What does Unitarian Univeralism teach about sex?

What does Unitarian Univeralism teach about sex? So many religions focus intensely on sex and try to control the sexual behavior of its members. What's the big deal?

The big deal about sex is its procreative power. Sex creates new life. It is a power that human beings share with Creation. Further, sex is about assuring the continuation of our species. Sexual behavior is built into human beings biologically to serve the evolutionary destiny of our species in the universe.

Sexual behavior is often pleasurable but not always and it can be abusive, violent, and deadly. Unitarian Universalists covenant together to affirm and promote not only the inherent worth and dignity of every person but also justice, equity, and compassion in our human relations.

Good sexual behavior is about human attachment, bonding, and connection. Sexual behavior aspires, at its ideal, to enact the third principle of Unitarian Univeralist covenant which is to accept one another and encourage spiritual growth. There is no greater experience in human life than to love and be loved. Sexual behavior, beyond being procreative, is the facilitation of the joyous experience of human life born from deep bonding and attachment. Genuine, authentic sexual behavior is covenantal at its core. The two become one flesh as it says in the Bible.

Too often sexual behavior is erotized and the sexual partner is seen as an object to be used for the fulfillment of one's desires. This engagement in sexual behavior denies the inherent worth and dignity of the other and interferes with the experience of the holy to be found in human relationship.

Unitarian Univeralism does not teach that sexual behavior is sinful. Sexual behavior can be misdirected, mistaken, hurtful and harmful, and it can also be fulfilling, enjoyable, and facilitative of human growth and health. Unitarian Univeralism promotes the right use of sexual behavior and guides its members and others in its covenantal enactment in loving relationships.

The unspirituality of self-improvment

Osho says, "Every idea that 'I am' is unspiritual. The idea of the self is unspiritual.

And what is self-cultivation? It is an effort to polish; it is an effort to create a beautiful character, to drop all that is unrespectable and to create all that is respectable." p. 183 "Ah, This!"

Polishing the ego is nonsense. It is a waste of time and effort. In A Course Of Miralces, it is taught that the ego is illusory. It is a figment of our imaginations and a social construction.

In Unitarian Universalism they covenant together to affirm and promote the inherent worth and dignity of every person. This inherent worth and dignity has nothing to do with the ego. The ego has no inherent worth and dignity. It is a mirage. A mirage is not the real deal. A mirage is a hallucination. To polish and improve the image of a mirage is silly, nonsensical, ridiculous. How could an aware, wise person engage in fool's play?

Billions of dollars are spent in the United States and Europe and other First World Countries on self cultivation and self improvement. Self-help books abound. They have become a whole genre of literature and "how-to" videos and programs proliferate.

The emptiness of it all, the vacuousness, the banality is saddening. We are not separate selves. A separate self is not our essential nature, and so we can conclude that we don't know who we are. If we don't have an accurate understanding of who we are, how can we successfully cultivate it?

The project of enlightenment.

Unitarian Universalists covenant together to affirm and promote the inherent worth and dignity of every person. From where does this "worth and dignity" come? Where does it abide?

Osho says, "There is only one sin and that is unawareness, and only one virtue and that is awareness." p.49, "Ah, This!"

The graffiti on the men's room wall over the urinal read, "Be alert! America needs more lerts."

We all struggle with our unconscious. Dr. Freud said people can either talk it out or act it out. People act stuff out all the time unconscious of why they are doing what they are doing. There are sometimes patterns of behavior that are unconscious. There seems to be things that always happen. They make the same mistakes over and over and over again. You know, that thing that they do.

You know that thing that you do. If you don't, ask your partner or your kids or your best friend.

A good spiritual practice is asking for feedback. This requires the person to be open and willing to listen. This is how the blind spots become illuminated, how the unconscious becomes conscious.

To paraphrase Osho, the only sin is not being willing to listen to feedback so that you can illuminate your blind spots and make your unconscious, conscious. The virtue is manifested in listening to feedback, reflecting on it, and if accurate, accepting it, and using it to change, first one's understanding, then one's intention, and then one's behavior.

Enhancing self knowledge is the project of enlightenment.

Love your enemies - how?

In Unitarian Universalism we covenant together to affirm and promote the inherent worth and dignity of every person as well as justice, equity, and compassion in human relations. What does it take to implement and apply these two principles? Ultimately what it takes is forgiveness.

In Murray Bowen's model of family systems, the concept of the cut off is very significant. Bowen's model is trans generational and he points out that cut-offs can go on for generations as was the case of the Capulets and the Montagues in Romeo and Juliet, or the Hatfields and the McCoys here in the United States that lead to the deadly blood feud in which many family members were killed.

Cut-offs, "estrangements," is the more common word, are very common. These estrangements are often bitter, resentful, full of grudges and recrimination, and often vengeance and retribution. Jesus, God bless Him, says that we are to love our enemies. Goodness gracious! How are we to do that? These others are bad, mad, and/or disloyal. How, in God's name, are we suppose to love them?

The first step is to recognize and acknowledge that in spite of the problems, they have inherent worth and dignity. God loves them as part of God's creation as much as God loves us. Hard to believe but true.

The second step is to be kind to them, that is civil and polite, even when we have our differences. This civil and politeness, even if not accepted and reciprocated, is its own reward because we have recognized the divine spark within the other and intentionally have made a decision to join with it.

The third step is to turn our intention over to the Holy Spirit for guidance and correction. At this point, we let go and let God. We do our best and God will do the rest. It is comforting to approach people with compassion and an open heart when our fears lead us to defend ourselves, close off our hearts, and even attack.

In the Christian prayer, the Our Father, we pray in part "...forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us......."

The fourth step is forgiveness, which simply means, to raise above and change our attitude in a loving direction in spite of what we perceive the other person as having done or is doing. Jesus says as the Romans are torturing and crucifying Him, "Father forgive them for they know not what they do." If Jesus can forgive his torturers and executioners as they kill his body, it demonstrates that we, too, are capable of doing the same. They killed Jesus' body, but they couldn't kill His spirit nor can anyone kill yours unless you let them.

"Ain't it awful" or "Isn't it beautiful" - Which path through life?

Unitarian Universalists covenant together to affirm and promote the inherent worth and dignity of every person.

This is a very significant covenant which, if applied, can significantly change lives.

It is fears that lead us to play the victim and see attackers all around us. These perceptions of attack and victimization allow us to play the game of "Ain't it awful."

"Ain't it awful" fuels the media, gossip, our lives, and confirms our misguided belief that we are victims and the world is full of attackers and so can't be trusted. With this belief system we have created hell on earth.

This hell on earth appeases our fears somewhat because it identifies our attackers which identification makes counter attack possible and justifies vengeance which appeases our unconscious guilt for conjuring up such an explanation for our lives to begin with. This explanation is the basis for the path of the ego which we take not knowing we have a choice.

The choice we have is the path of the spirit instead of the ego. The path of the spirit begins with our recognition of, acknowledgement of, and decision to take responsibility for, our own shit. We come to see that in treading the path of the ego we have made this hell up, a hell based on illusions. We understand that we have contributed to the hell of the path of the ego by agreeing to play "Ain't it awful," and we can choose not to play.

The path of the spirit allows us to tread a path of blessings and precious gifts which can delight us and give us peace when we choose to see them in the hearts of our brothers and sisters. We decide to perceive and appreciate the inherent worth and dignity of every person, the "divine spark" which Peace Pilgrim talks about. The divine spark, the inherent worth and dignity is always there in our brothers and sisters, our fears have just blocked our willingness to see what was right there in front of us all the time.

We see what we want to see and we choose the path we want to walk: the path of the ego or the path of the spirit. We can play "Ain't it awful" or " Isn't it beautiful." The path of the ego brings death, and the path of the spirit brings everlasting life.

New Yea's resolution - Practice of miracle mindedness

Unitarian Universalists covenant together to affirm and promote the inherent worth and dignity of every person. Perhaps it would be better if UUs affirmed and promoted the inherent worth and dignity of all Existence. Persons have a tendency to think they are special, and perhaps they are if they are willing to accept that they are special, not alone, but just like everyone else.

There is a danger in UUs first principle if it is not appropriately understood. It does not promote specialness, but rather an understanding of the participation in divine existence. It is this participation in the divine existence which comprises its inherent worth and not just dignity but glory.

What is the self that we protect, defend, enhance at all costs? What is this self which seems to us so special that we lie, cheat, steal, and attack others to enhance and preserve? Is this really the purpose of life not only for our bodies to survive in a dangerous and cut throat world but to thrive if possible?

Thomas Hobbes said, " The life of man is solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short." And believing this we make it so and so it seems to be.

However, this is not the only way of understanding ourselves and the world. We might also become aware of the divine witness which watches all this with first, horror, and then sadness, and finally with amusement when we realize none of it is real but only a drama of illusions which we have created.

This divine witness understands that peace, joy, and bliss come from recognizing the divine essence of ourselves and all of existence and bring our awareness into alignment with Existence's will for us.

Another word for this is Love.

Love does not attack, defend, protect, and separate one's own well being from those of which it perceives itself as being a part. Love extends, supports, nourishes, and facilitates the well being of all Existence.

So this new year will be a year of miracles if you choose to shift your perception from the specialness of the ego to the Oneness of the divine of which, realize it or not, you are a part.

We are not special but gloriously ordinary

Unitarian Universalists covenant together to affirm and promote the inherent worth and dignity of every person. This inherent worth and dignity is not based on any specialness. This inherent worth and dignity is based on intrinsic participation in the divine creation. To be blunt none of us are special but gloriously ordinary. We are simply parts of a whole which is beyond understanding.

Osho has said:
"Everyone belongs to God. There is no other way. We are born in God, we live in God, we die in God. Our energy is God’s energy: God is simply the name of the total energy of existence. But the total is not arithmetical, the total is mysterious. It is not mechanical, it is organic. There is a great difference between these two which needs to be understood."

Osho. First in the Morning: 365 Uplifting Moments to Start the Day Consciously, p.15  Osho Media International.

It is written in A Course In Miracles that the pursuit of specialness is the basis for sin. It is written, "Pursuit of specialness is always at the cost of peace." T-24.II.2:1

The bumper sticker says, "You are unique like everyone else."

Did the bumper sticker make you laugh?

It is written in ACIM "You can defend your specialness, but never will you hear the Voice for God beside it. They speak a different language and they fall on different ears." T-24.II.5:1-2

It is further written in ACIM : "Comparison must be an ego device, for love makes none. Specialness always makes comparisons. It is established by a lack seen in another, and maintained by searching for, and keeping clear in sight, all lacks it can perceive." T-24.II.1:1-3

The Church Lady on Saturday Night Live would say, "Well, aren't you special!" with a sarcastic and condescending tone of voice.

My wife, Angela, and I have nine children. If I were asked, "Which child do you love the most?" I would be perturbed and offended. "I love them all," of course. If God were asked, "Which of your children do you love the most?" what do you think the Creator would say?

Right. He would say like I would, "I love them all."

Further, as Osho says, the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. To love only a part of the whole is to miss bliss for short sighted, momentary pleasure.

What is the purpose of our relationships?

Unitarian Universalists covenant together to affirm and promote the inherent worth and dignity of every person, and justice, equity, and compassion in human relations. UUs also claim that they are not as interested in getting people into heaven as heaven into people. The desire to help people find heaven within them, and among them, requires a skeptical attitude about special relationships and the encouragement of Unconditional Love.

If you have the same dignity and worth as every other human being, how can some be special while others are deemed not worthy?

Love which is conditional is not love. We could call it appreciation, responsibility, obligation, compassion, protection, possessiveness, desire, identification, but not Unconditional Love.

Unconditional Love is a whole other thing and abides in the cosmic consciousness of which we each are a part and from which we have separated ourselves out of fear of the loss of our little egos.

To protect our little egos we strike special bargains with others to give to get. This illusion becomes the basis for our justification for our behaviors. However, ultimately, give to get leaves us broken hearted, disappointed, angry, bitter, and even more fearful. The give to get dynamic of special relationships is no basis for a peaceful and fulfilling life. Special relationships cannot be the basis of our security and well being. And yet we enter into them unwittingly often and it is not until we find ourselves in anguish because of them that we question "what is the purpose of this relationship?"

Indeed, what is the purpose of our relationships?

A human being is a seed of the divine with inherent worth and dignity waiting to germinate

Unitarian Universalists covenant together to affirm and promote the inherent worth and dignity of every person. The question is not whether human beings have inherent worth and dignity but rather whether that inherent worth and dignity is actualized? It is latent, hidden, and must be realized. It is in realizing our latent worth and dignity that is the purpose of religious practice, not belief mind you, but practice. Osho calls this practice "meditation." Now days in some circles, this practice is called "mindfulness." I like to call it, "loving mindfulness."

Osho has said,

"Man is a seed, but just a seed – he is of great potential, but nothing is actual. The seed can die as a seed without ever becoming a tree, without ever coming to flowering. Man is a seed of light. But ordinarily man is not resplendent, man is not luminous, for the simple reason that the shell of the seed is hard and there are no windows. Man remains enclosed in himself; hence the darkness on the faces of people, in their eyes. But if the shell can be broken – and it can be – then great light is released. It is an explosion! That explosion brings ecstasy. That explosion brings you the eternal. That explosion makes you aware of your eternity,

There is no way other than meditation to break the seed. One has to go on hammering with meditation. One never knows how long it will take because each individual is different. No individual is predictable because people have lived different lives in their past and they have accumulated different personalities. A few people have very thin layers: just a little hit is enough, just the shadow of the whip is enough, not even the whip is needed. But a few people are really thick-skinned: unless you go on hammering, their inner light, their inner splendor, cannot be released. And one never knows how thick the layer is.

One thing is certain – it may take a little longer or a little less time, that doesn't matter – the shell of the seed can be broken, the breakthrough is possible. And that is the only hope for man because only through that breakthrough do you become aware that God is. Then life has meaning, significance, beauty, benediction."

Osho. First in the Morning: 365 Uplifting Moments to Start the Day Consciously, p.13

Sinners or innocent? Punishment or correction? Imagine...........

We have been taught in the Christian world that we all are sinners and as sinners we deserve punishment and damnation. Were it not for the death of Jesus that punishment and damnation would be for all eternity.

It is of note that sin calls for punishment nor correction. It is in our fears of one another that we hate each other and conjure up a god who will do our bidding to punish others so that we can pretend we are innocent. We are justified in our hate and punishment because of what we have judged the other to have done.

This thinking is, of course, insane. The creator of the universe has extended the creator's power and glory through us of which we are a blessed manifestation. We have a choice: would we see ourselves as inherently flawed, deficient, and inadequate or inherently innocent, lovely, and blessed? The spiritually mature have chosen the later. It is in this choice that peace and bliss is revealed.

Unitarian Universalists, as an institution, has also chosen the latter embodied in its first of seven principles. We covenant together to affirm and promote the inherent worth and dignity of every person. This is a most significant and awesome principle especially if we take it deeply to heart. As John Lennon sang, just "Imagine."

 

Body or soul: Which is for sale?

The first principle of Unitarian Universalism is to covenant together to affirm and promote the inherent worth and dignity of every person. Are we talking about the body or the soul when we talk about inherent worth and dignity? The mistake is to focus exclusively on the body and forgetting about our souls. This confusion is a major source of anguish and sorrow for us humans.

Who can be safe and secure and at peace who has an enemy? Belief in enemies is to believe in peril, insecurity, and war. This is the situation of most of humanity who sees enemies around every corner, hiding under every tree and stone ready to terrorize and traumatize. This perpetual state of anxiety, this continual war on terror is not the Will of God but a state that humanity has created and imposed on itself. If God's will is something different from what humanity wills for itself, humanity even fears the Will of God which is only for love, peace, and joy, but is opposed to what humanity has been choosing for itself.

Humanity's fears are for its bodies not for its souls. In our spiritual growth we come to understand and appreciate that it is our spirits that matter ultimately not our bodies. Bodies are nothing but organs and molecular structures which are constantly changing and impermanent. Bruce Cockburn sings a song in which the lyric is "there is a day when we all have to be pried loose."

And so we should refocus from our bodies to our souls and consider what, if anything, is the enemy of our souls? Mature souls know that the biggest danger is that we give our soul away or sell our soul to the devil temporarily under we eventually are found again.

We could not survive alone. We need one another.

Unitarian Universalism can be a godless religion. It welcomes atheists, agnostics, humanists, secularists as long as they agree to covenant to affirm and promote UUs seven principles. All of the seven principles are important and perhaps one of the most interesting and the one least understood is the third principle which is "acceptance of one another and encouragement to spiritual growth..." This principle along with the first which is the belief in "the inherent worth and dignity of every person" have no meaning were we not to assume the communal nature of our well being. No person is an island. Homo sapiens could not survive were the members of the species not interdependent on one another for physical, social, emotional, and spiritual development.

The atonement, at-one-ment, is when everybody loves everybody all the time. When you love your brother and sister, their spirit not their body, then Love joins you bringing comfort and peace and joy. These relationships are called "holy", "holy relationships," in A Course In Miracles. ACIM describes "Holy relationships" as God's will. It is stated in ACIM,

"If you attack whom God would heal and hate the one He loves, then you and your creator have a different will. Yet if you are His Will, what you must then believe is that you are not yourself. You can indeed believe this, and you do. And you have faith in this and see much evidence on its behalf. And where, you wonder, does your strange uneasiness, you sense of being disconnected, and your haunting fear of lack of meaning in yourself arise? It is as though you wandered in without a plan of any kind except to wander off, for only that seems certain." T-22.1.1:2-7

One of the slogans in AA, Alcoholics Anonymous, is "You are as sick as your secrets." Our biggest secret, which often is unconscious, is that we care nothing for God's will and just want to be left alone to do our own thing. Even worse, we try to hid from people, and God, what we are doing and what our intentions are because we are ashamed of the secrets we keep and what they will think of us, and do, should they find out. Because of the secrets we keep, we see our brothers and sisters as a threat to our safety and so we lie to them, manipulate them, attack them, and say we hate them. We hate them because of our fears of being found out. This fear of being found out robs us of our peace and joy.

Honesty is the best policy. We should strive for authenticity, genuineness, and sincerity. This striving is manifested in our discerning and attempting to do God's will for us. In the great Christian prayer, the "Our Father," we pray "Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven." When we bring our will into alignment with what believe is God's will for us we experience great peace and joy, and this peace and joy we want to extend to our brothers and sisters. We can say sincerely and with deep genuineness, "Pax vobiscum."

This desire and ability to extend the joy and peace we have achieved through aligning our wills with what we believe is God's will for us is an important indicator of advanced spiritual development.

Clear away the clutter of ego made nonsense and drama to become one with God

The Unitarian Universalist first principle  is the covenant with one another to affirm and promote the inherent worth and dignity of every person. What is that inherent worth and dignity made up from? In the perennial philosophy it is called by many names such as "the ground of our being," the "tao," the "divine spark." Luke Skywalker called it "the force."

It is written in A Course In Miracles, Workbook For Students, Lesson 189,

Today we pass illusions, as we seek to reach to what is true in us, and feel its all-embracing tenderness, its Love which knows us perfect as itself, its sight which is the gift its Love bestows on us. 2 We learn the way today. 3 It is as sure as Love itself, to which it carries us. 4 For its simplicity avoids the snares the foolish convolutions of the world's apparent reasoning but serve to hide.
W-189.7.

Simply do this: Be still, and lay aside all thoughts of what you are and what God is; all concepts you have learned about the world; all images you hold about yourself. 2 Empty your mind of everything it thinks is either true or false, or good or bad, of every thought it judges worthy, and all the ideas of which it is ashamed. 3 Hold onto nothing. 4 Do not bring with you one thought the past has taught, nor one belief you ever learned before from anything. 5 Forget this world, forget this course, and come with wholly empty hands unto your God.

W-189.8. Is it not He Who knows the way to you? 2 You need not know the way to Him. 3 Your part is simply to allow all obstacles that you have interposed between the Son and God the Father to be quietly removed forever. 4 God will do His part in joyful and immediate response. 5 Ask and receive. 6 But do not make demands, nor point the road to God by which He should appear to you. 7 The way to reach Him is merely to let Him be. 8 For in that way is your reality proclaimed as well.

The only thing we have to do to hear God speak to us and to be one with God is to clear away the clutter, the blocks and obstacles to our awareness of God's presence. In Psalm 46, verse 10, it is written, "Be still and know that I am God." In ACIM this is called the Holy Instant. To achieve this on a regular basis takes practice which involves intention and also relaxation in the sense of "letting go" of all the nonsense of the monkey mind. To achieve this state is a sign of highly developed spiritual awareness.

Amen

The "person" is not the body.

In Unitarian Universalism we covenant together to affirm and promote seven principles the first of which is the inherent worth and dignity of every person. The question, of course, is what do we mean by the word "person?" Is the "person" their body or is there more to them than that?

We mistakenly think we are a body and not a part of the mystical body of Christ or a part of the cosmic consciousness or a part of the godhead. We are an extension of the energy and force of the universe. As such we don't die we just change form. The form changes but not the content. We are part of the All and the All is what we are not the body.

This identification with a body degrades our peace. Our ego engenders distress on so many levels in so many areas. The ego creates drama all the time. As a client said to me the other day, "It seems things just keep happening to me. It's one thing after an other!" We laughed. It is funny. The dramas we construct are often incongruous and absurd.

A Course In Miracles teaches that the answer to our lives of drama is to turn them over to the Holy Spirit and ask the Holy Spirit to judge for us, because, if we are honest and being authentic and genuine, what do we know?

A Course In Miracle suggests we say this little prayer:

"Take this from me and look upon it, judging it for me,
Let me not see it as a sign of sin and death, nor use it for destruction.
Teach me how not to make it an obstacle to peace, but
let You use it for me, to facilitate its coming."

The modern day version of this prayer would be:

"Dear Lord, help me! Fuck it. Don't worry, be happy."

How do UUs respond to the racism at Charlottesville with moral authority?

Rev. Marlin Lavanhar at All Soul's Church in Tulsa Oklahoma gave a wonderful sermon on Sunday, 08/20/17 entitled "Charlottesville: It's not so black and white." It is well worth listening to and sharing.




There are many take aways from Rev. Lavanhar's message the most important of which is the importance of nonviolent resistance not something to be done lightly without the knowing possibility of injury and death.

Rev. Lavanhar supports resistance and protest, but also encourages people to be smart about it and prepared.

He also supports the rights of the Nazis and White Supremacists to free speech. As usual the moral calculus isn't always simple but requires thoughtful reflection and then strategic action.

I wished that Rev. Lavanhar might have spent a little time and effort in explicating the moral philosophy of the action he is recommending such as the inherent belief in the inherent worth and dignity of all people. If we truly believe this how does that value inform appropriate action?

People are not their bodies. Focus on the divine spark within them.

The first principle of Unitarian Universalism is to covenant to affirm and promote the inherent worth and dignity of every person. Does this principle refer to the physical body or the spiritual nature of human beings?

People are not bodies. They are so much more. When we are preoccupied with the body we miss the divine spark within each of us. This is the teaching of A Course In Miracles.

And yet, we live in a society very preoccupied with the body. Advertisements bombard us with how to make the body look better, smell better, move better, operate in a healthier way. In this preoccupation with the physical, we overlook the spiritual, the divine spark which is hidden in each of us.

It is written in A Course In Miracles, "Limit your sight of a brother to his body, which you will do as long as you would not release him from it, and you have denied his gift to you." T-15.IX.4:4

John told me that he and his wife Judy rarely had sex anymore because Judy had gained weight after the last child, over 50 lbs. and Judy now weighed over 200 lbs. at 5'6".

"She's a good mom and a good wife, but I find her disgusting to look at and just can't get it up. I've told her she needs to lose weight and all she says to me is, 'I know. I'm trying.' But then no change. This has been going on for 2 years now. We were coasting until she found me looking at pornography and now she says she wants a divorce. Maybe it's for the best, but I don't really want to lose my family."

My heart went out to John but it seemed to me that he has a spiritual problem not a psychological problem. I wondered how I could help him. It seemed that John's values were out of wack. He is more influenced by his physical responses than by his spiritual understandings. I asked, "Do you like Judy as a person? Do you have fun with her doing things? Without friendship, there will be a terrible loneliness in your marriage."

John looked pensive and said, "I might have taken our marriage for granted and we were just going through the motions. Are you saying that I should focus more on enjoying doing things with her and overlooking her physical appearance?"

I replied, "How does that strike you?"

John said, "Like the right thing to do. If I did that I might be happier."

"Focus on the divine spark in Judy and let the rest go and see what happens," I suggested.

John said we would call if he wanted to talk again. When I heard from John a year later he told me that he and Judy were still together, happier than ever, and her weight no longer mattered to him. The funniest thing he said was that now that her weight no longer mattered to him she had lost 30 lbs.

And what is the moral of the story? Leave a comment, will you?

Two types of love: conditional and unconditional. Which do you aspire to?

In Unitarian Universalism the first principle is to covenant to affirm and promote the inherent worth and dignity of every person not just some persons. We are caught up in a hell on earth where we are taught to  love people conditionally and not unconditionally. This idea that people should be loved conditionally is antithetical to our UU faith.

I thought my wife would make me happy, but after five years, I find myself seeking other women. I have been taught in my religious upbringing that this is wrong, but I can't help myself. My psychotherapist tells me this normal, all men do this, it is not unusual to become bored or disenchanted with a relationship when the honeymoon, inevitably, comes to an end. So what can I do? My wife is a good person and I don't want to hurt her, but I don't think I love her anymore.

It is written in A Course In Miracles, "To believe that special relationships, with special love, can offer you salvation is the belief that separation is salvation." T-15.V.3:3 It is not the job or purpose of a relationship with another person that that person make you happy. That person is having a hard enough time making herself happy, let alone taking on the burden of making you happy. Each person must ultimately take the responsibility for his/her own happiness not put the responsibility for that on somebody else. This idea that someone else will make you happy, is suppose to make you happy, is the path to hell.

The spiritual answer to the dilemma is that we are suppose to love everybody unconditionally.  The definition of the At-one-ment is when everybody loves everybody all the time. That is heaven. Anything less is hell. Unfortunately, most of us operate on the level of conditional love. I'll love you if.......

It is a challenging thing to love someone unconditionally and yet it happens, it can happen, when we ask the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Live, our Higher Power for help. In that holy instant when unconditional love occurs we have created heaven on earth and experience bliss.

Focus on your own growth and happiness and forget this idea that someone else will make everything okay for you. This is looking for love in all the wrong places and true love is not to be found in special relationships. Special relationships are part of the curriculum of life to help us learn about love, what it really is, and your disenchantment with the relationship with your wife is a golden opportunity for you to look inward and rise above your own desires for ego gratifications. The spiritual rewards of this path will far outweigh the temporary high of a new infatuation.

Nonbeing is the origin of heaven and earth. Being is the mother of ten thousand things

While "us" and "not us" is biologically programmed into our brains to insure our physical survival on the ego plane, our spiritual survival requires us to transcend this instinct and to recognize that we all one for all and all for one.

This first reflection (on the first principle) entails the tribal history of homo sapiens where one group often perceived other groups as competitors for the scarce resources needed for survival. Some brain scientists theorize that human beings are neurologically programmed to defend and attack the “not us”. 

Religions have thrived on their exclusionary tactics and appeal to humans that they are special while the” not them” are a threat of some sort to be excluded from the circle of the group if not extinguished. 

Jesus taught something very different when He said we should love our enemies. 

Unitarian Universalists affirm and promote something very different when they acknowledge the worth and dignity of every person.

Markham, David. 16 Reflections On The First Principle of Unitarian Universalism (The seven principles of Unitarian Universalism) (Kindle Locations 11-13).  . Kindle Edition. 

Deep down do you feel defective and inadequate or a perfect child of the Spirit Of Life?

The first principle of Unitarian Universalism is covenanting and promoting the inherent worth and dignity of every person. This principle gets marginalized and disparaged in our political society manipulated with wars on terror and attacks on "the other."

This not only a societal problem but starts in our own relationships and in our own homes and in our own hearts.

It is written in A Course In Miracles, "Every decision you make stems from what you think you are, and represents the value that you put upon yourself." T-15.III.3:3

A little further in the same chapter Jesus says, "I asked you earlier, 'Would you be hostage to the ego or host to God.'" T-15.III.5:1

One of the famous verses in the New Testament is the one in Matthew 16:15 where Jesus asks His disciples "Who do you say I am?"

Deep down we all feel defective and inadequate in some way. Our biggest fear is that we are little, small, unworthy. This generates, usually unconsciously, a feeling of shame. We are embarrassed and live with anxiety about being found out, judged, rejected, and abandoned.

It is this deep, innate, sense of inadequacy and defectiveness, which creates our human problems as we try to cover it up, hide it, and attack others before they attack us.

If this entity of defectiveness and inadequacy is who we are afraid we are, we diminish ourselves and don't understand that we are loved unconditionally by the source of our being. We have chosen our defectiveness and inadequacy by separating ourselves from our divine source thinking that we can do things on our own only to discover, as is taught in Alcoholics Anonymous in the first step, that our lives are unmanageable and that we have to turn our life over to our Higher Power and follow God's will not our own.

Patty told me several times over the course of our weekly meetings for six months that she didn't love her husband because he didn't love her but some other woman he had told her he would rather be with. Patty had left for a while with the kids, but finally went back home where her husband continued to pay the bills. He had gone to live with his mother but slowly over several weeks he moved back in after spending a few nights with Patty. He said he cared about the kids but couldn't make a commitment to her and this made Patty, she reported, angry, sad, and confused.

I teased her and said, "Why? What's not to love? You are a good person."

She smiled at me shyly as if she couldn't or wouldn't accept that she could be loved by her husband. She was competitive, jealous, and hateful of this other woman whom she believed her husband loved more than her even though his actions didn't seem to match completely her worse fears.

I said to Patty, "If you don't love yourself, it's hard to believe that he could love you and if you think he does, it is only a matter of time before he becomes disillusioned and disappointed and leaves you for someone else."

She looked at me with a perplexed look and said, "You think I am the one with the problem?"

I said, "No, it's a problem for the whole family because it affects everyone in the family and friends as well, but the only person you can ultimately control and take responsibility for is yourself and I don't think you have a good appreciation of who you really are."

Patty started to weep and I said, "What ever makes you cry, let's talk about in our next meeting."

A Course In Miracles says that we accept too little when we should only accept our magnitude. We are, after all, children of God, and bringing our will into conjunction with God's will for us, we become an unbeatable, unstoppable, glorious dynamic duo with our Creator.

What is a person's basic nature? Are we born with the original blessing or with original sin?

by Susan Schmidt

It is written in A Course In Miracles, "You are a work of God, and His work is wholly lovable and wholly loving. This is how a man must think of himself in his heart, because this is what he is." T-1.III.2:2-4

This statement affirms the idea that human beings are born with an original blessing and are basically good. It is the drama of the ego plane which distorts their perceptions which influences dysfunctional behavior.

As the 4th Tuesday night class emphasizes, the Unitarian Universalist value of the inherent worth and dignity of every person puts UUs at odds with much of the culture they find themselves living in. This has significant implications for a UU way of life which won't be described here at this time but which you can pause and imagine in your own mind. I'm sure, if you are living the first principle, you have your own story of conflict and disagreement with the predominant culture you are living in.

It is written in A Course In Miracles, "As long as a single 'slave' remains to walk the earth, your release is not complete. Complete restoration of the Sonship is the only goal of the miracle-minded." T-1.VII.3:13-14 If we are to take this statement from ACIM seriously, it means that we UUs have a lot of work to do to raise the consciousness of our fellow human beings who are "slaves" to norms and beliefs in our culture which are antithetical to the Atonement. The most important function of UUs in our contemporary world is to witness to the truth, and in this case, the truth which we covenant to affirm and promote is the inherent worth and dignity of every person. Amen! May it be so.