January 2019 UUAWOL theme of the month: Second Chances

UU A Way Of Life Ministries blog beginning in 2019 will have a monthly theme around which to  organize and coordinate some of its articles. The theme for January, 2019 is Second Chances or as is written in A Course In Miracles, "Choose again."

If you have books, movies, poems, articles which address the monthly theme please send your recommendations and suggestions to me at davidgmarkham@gmail.com or leave them in the comments.


A movie which deals with second chances and creating a new and better life for oneself and others is Silver Linings Playbook.

 

Do you believe in second chances?

After church on Sunday, an acquaintance told me that he had broken his New Year's resolutions already.

I mentioned second chances.

Choose again.

In A Course In Miracles, Jesus tells us, "In every difficulty, all distress, and each perplexity Christ calls to you and gently says, 'My brother, choose again.'" T-31.VIII.3:2

In Unitarian Univeralism we believe in second chances and choosing again. UUs covenant together to affirm and promote the free and responsible search for truth and meaning. UUs acknowledge that there is no one right way for everybody. We affirm and promote the right of conscience. UUs acknowledge readily and freely that mistakes are made, that's how we learn, and we can always choose again.

Unitarian Univeralism is a religion of second chances.......and third, and fourth, and fifth, and as many as it takes to nurture our spiritual growth.

Ask Alexa - What should I do in times of emotional turmoil?

Alexa: I am so confused and overwhelmed with emotions to the point that I am afraid I am losing my mind and wonder what I should do?

While there are many emotions, there are basically only two: love and fear, and the question to consider to clear away all the turmoil and smoke is "What would Love have me do?"

On The Basis Of Sex: great film about the civil rights advocacy of Ruth Bader Ginsberg.

After church today I went to see On The Basis Of Sex, a movie about Ruth Bader Ginsberg's civil rights legal work on sex discrimination. It is a great movie, one of the best I have seen in a year.

I   

The Helpers - Social Workers in libraries

Library Social Work at the Mountain View Public Library in Mountain View, California




For more click here.

Whole Person Librarianship

UU A Way Of Life ministries index - increase in rate in gun suicides

• The rate of increase in gun sucides in the U.S. since 2008 = 22%
• The rate of increase in gun suicides in the U.S. by those who own guns since 2008 = 3x

Source: Bloomberg, com as reported in The Week, January 11, 2019, p.16

Why does the fourth principle generate so much fear?

Unitarian Univeralists covenant together to affirm and promote the free and responsible search for truth and meaning. This is the most fundamental of the seven principles which bind UUs together and they to the world.

People enter into a holy relationship to pursue a higher purpose and what higher prupose can there be that the search for the Truth of Love?

The question before us is very simple: do we want the ego or Love?

Love is nondualistic. Love does not divide and separate. Love is the yin and the yang together in the Tao, the Way.

The Tao cannot be found half heartedly. Finding the Tao is all or nothing because of its nondualistic nature. Part of the Tao is not the Tao just as part of the Truth is not the Whole Truth.

So the search that Unitarian Univeralists covenant together to search for cannot be half hearted. They have to surrender to it completely and it is this requirement that engenders great fear which prevents many UUs from enacting this principle for it requires that UUs admit that their lives, on the path of the ego, are unmanageable and that they should surrender their will to their Higher Power as they understand it.