Starting Point
Are you new to UU or interested in learning more about Unitarian Universalism?
Then you definitely want to join us for Soul Matters Starting Point.
This 4 week class taught by Peg Oswald, meets on Tuesdays at 7:00 pm at the church.
Contact Miranda at misricha@live.com to register.
Are you new to UU or interested in learning more about Unitarian Universalism?
Then you definitely want to join us for Soul Matters Starting Point.
This 4 week class taught by Peg Oswald, meets on Tuesdays at 7:00 pm at the church.
Contact Miranda at misricha@live.com to register.
- Session One (June 18): Your Journey—Sharing Our Stories and Spiritual Roadmaps
- Session Two (June 25): The Unitarian Universalist Journey and The Journey of Our Church
- Session Three (July 9): Our Journey Together—The Three Paths of Unitarian Universalism, Part One
- Session Four (July 16): The Three Paths of Unitarian Universalism, Part Two & Finding Your Journey Group.
Session Four
The Three Paths of Unitarian Universalism, Part Two & Finding Your Journey Grou
Prep-Work:
Reflections on the path of “Opening to Life’s Gifts”
Tripping Over Joy
What is the difference
Between your experience of Existence
And that of a saint?
The saint knows
That the spiritual path
Is a sublime chess game with God
And that the Beloved
Has just made such a Fantastic Move
That the saint is now continually
Tripping over Joy
And bursting out in Laughter
And saying, "I surrender!"
Whereas, my dear,
I am afraid you still think
You have a thousand serious moves.
- Hafiz
Sometimes the urgency of our hunger blinds us to the fact that we are already at the feast. To accept this can change everything: we are always home, never exiled. Although our minds constantly insist on seeing walls of separation, in reality most of the walls are mere veils. In every moment, everywhere, we are not even inches away from the divine presence.”
- John O'Donohue
Welcome Morning
Anne Sexton
http://mondaypoem.blogspot.com/2013/06/welcome-morning-by-anne-sexton.html
Read aloud: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AFUclNQoO5w
Guest House
Jelaluddin Rumi
This being human is a guest house.
Every morning is a new arrival.
A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.
Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they're a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still, treat each guest honorably.
[S]he may be clearing you out
for some new delight.
The dark thought, the shame, the malice,
meet them at the door laughing,
and invite them in.
Be grateful for whoever comes,
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.
Praise What Comes
Jeanne Lohmann
https://journalverse.com/november-poem-of-the-month-praise-what-comes-jeanne-lohmann/
Read by author: https://soundcloud.com/cordella-mag/praise-what-comes
The Word
Tony Hoagland
https://alisonmcghee.com/2013/09/07/poem-of-the-week-by-tony-hoagland-3/
Reflections that give voice to our UU effort to open to difference and de-center whiteness
Brave Space
Micky ScottBey Jones
http://www.mickyscottbeyjones.com/invitation-to-brave-space/
When we say, "Save the rainforest," we don’t mean that we cease to honor the mighty cedars or the reaching pines. We mean that one particular piece of a deeply sacred whole is more at risk than others, and that this risk, this threat, is worthy of our very bravest actions. So it is with black lives in this country, and the message that Black Lives Matter is important so long as this nation effectively functions as if they do not.
- Rev. Nancy McDonald Ladd
The Offensiveness of My Pain
I'm on my way to a job where I am the only black person in my office. I work with people who either don’t know or don’t care about Alton Sterling or Philando Castile. They are going to ask me “How are you this morning?” and the simple truth is that I can’t be honest. I can’t say that I’m scared and angry and that I want to take a mental health day. I can’t say that I and people like me subconsciously fear for our lives on a daily basis. I can’t say how I am this morning because it will make them uncomfortable and offended. The offensiveness of my pain is why we have to remind America over and over again that Black Lives Matter: because if you lack empathy for our tears it’s likely that you lack respect for our lives.
- Shane Paul Neil
The me that shows up in mostly white UU spaces isn’t inauthentic, but is guarded and not my full self.
- Rev. Marisol Caballero
Missing Voices
Connie Simon
https://www.uua.org/worship/words/reading/promise-and-practice-missing-voices-reading
Words Matter
Rev. Carol Thomas Cissel
https://www.uua.org/worship/words/reading/promise-and-practice-words-matter-reading
Prayer for Living in Tension
Rev. Joseph M. Cherry
https://www.uua.org/worship/words/prayer/payer-living-tension
Pastoral Prayer For the Awareness of the Opportunity Before Us
Connie Simon
https://www.uua.org/worship/words/prayer/promise-and-practice-pastoral-prayer-1
Digging Deeper
The Black Hole in the White UU Psyche - UU World Article
Rev. Mark Morrison Reed
https://www.uuworld.org/articles/black-hole-white-uu-psyche
The Empowerment Tragedy - UU World Article
Rev. Mark Morrison Reed
https://www.uuworld.org/articles/empowerment-tragedy
Our Faith's Complacency in Racism
Rev. Nathan Ryan
https://www.uua.org/worship/words/reflection/our-faiths-complacency-racism
White Supremacy and Beloved Community
Amanda Udis-Kessler
https://www.uua.org/worship/words/sermon/white-supremacy-and-beloved-community
To All Get Free Together
Chris Crass
https://www.uua.org/worship/words/reading/all-get-free-together
Reflections on the Path of Serving Needs Greater than Our Own
If one fights relentlessly against injustice, want, hate and every form of exploitation, then one is a religious person. The love of God is not expressed by ritual or ceremony, but by loving.
- Wade McCree, Jr.
The central task of the religious community is to unveil the bonds that bind each to all. There is a connectedness, a relationship discovered amid the particulars of our own lives and the lives of others. Once felt, it inspires us to act for justice.
- Rev. Mark Morrison-Reed
When people come to church they should not be handed an order of service with a smile, but should be given hard hats and life preservers, because church should be a dangerous place, a zone of risk, a place of new birth and new life, where we confront ourselves with who we truly are and who the church is calling us to become.
- Annie Dillard
At every moment in every person’s life there is work to be done, always work to be done, some of it small, some of it Great. The Great Work, in a sense, always has to do with healing the world, changing the world, and, as a necessary predicate to that, understanding the world. You rise every morning aware that you are called to this work. You won’t live to see it finished. But if you can’t hear it calling, you aren’t listening hard enough. It’s always calling, sometimes in a big voice, sometimes in a quiet voice.
- Tony Kushner
Being a community” is thinking small. Our ultimate goals and purpose cannot simply be about ourselves. Unitarian Universalists, like members of every other religion, are trying to change the world by encouraging people to live a different way. By word and by deed, Unitarian Universalists are trying to change people. It is time for us to acknowledge and proclaim this, and to see that building a religious community is but a means to that larger end… Inclusion has been our goal. But inclusion is about “bringing in.” We should now be thinking about “going out.” Now we should turn ourselves inside out to turn the world upside down.
- Rev. Tom Shade
Principles
let us not be scared of the work because
it’s hard
let us move the mountain
because the mountain must move
let us, oh lords above us and within,
let us be useful to our neighbors
& tender their wounds
let us be more bandage than blade
unless the blade is needed
let us be a sword against what does not
bring us closer to home
let us be dangerous to that which fails us
and bring us a world good to us, all of us
all us all us
amen
- Danez Smith
The Three Paths of Unitarian Universalism, Part Two & Finding Your Journey Grou
Prep-Work:
Reflections on the path of “Opening to Life’s Gifts”
Tripping Over Joy
What is the difference
Between your experience of Existence
And that of a saint?
The saint knows
That the spiritual path
Is a sublime chess game with God
And that the Beloved
Has just made such a Fantastic Move
That the saint is now continually
Tripping over Joy
And bursting out in Laughter
And saying, "I surrender!"
Whereas, my dear,
I am afraid you still think
You have a thousand serious moves.
- Hafiz
Sometimes the urgency of our hunger blinds us to the fact that we are already at the feast. To accept this can change everything: we are always home, never exiled. Although our minds constantly insist on seeing walls of separation, in reality most of the walls are mere veils. In every moment, everywhere, we are not even inches away from the divine presence.”
- John O'Donohue
Welcome Morning
Anne Sexton
http://mondaypoem.blogspot.com/2013/06/welcome-morning-by-anne-sexton.html
Read aloud: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AFUclNQoO5w
Guest House
Jelaluddin Rumi
This being human is a guest house.
Every morning is a new arrival.
A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.
Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they're a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still, treat each guest honorably.
[S]he may be clearing you out
for some new delight.
The dark thought, the shame, the malice,
meet them at the door laughing,
and invite them in.
Be grateful for whoever comes,
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.
Praise What Comes
Jeanne Lohmann
https://journalverse.com/november-poem-of-the-month-praise-what-comes-jeanne-lohmann/
Read by author: https://soundcloud.com/cordella-mag/praise-what-comes
The Word
Tony Hoagland
https://alisonmcghee.com/2013/09/07/poem-of-the-week-by-tony-hoagland-3/
Reflections that give voice to our UU effort to open to difference and de-center whiteness
Brave Space
Micky ScottBey Jones
http://www.mickyscottbeyjones.com/invitation-to-brave-space/
When we say, "Save the rainforest," we don’t mean that we cease to honor the mighty cedars or the reaching pines. We mean that one particular piece of a deeply sacred whole is more at risk than others, and that this risk, this threat, is worthy of our very bravest actions. So it is with black lives in this country, and the message that Black Lives Matter is important so long as this nation effectively functions as if they do not.
- Rev. Nancy McDonald Ladd
The Offensiveness of My Pain
I'm on my way to a job where I am the only black person in my office. I work with people who either don’t know or don’t care about Alton Sterling or Philando Castile. They are going to ask me “How are you this morning?” and the simple truth is that I can’t be honest. I can’t say that I’m scared and angry and that I want to take a mental health day. I can’t say that I and people like me subconsciously fear for our lives on a daily basis. I can’t say how I am this morning because it will make them uncomfortable and offended. The offensiveness of my pain is why we have to remind America over and over again that Black Lives Matter: because if you lack empathy for our tears it’s likely that you lack respect for our lives.
- Shane Paul Neil
The me that shows up in mostly white UU spaces isn’t inauthentic, but is guarded and not my full self.
- Rev. Marisol Caballero
Missing Voices
Connie Simon
https://www.uua.org/worship/words/reading/promise-and-practice-missing-voices-reading
Words Matter
Rev. Carol Thomas Cissel
https://www.uua.org/worship/words/reading/promise-and-practice-words-matter-reading
Prayer for Living in Tension
Rev. Joseph M. Cherry
https://www.uua.org/worship/words/prayer/payer-living-tension
Pastoral Prayer For the Awareness of the Opportunity Before Us
Connie Simon
https://www.uua.org/worship/words/prayer/promise-and-practice-pastoral-prayer-1
Digging Deeper
The Black Hole in the White UU Psyche - UU World Article
Rev. Mark Morrison Reed
https://www.uuworld.org/articles/black-hole-white-uu-psyche
The Empowerment Tragedy - UU World Article
Rev. Mark Morrison Reed
https://www.uuworld.org/articles/empowerment-tragedy
Our Faith's Complacency in Racism
Rev. Nathan Ryan
https://www.uua.org/worship/words/reflection/our-faiths-complacency-racism
White Supremacy and Beloved Community
Amanda Udis-Kessler
https://www.uua.org/worship/words/sermon/white-supremacy-and-beloved-community
To All Get Free Together
Chris Crass
https://www.uua.org/worship/words/reading/all-get-free-together
Reflections on the Path of Serving Needs Greater than Our Own
If one fights relentlessly against injustice, want, hate and every form of exploitation, then one is a religious person. The love of God is not expressed by ritual or ceremony, but by loving.
- Wade McCree, Jr.
The central task of the religious community is to unveil the bonds that bind each to all. There is a connectedness, a relationship discovered amid the particulars of our own lives and the lives of others. Once felt, it inspires us to act for justice.
- Rev. Mark Morrison-Reed
When people come to church they should not be handed an order of service with a smile, but should be given hard hats and life preservers, because church should be a dangerous place, a zone of risk, a place of new birth and new life, where we confront ourselves with who we truly are and who the church is calling us to become.
- Annie Dillard
At every moment in every person’s life there is work to be done, always work to be done, some of it small, some of it Great. The Great Work, in a sense, always has to do with healing the world, changing the world, and, as a necessary predicate to that, understanding the world. You rise every morning aware that you are called to this work. You won’t live to see it finished. But if you can’t hear it calling, you aren’t listening hard enough. It’s always calling, sometimes in a big voice, sometimes in a quiet voice.
- Tony Kushner
Being a community” is thinking small. Our ultimate goals and purpose cannot simply be about ourselves. Unitarian Universalists, like members of every other religion, are trying to change the world by encouraging people to live a different way. By word and by deed, Unitarian Universalists are trying to change people. It is time for us to acknowledge and proclaim this, and to see that building a religious community is but a means to that larger end… Inclusion has been our goal. But inclusion is about “bringing in.” We should now be thinking about “going out.” Now we should turn ourselves inside out to turn the world upside down.
- Rev. Tom Shade
Principles
let us not be scared of the work because
it’s hard
let us move the mountain
because the mountain must move
let us, oh lords above us and within,
let us be useful to our neighbors
& tender their wounds
let us be more bandage than blade
unless the blade is needed
let us be a sword against what does not
bring us closer to home
let us be dangerous to that which fails us
and bring us a world good to us, all of us
all us all us
amen
- Danez Smith
We look forward to seeing you on July 16th!