Today I will leave you with two ways to think about creativity and what it means. First, a meditation called “How Poets Pray” to help you think about creativity as a spiritual act. Second, a video guided meditation to help affirm your own creative spirit.
May these words and images help you focus on creativity and what it means to you.
All too often we are busy in this world. We do not stop too rest. May this article by Joshua Becker reinforce the need for rest and the value of rest in our lives.
This sermon by the Rev. Vail Weller is about coming together and working together. May it challenge us to find new meanings for partnership and new ways to partner in our own community and outside of it.
[TEDTalks (audio)] A better way to talk about love | Mandy Len Catron
“In love, we fall. We’re struck, we’re crushed, we swoon. We burn with passion. Love makes us crazy and makes us sick. Our hearts ache, and then they break. Talking about love in this way fundamentally shapes how we experience it, says writer Mandy Len Catron. In this talk for anyone who’s ever felt crazy in love, Catron highlights a different metaphor for love that may help us find more joy — and less suffering — in it.”
In Christian churches there is a 40 day period beginning Ash Wednesday and leading to Easter, that is full of meditation, prayer, and sacrifice. This is act of devotion and a spiritual practice.
While this is not a practice that all UUs participate in, it is something from our history and something that we may wish to participate in. The question might come up, “is there a Unitarian Universalist way to practice Lent?” The answer is yes. A calendar has been created by Mr. Barb Greve and Alex Kapitan. The idea is to focus on a particular word each day during lent and on the Sundays we are to reflect on the word and encourage each other to enact it in our lives. Should you choose to participate you can share your reflections with the hashtag #UULent
Here is the calendar for reference.
May your day be filled with light and the coming weeks be filled with introspection and healing.
And I went to the doctor, I went to the mountains
I looked to the children, I drank from the fountains
There’s more than one answer to these questions
Pointing me in a crooked line…
Welcome
Let our church be a gift from each of us to the other.
But even more let it be a gift from each of us to our community.
Let us be a gathering place for the spirit, a refuge for hope, a beacon of inspiration, and a dynamo of life and justice for all.
Let faithful community be the ground of commitment and action to enrich the world.
Dennis McCarthy
Chalice Lighting
For me the essence of Unitarian Universalism is the responsible search for my personal spiritual truth in a loving and supportive community that values that search. The analogy I use is the campfire or hearth. When the cold, existential winds of the uncaring universe blew hard and bitter, it was all that was between our ancestors and the outer darkness. But it was enough, and they thrived. It was the center of life. Children heard the stories of the people from the elders. How to find food was discussed. Strangers were welcomed around the flame. We learned to take care of the weak and infirm, the young and helpless, but also that if everyone did not tend the fire and fetch the wood, that there was no survival. For me our Chalice symbolizes that flame that was the center of community. Today, it is the center of where I find, explore and celebrate my own spiritual truth and continue to grow as a person of faith.
From Bob Hurst, First Unitarian Church of Oklahoma City Continue reading →