February 2012
92 posts
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What experience of wonder have you had this week?
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“To see the World in a Grain of Sand
and a Heaven in a Wild Flower
hold...”
– William Blake
“People in difficulty, namely most of us, need to know that it is all right to be...”
– Clarke Dewey Wells, The Strangeness of This Business (1975) (Unitarian Universalist, minister)
“And that a man should walk in dignity means that he live dangerously rather than...”
– Robert Terry Weston, “I Have Come To The Parting of Ways” (Unitarian Universalist, minister)
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How are you attending to wholeness in community?
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“…individual spirituality is only one part of personhood, one half of the...”
– David Augsburger, Dissident Discipleship, p.54
7 tags
Yes, I Exist
I awoke to claims of my non-existence earlier today. I am not sure how I managed that, since liberal christians are not supposed to exist, but then the Holy is merciful and amazing that way, bigger than we can, and often do, imagine.
How people can be tossed out of the single body of Love continues to amaze me. But then, living in amazement is part of my spiritual practice. This life is so full...
“A single conversation across the table with a wise man is better than ten years...”
– Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (Unitarian, poet)
“Many a man who might walk over burning ploughshares into heaven stumbles from...”
– E. H. Chapin, Living Words (1861) p. 26 (Universalist, minister)
“In a culture where the plastic smile is mandatory and cheap grace abounds, the...”
– Clarke Dewey Wells, The Strangeness of This Business (1975) (Unitarian Universalist, minister)
“In a hundred ways, we need to learn the art of reconciliation. In our personal...”
– Max Kapp, Earth’s Common Things: A Lenten Manual for 1941 (Unitarian Universalist, minister, educator)
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What happens when you open the window of your...
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“Love saw me weak and it launched a raid.
Everywhere I look I see love, there is...”
– Sultan Bahu (Sufi poet)
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What are the difficult traits you appreciate in...
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“What we have most in common is not religion but humanity….The moment I...”
– Barbara Brown Taylor, An Altar in the World: A Geography of Faith p.101-102
“Reflect upon your present blessings, of which every man has plenty; not on your...”
– Charles Dickens (Unitarian, author, social reformer)
“If a sacrament is an outward act or event by which an inward grace is...”
– James Freeman Clarke, Messages of Faith, Hope and Love (1905). Geo. H. Ellis, p.158 (Unitarian, minister, reformer)
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Where is love's caravan leading you these days?
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“Whichever the way love’s caravan shall lead/ That shall be the way of my faith”
– Ibn ‘Arabi
“Love is the master key that opens the gates of happiness.”
– Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (Unitarian, poet, editor)
“We may prove deserters or traitors, and struggle to the rear during the...”
– Mary Ashton Rice Livermore (Universalist, suffragist, social reformer)
“While we diminish the stimulant of fear, we must increase to prisoners the...”
– Dorothea Dix (Unitarian, social reformer)
“My great panacea for making society at once better and more enjoyable would be...”
– Frances Power Cobbe (Unitarian, social reformer, founder of the British Union for the Abolition of Vivisection)
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How are you learning to share power and authority?
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“Struggling for mutual relation is how we keep our balance. It is the “how...”
– Carter Heyward, God in the Balance, p.75
“A stone upon my hand contains a treasury of secrets.
Raindrops splashing on my...”
– Carl J. Nelson, Snow in April (1996) (Unitarian Universalist, minister)
“Love asks of us more stamina than we think we have,
Demands too much giving and...”
– Richard S. Gilbert, On the Cusp of Life (1997) p. 47 (Unitarian Universalist, social activist, minister)
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When has your neighbor defended you? How'd that...
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“To see the other side, to defend another people, not despite your tradition but...”
– Eboo Patel, Acts of Faith
“Hate is a fence
restricting my good will to my own front yard.
Injustice is a...”
– Carl J. Nelson, “Beyond My Walls” Eternity Can Wait (1962) (Unitarian Universalist, minister)
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How are you sowing peace for the future?
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“The harvest of righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace.”
– James 3:18
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How is your community finding room for those left...
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“Our common human hospitality longs to find room for those who are left out.”
– Gregory Boyle, Tattoos on the Heart
“A proper reverence for others cannot be expressed in terms of exact retribution...”
– Frank O. Holmes, My Heart Leaps Up: A Lenten Manual for 1956 (Unitarian, minister)
“The church must minister to persons, help them in freedom develop their inner...”
– Edna Pearl Bruner (Unitarian Universalist, Universalist Church of America fieldworker, educator, minister)
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How does confusion teach you about community?
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“The thing about democracy, beloveds, is that it is not neat, orderly or quiet....”
– Molly Ivins, You Got To Dance With Them What Brung You, p.81
“Humility is teachableness…True science, true religion and true humility are not...”
– Max Kapp, Earth’s Common Things: A Lenten Manual 1941 (Unitarian Universalist, minister)
“At every winding of the way,
I’ve sought for love and love have given;
For...”
– Frances Dana Barker Gage, Poems (1857) (Universalist, political activist, journalist, novelist, poet, abolitionist, temperance advocate)
9 tags
Faithful Serving, Faithful Leading
A Unitarian Universalist Association posted yesterday, “Ain’t Misbehaving. Saving My Love For You” mentions that a significant number of people who are “free range” Unitarian Universalists - people who are Unitarian Universalists by faith, but without congregational affiliation - are former leaders of those congregations.
One of the regular tests of faith - and...
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How do hospitality & nonviolence work together?
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“Absolute hospitality would in no way amount to the absence of violence. To the...”
– Miroslav Volf, A Public Faith (2011)
“The world of learning is so broad, and the human soul is so limited in power! we...”
– Maria Mitchel (Unitarian, astronomer, educator)
“These same people would not say, ‘I believe in medicine but I do not believe in...”
– Gary James (Unitarian Universalist, minister)
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How have differences with someone else taught you...
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“Differences not only teach us new ways of doing things; they also make us ask...”
– Sr. Joan Chittister, Uncommon Gratitude: Alleluia for All That Is (2010) p.35-6.
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What bridges of peace are you building?
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“What power is the power of a true listener, bringing understanding, bringing...”
– Merle Feld, A Spiritual Life p. 13