeats itself to us inexorably as all our hymns today have revealed. To all intents and purposes this mantra is an essentially a Platonic claim that underlying the endlessly changing and diverse appearance of the material world, there lies an eternal, immutable and undivided ultimate unity. Though it need not be, it is often the case that this  ultimate unity is believed also to be perfectly moral and good.

OK, hold on to this thought while I briefly turn to the most important historian of our religious movement Earl Morse Wilbur (1886-1956). In 1920, in his influential lecture/essay “The Meaning and Lessons of Unitarian History”, he realised that, at first sight, “the principal meaning of the movement has been a purely doctrinal one and that the goal we have aimed at has been nothing more remote than that of winning the world to acceptance of one form of doctrine rather than another.” This doctrine was, of course, that “God is One” — with all its corollaries about the humanity of Jesus etc..

But, as Wilbur dug more deeply into the ebb and flow of our history he felt sure that the “doctrinal aspect” of our churches was, in truth, only “a temporary phase” and that Unitarian doctrines were, therefore, only “a sort of by-product of a larger movement, whose central motive has been the quest for spiritual freedom.” Indeed, his essay begins with a clear statement that, “the keyword to our whole history . . . is the word complete spiritual freedom.” The conclusion he delivered to his own day was that, thus far, we had hardly done anything more than remove certain “obstacles which dogma had put in our way” and had only just begun to “clear the decks for the great action to follow.”

These words reveal that Wilbur was a far-sighted man but, as all people necessarily are, his vision could only stretch so far. The limits of his vision didn’t allow him to do in his own time two important things that he could not see were implied by the general trajectory of his own work.

The first was that he was not able to envisage consistently operating, nor see the need for us to operate, outside a generally liberal Christian framework. Here are the very last sentences of his 1920 essay:

Our vital task still remains, in common with that which falls to every other Christian church, the task of inspiring Christian characters and moulding Christian civilization, the task of making men and society truly Christian, the task of organizing the kingdom of heaven upon earth.

Of course, you must yourself decide whether such a description still works properly for you in our own highly pluralistic and scientifically informed age and context but, for me, it doesn’t. Along with an American philosopher called James W. Woelfel (for whose work I have a quiet admiration) I have to say that “in my own ongoing struggle to make sense of the Christian context of life- and world-interpretation [that I have inherited], I find basic elements of that context which I simply cannot render coherent any longer, and I earnestly wonder how other persons manage to” (The Death of God: A Belated Personal Postscript). In a nutshell this all means I simply cannot any longer, with a clean heart and full pathos, put my shoulder against the same exclusively Christian wheel to which Wilbur was able to put his own.

The second important thing Wilbur couldn’t do due to the natural limits of his own vision was to ask the perhaps shocking, difficult and, for a Unitarian (Christian), almost heretical question towards which his own work seems to me to be inexorably heading when he said that Unitarian doctrines were only “a temporary phase” and therefore, only “a sort of by-product of a larger movement, whose central motive has been the quest for spiritual freedom.”

So, with the title of this address firmly in mind, that “more dangerous than an unanswered question is an unquestioned answer”, here’s the potentially heretical question:

Is the doctrine or dogma of the unity of God which has held Unitarians captive for four-and-a-half centuries, in fact, now an obstacle to us and do we, therefore, need to clear our decks of it if we are to enable the “great action” to follow?

Before beginning to address this huge question the first thing to say at this point is that it seems to me we are only being true to “the keyword to our whole history . . . complete spiritual freedom” in so far as we can freely and without fear ask this question and if, in principle — were the evidence to be persuasive enough, of course — to change our minds about the doctrine and let it go in favour of something more plausible. Although I’ve been intimating that, within the Unitarian context, my question might be perceived as being heretical in fact it’s not. Here is the great Unitarian Christian theologian, minister and scientist Joseph Priestley writing in a sermon of the 1770s (“The Importance and Extent of Free Inquiry in Matters of Religion: A Sermon” in P.Miller, ed., Joseph Priestley: Political Writings, Cambridge: CUP, 1993, xxiv).

But should free inquiry lead to the destruction of Christianity itself, it ought not, on that account, to be discontinued; for we can only wish for the prevalence of Christianity on the supposition of its being true; and if it fall before the influence of free inquiry, it can only do so in consequence of its not being true.

For Priestley, Christianity was made up of a system of claims about the world whose truth could only be determined by a preceding phase of genuinely free and open-minded religious and philosophical debate and the gathering and analysis of verifiable, empirical data.

In short Priestley was committed to the possibility that his own ultimate Unitarian Christian premises may, in time, turn out to be false. Indeed I think that, in an age and a time when our forebears’ belief in the existence of a morally good, omnipresent, omnipotent and omniscient unitary god is becoming less and less plausible to more and more of us we need to emulate the same radical open-minded spirit of enquiry once showed by Priestley and ask ourselves whether or not the evidence and our contemporary experiences indicates we should, at last, let our commitment to the unity of God completely go?

In one sense this address is finished because the primary thing I want to do today is simply to get this question, which Wilbur could not ask, openly out on our common table for consideration and discussion and to show that in asking this we are being entirely consistent with the Unitarian tradition understood as an historical whole.

But, in another sense, it would be unfair were I to finish without giving you at least a brief indication of the “great action” I think which could well follow were we able to let go of the old, Platonic doctrine of the strict unity of God. As you know I’m perfectly capable of running through the various philosophical arguments and scientific evidence for this — and doing it in great detail — but I have only a couple of hundred words left so I turn, instead, to poetry in the form of Ammons’ poem, “Guide”.

In it I understand Ammons strongly to be suggesting that the “great action” which Wilbur dimly intuited in 1920 is courageously to move away from our original sin of believing our origin and end is in the static unity (of God, or the Absolute, or the Platonic Really-Real) and to move, instead, towards an understanding that everything is always-already in complex movement, is always-already interconnecting, interpenetrating and highly plural; it is to see that there is no single origin, no divine single being or particle at the end of the universe; it is to see that where there is no movement there are no things, no materiality, no life and so no knowledge. Ammons’ words (and for me the contemporary natural sciences and Lucretius’ wonderful poem the De Rrerum Natura) suggest to me we should think long and hard about stopping believing in and yearning for this Absolute Being and so finally to “break off from is to flowing.”

This is what the wind teaches Ammons and teaches me — it’s what every flux and flow of nature teaches — that in the static unity of God as our Unitarian forbears understood it and our Christian Platonic culture in general has understood it, we cannot turn around, there are no entrances or exits, there are no precipitations of forms to use like tongs against the formless, no freedom to choose. In that capital “S” Source we find we are really in the mouth of of capital “D” Death.

This strongly suggests to me that by continuing to hold to a doctrine of the unity of God we are not only fundamentally at odds with the apparent nature of things, but we also threaten our other great historic commitment to the freedom and right to change our minds on the basis of good evidence and reason and to become tomorrow what we are not today.

So, to conclude, here’s the question once again followed by Ammons' poem

Is the doctrine or dogma of the unity of God which has held Unitarians captive for four-and-a-half centuries, in fact, now an obstacle to us and do we, therefore, need to clear our decks of it if we are to enable the “great action” to follow? 

Guide by A. R. Ammons

          You cannot come to unity and remain material:
in that perception is no perceiver:
    when you arrive
you have gone too far:
          at the Source you are in the mouth of Death:

you cannot
    turn around in
the Absolute: there are no entrances or exits
          no precipitations of forms
to use like tongs against the formless:
    no freedom to choose:

to be
          you have to stop not-being and break
off from is to flowing and
    this is the sin you weep and praise:
origin is your original sin:
          the return you long for will ease your guilt
and you will have your longing:

    the wind that is my guide said this: it
should know having
          given up everything to eternal being but
direction:

how I said can I be glad and sad: but a man goes
    from one foot to the other:
wisdom wisdom:
          to be glad and sad at once is also unity
and death:

    wisdom wisdom: a peachblossom blooms on a particular
tree on a particular day:
          unity cannot do anything in particular:

are these the thoughts you want me to think I said but
the wind was gone and there was no more knowledge then.

Readers who are in any way sympathetic to my feeling that we (Unitarians) should let the doctrine of the unity of God go might be interested in reading the following essay by Thomas Nail called The Ontology of Motion and also a preview of his forthcoming book for OUP called Being and Motion. He strikes me as someone whose work can really help us clear the decks for the great action to follow . . .

The sermon was delivered on Sunday, October 14, 2018, at All Souls Unitarian Church in Tulsa, Oklahoma, by Rev. Dr. Marlin Lavanhar, Senior Minister. DESCRIPTION At the heart of American democracy is... (wait for it...) “heart!” One of America’s foremost 21st century liberal theologians, Dr. Rev. Thandeka, teaches that when liberal religion displaces emotion from the moral equation, a contradiction of moral reasoning diminishes the impact of the liberal voice in American public life. Mainstream churches and liberal politicians will continue to lose ground unless this contradiction is reconciled. The most well-reasoned, documented and articulated facts, figures and solutions will continue to fail to move people to change. Thandeka says, “Liberal moral reasoning does not parse the American heart.” At All Souls, reconciliation is at the heart of our work. Join me to explore solutions we strive to achieve in our liberal religious faith. SUBSCRIBE TO AUDIO PODCAST: http://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/all-souls-unitarian-church/id193096943 WATCH THIS SERMON ON YOUTUBE: https://youtu.be/zr00_voJtF8 SUBSCRIBE TO OUR YOUTUBE CHANNEL: http://www.youtube.com/subscription_center?add_user=allsoulsunitarian GIVE A DONATION TO HELP US SPREAD THIS LOVE BEYOND BELIEF: http://www.allsoulschurch.org/GIVE or text LOVEBB to 73256 LET'S CONNECT: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/allsoulstulsa Twitter: https://twitter.com/AllSoulsTulsa All Souls Church Website: http://www.allsoulschurch.org  

Attached media: https://web.archive.org/web/20211109030713/https://hwcdn.libsyn.com/p/6/5/c/65c5527fa6f5a83e/2018-10-14-MLavanhar--Why-Liberals-Lose--Traditional.mp3?c_id=24027872&cs_id=24027872&destination_id=16949&expiration=1636429625&hwt=c0bce6c81b278b7722b32ad3cdc17d53

Testosterone is my nemesis ‘Cause my mind says I’m a female human And testosterone says well When I’m though your Body will say differently But thankfully I can Take pills to keep Testosterone away and revers Some of its effects … Continue reading →

"Memoirs of disability are often studies in suffering...But today, disabled writers are pushing back. Today, we’re recognizing that the normate memoir genre doesn’t fit disability stories. And not only when it comes to truth, but when it comes to everything." In this piece from Katie Rose Guest Pryal, she explores through a thorough study of memoirs how this desire for catharsis from stories of people with disabilities warps all our expectations.


We expect stories of disability to reveal suffering and redemption. But it doesn't always happen like that.

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The wonderful #choir at First Church #Unitarian in #littletonma

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19:48 – Selections from our Sunday Morning Worship Service at The Unitarian Universalist Congregation at Montclair by UUCM Member Ghana Hylton.

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SERMON
“Holding On, Letting Go”
by UUCM Member Ghana Hylton

Please note: All sermons are copyrighted by the author.

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setahun sekali pon blom tntu dpt jumpe ngn makcik ni... #tqbelanjapatinpoyok #anapatinhouse #sekajapjerjmpe #unitarian #2girls10boys #dca

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The service this Sunday presents the theological origins of Unitarians and Universalists from ancient Greeks to the Reformation, accompanied by early ...

Rev Bridget Spain

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Alexa: Do things always change?

Yes. Buddha pointed out that all things change and change constantly. The only thing that doesn't change is change itself. However, while change is inevitable, for us humans, progress is optional.

As has been reported this week, we have twelve years to keep climate change below a 1.5 degrees increase. Twelve years to stop a climate catastrophe that will kill millions. Twelve years to turn things around. This will require a "unprecedented transitions in all aspects of society" - in other words it will require the kind of sacrifice, massive effort, and pulling together we last saw in the

The classic philosophy question asks what happens when an immovable object meets an irresistible force? The evidence of rock and water suggests that the irresistible force will win, but not on any time scale that you can comprehend. Sheer determination may lose in the end, but it should hold you for a couple of million years.

What are you determined to stick out, even if you will lose in the end?

The Daily Compass offers words and images to inspire spiritual reflection and encourage the creation of a more loving, inclusive and just world. Produced by The Church of the Larger Fellowship, the Unitarian Universalist Congregation with no geographical boundary. Please support the publishing of The Daily Compass by making a $10 or $25 contribution (more if you can, less if you can't)! Thank you for your support!

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What do newcomers need to know about Paganism when they’re just starting out? That’s an incredibly broad question – it’s why we have so many Paganism 101 books. Here’s some general information, some resources, and what you need to know if you decide to practice the particular form of Paganism I practice.

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The following is a statement from our president regarding hate mail that targeted a board member and her son, two UU people of color.


Dear Ones, It is with such a heavy heart that I share with you a terrible incident that happened at the UUA this weekend, when both the UUA Board of Trustees and the General Assembly Youth staff were in town. On Friday, the UUA received an anonymous, hateful letter addressed to one of our GA Youth staff volunteers, a youth of color, who is also the child of the UUA Board’s Secretary, Christina Rivera. The letter was an expletive laden note insulting and attacking Christina and her child. This is completely unacceptable in our faith community. This letter was meant to hurt and intimidate our leaders of color. We cannot as Unitarian Universalists argue about whether racism or a culture of white supremacy exists in our faith. It does, and it is actively harming people of color. It is especially heartbreaking that this was directed at a youth of color, because our young people must be able to be safe in our faith. And yet, this vile letter was but the latest example of egregious harm directed at leaders of color. We must make this violence stop. We are moving incredible change in our faith – to live more fully into our deepest held values and theology as Unitarian Universalists. We are committed to making this a radically inclusive faith that welcomes every person in love and wholeness. We are building a liberating community that centers, values and believes people who have been harmed by systemic racism and oppression and that nurtures a redemptive love in those (myself included) whose hearts and perceptions are distorted by the culture of whiteness and white supremacy. Two things I have said this year - this is no time for a casual faith and no time to be in this alone. We need to protect and love each other, allowing the fullness of our humanity to lead us to courage and solidarity in the work ahead. We know that when we do the work of radical change we will get push back. We will get resistance, both passive and direct, as this letter shows. Yet we will not let it turn us back, because our faith, our theology and our aspiration call us forth. And we will transform our righteous anger into action. This also means we’re going to need to get much more serious in how we hold one another’s safety, acknowledging that the system of policing does not protect everyone’s safety. We have many social movement partners we can turn to in order to help us think about security and wellbeing in new ways. And I ask that you too be ready to report instances of racial harassment. In the wake of this letter, we made immediate changes to help protect Christina and her family, and will be thinking differently about protection and risk going forward. We are doing this work in the midst of a rise in hate crimes, fear, persecution and overt attacks on democracy across our country. These are difficult and painful times. And I believe Unitarian Universalism can help us find resilience and courage through a community of love and spirit. In times that are literally life and death, we are called to a great practice of love and interdependence – a greater practice of Beloved Community. If you are a UU of color, this is your faith. You belong here. And I want to be your partner in the change we need to bring to this faith. I’ve got your back and my virtual door is open. I would love to hear from you about how I can be of help. I also want to encourage you to connect to DRUUMM (Diverse, Revolutionary, UU Multicultural Ministries), a ministry for and by POCI UU’s and to BLUU (Black Lives of Unitarian Universalism). If you feel dismissed by Unitarian Universalism because of any identity you hold, this is still your faith. You belong here. TRUUST (Transgender Religious professional Unitarian Universalists Together) creates community for UU religious professionals who are transgender, and EqUUal Access connects UUs who live with disabilities. There is community within our faith that honors your identity, and I hope you will connect with this life-saving space. The UUA Board and I also talked deeply this weekend about the support that these identity-based communities need for sustainability, and will be continuing those conversations and commitments in the months ahead. If you are a white UU and have not read Centering and While Fragility, I ask you to do so. As white people we need to understand both the stories of people of color in our movement, and the dynamics that shape our own enculturation into whiteness. If you are not a reader, you can find video clips from Robin D’Angelo, the author of White Fragility, on http://www.uua.org. If you’ve read these, then move on to Revisiting the Empowerment Controversy by the Mark Morrison-Reed and learn more about Unitarian Universalism’s own history of racism in our culture and practice. I shared the news of this letter, which UUA staff saw and intercepted, with the more than 40 leaders gathered at the UUA this weekend, including the Regional Leaders Group and the Journey Toward Wholeness Transformation Committee. At the end of sharing the news, we prayed for the safety and strength of all those putting themselves on the line to move this faith forward in the way of liberation; and we prayed for more courage and more brave souls joining in the work. We ended with the song from Emma’s Revolution, “Keep on Moving Forward.” “We’re gonna keep on moving forward, keep on moving forward, keep on moving forward, never turning back, never turning back.” So may we all together, in answer to the calling of this faith, keep on loving boldly, keep on singing loudly, keep on living proudly, keep on moving forward, never turning back, never turning back.

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Emotional tempests aren’t always easy to weather, but the flatness of life without such currents is the slow silence of drowning.

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Unitarian Univeralists covenant together to affirm and promote the responsible search for truth and meaning. Where does this responsible search take them? If it takes them down the road of more information, opinion, belief, and factoids, this leads them to what Stephen Colbert calls "truthiness."

"Truthiness" is, of course, not real Truth nor even deep meaning, if by deep meaning we mean wisdom.

There is a difference between knowledge and wisdom. In our modern internet age, Google has made knowledge available at our finger tips, but Google does not provide wisdom. Wisdom comes from another place than just the accumulation of knowledge. In the age of Google there are more and more educated idiots and fewer and fewer wise people.

Unitarian Univeralists know that knowledge does not make us wiser and holier. Unitarian Universalists covenant together to affirm and promote the respect for the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part and it is in this respect that we approach wisdom.

Wisdom is more a matter of the heart than the head. Wisdom is an appreciation of context. Wisdom is the ability to put things in perspective, to prioritize, to paradoxically take things one thing at a time and yet to appreciate the whole. Wisdom is the awareness that the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. Wisdom is not merely having knowledge, but having knowledge and knowing what to do with it.

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