Author: clfuu

Inspiration:

Spirit of Wholeness, guard my heart from both complacency and contempt. Help me to expect the best from myself and others.

“Abundant Life”

We can understand the abundance of the universe in two ways: as an invitation to complacency, or as an invitation to generosity. Much depends upon that choice. For if we respond with complacency—if we merely accept all the creative energy and all the love and sacrifice that have made our own lives possible, then the abundance of the universe comes to a stop in us. If we choose to receive what we have concluded is our due—and even, perhaps, to complain that it is not given exactly as we would have preferred it—then we make ourselves something outside the process, something other than the ever-flowing stream of life, something transitory and futile and ultimately trivial. It is when we respond to the abundance of life with gratitude and generosity that we become a part of that universal creativity. When we contribute our own energy to the flowing stream then it fills us and pours out of us to others, so that the stream is enhanced.

by Kendyl Gibbons, Senior Minister, First Unitarian Society, Minneapolis, Minnesota
TO READ MORE 

 

Inspiration:

Songwriter Bob Franke writes: “There’s a hole in the middle of the prettiest life….” Where is there a hole in your life? What do you fill it with?

 

 

 

Brokenness and the Golden Mortar 

“I am a Universalist because people have shocked – and removed – the hell out of my theology, my worldview, and me.”

by Joanna Fontaine Crawford, Intern Minister, Church of the Larger Fellowship

 

 

Inspiration:

I am a judge with the capacity to pardon all who come before me.

 

 

 

From Your Minister

by Rev. Meg Riley, Senior Minister, Church of the Larger Fellowship

How do I stay present when things are breaking or broken? How do I allow things to break when they need to break, and still stay on the side of Life? How do I manage to not numb out or move into denial, without going mad and breaking apart myself, when systems far beyond my control or even my comprehension, are wreaking havoc? And for what do I go down fighting? MORE

 

Join us at 1:30 pm ET today for our service of Reflection & Connection: http://www.livestream.com/questformeaning

 

Inspiration:

Where in your body do you physically feel pain or discomfort? Spend a moment envisioning that spot surrounded with warmth, light, and acceptance of the flawed state it is in.

 

 

To Be Joyfully Determined 

by Joshua Mason Pawelek, minister, Unitarian Universalist Society: East, Manchester, Connecticut

Happiness and fulfillment, says Ben-Shahar, come from what we choose to see and seek, what we choose to focus our attention on. These days it can be difficult to see goodness, dignity, worth and wholeness, let alone bring it into our lives. In a world facing potentially catastrophic climate change; in the midst of tragic land wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and a more amorphous and seemingly unending war on terror; in the midst of an economic recession with enormous housing and job insecurity; in the midst of a first world culture focused on material consumption and addicted to corporate media—in the midst of all this breaking and brokenness, all these generators of fear, anxiety and numbness, all these demonstrations of human shortsightedness, arrogance, selfishness, and sinfulness—how do we focus on what is working well, on what brings joy, on what brings happiness and fulfillment? Tal Ben-Shahar says, “Practice.” MORE

 

Join us at 7 pm ET tonight for our service of Reflection & Connection: http://www.livestream.com/questformeaning

 

Inspiration:

A boulder cannot imagine what it would mean to become part of a beach.

 

Prayer 101

by Forrest Church, Minister Of All Souls Church (Unitarian Universalist) in New York City from 1978 until his death in 2009

Prayer is the art of listening. Reverent attention to something unites us with it. Distraction divides, fragmenting us. Salvation and sin are much the same. Salvation: wholeness, health, healing — all words stemming from the same root — occurs in this lifetime when we are at peace with ourselves, united with one another, and at one with God. Sin is a state of brokenness. It exists when we are consumed by preoccupations and distractions, inattentive to the needs of others, at war with ourselves and the world. MORE