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Newsletter Messages
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Wednesday, 02 May 2012 |
The worst ages of human-kind are marked by a strict insistence on dualism. Dualism is the purist’s worldview—good vs. bad, angels vs. demons, believers vs. heretics, our country vs. your country, straight vs. gay, faith vs. rationality. Presently we see dualism at work in partisan politics and religious extremism. Dualism corrupts what I believe is the most beautiful capacity of the human mind: the capacity to hold two potentially contradictory ideas in balance. The hymn #159 in Singing the Living Tradition portrays this capacity: “My countries skies are bluer than the ocean, and sunlight beams on clover leaf and pine, but other lands have sunlight too and clover, and skies are everywhere as blue as mine.’ It is possible to sincerely love one’s own country while recognizing how every country is worthy of love. It is possible to love one’s own virtues while recognizing the wholly different yet wholly worthy virtues of others.
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Salvation, a Ring of Light in the Darkness |
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Friday, 30 March 2012 |
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Late into a solo trip of back woods camping, I nestled in close to my camp fire. As dusk deepened, I heard gun shots, followed soon after by some unrecognized animal’s howl. I had little sense how far off the guns or animals were, but I did notice how both had stirred the birds in the far reaches of the trees above my site. I stoked the fire and added more wood. When I tired of searching the darkness for danger, I rested in the warming light. Eventually it coaxed me from high alert to sleep, but not before I tasted that primeval fear. I was alone, in a wild place, with only a fire’s saving light. I imagined I felt a touch of what my farthest ancestors had felt, when they learned the art of fire’s glow and the beauty of its service. It breaks the night. It promises safety, maybe salvation—salvation from the inimitability of the darkness and all it conceals.
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Last Updated ( Friday, 30 March 2012 )
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Not Original Sin, but Brokenness |
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Friday, 02 March 2012 |
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I don’t believe in original sin or the possibility of
Eden. I do believe in brokenness and wholeness. I do believe that
all humans are inherently whole, full, enough, but that all can and likely will
experience brokenness. Brokenness is anything that threatens to separate
one part of us from another, or anything that blurs our realization of our
wholeness.
I take yoga for many reasons. One is that I had to stop
running. Nearly 15 years ago I tore the cartilage in my right knee.
A year ago, while running, I re-injured the same area. The yoga that I
take can, over-time, reduce the scar tissue from old injuries. One
position is specifically effective, but when I do this position the scar tissue
prevents me from reaching the extent of the posture. I used to struggle
with this. Nearly everyone in the class achieves a fuller posture and
makes it look relatively easy! I might respond to this reality with
self-chastisement - rejecting my knee for it’s failings, feeling less-than
enough. It’s my practice, if I catch myself chastising, to smile and
remember that I am whole and enough, just the way I am.
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Wednesday, 01 February 2012 |
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I am often asked by Unitarian
Universalists and outsiders to our faith, “But where do you draw the line?” If
Unitarian Universalism is not defined by a creed, by a statement of belief,
they wonder, then who do you let in and who, if anyone, do you keep
out? As you might imagine, Nazis are often inserted in this conversation:
“What if a Nazi wanted to join our congregation?”
Unitarian Universalists fought and died to protect the freedom
of belief. The quote “We need not think alike to love alike,” comes from
Unitarian minister Francis David (1510–1579), who brought religious tolerance
to Transylvania under King John Sigismund. Unitarianism thrived there for a
short while, until a new King, Calvinist George Biandrata, took the throne.
Biandrata challenged David with heresy. David was subsequently found guilty of
“innovation,” and sentenced to life in prison, where he died a few short years
later.
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Last Updated ( Wednesday, 08 February 2012 )
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Friday, 30 December 2011 |
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...not like a table exists, not like you exist, but does justice exist? Is it real? Or is it simply a word we use to describe how we want the world to look and feel?
Plato the great Greek philosopher explored the nature of justice. His text, The Republic, presents diverse characters who offer their perspectives in the form of arguments. Thrasymachus, a character memorable for his unabashed, reckless defense of injustice, presents an argument that “justice is (simply) the advantage of the stronger.”
Is it?
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Last Updated ( Sunday, 29 January 2012 )
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