Showing posts with label Principle 3. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Principle 3. Show all posts

Thursday, December 19, 2019

Daily reflections, Day Twenty one - Accept and love one another

Day Twenty one
Accept and love one another



“A miracle is a service. It is the maximal service you can render to another. It is a way of loving your neighbor as yourself. You recognize your own and your neighbor’s worth simultaneously.” ACIM, T-1.1.18:1-4

The miracle is a shift in perception from the world of the ego to the world of Spirit, from the world of fear to the world of Love.

This shift in perception is first done for oneself for without this shift in self perception, there can be no shift in perception of the other who is part of oneself. In other words, we must love God first, then ourselves, and then a miracle occurs in our perception of others whom we perceive as being of the same stuff of which we ourselves are made, and of God from Whom we are extensions.

Unitarian Universalists covenant together to affirm and promote an acceptance of one another and encouragement to spiritual growth.

Today, remember from whence we have come and extend our awareness of this Love to others by paying attention to them, listening to them, and loving them.

Monday, December 16, 2019

Daily relfections, Day Twenty, Reach out and touch someone

Day Twenty
Reach out and touch someone

“Miracles are teaching devices for demonstrating it is as blessed to give as to receive. They simultaneously increase the strength of the giver and supply strength to the receiver.” ACIM, T-1.1.16:1-2

Are we separate or all part of the same Oneness? Some say that humanity is the Body of Christ. If we all are extensions of Love, then we share the same being. If we share the same being, what we do to a perceived other we do to ourselves. When we share, both the sharer and the person shared with are strengthened and blessed. This joining in Oneness, simply put, is a miracle.

There are many examples of the enrichment that comes from sharing such as telling a joke, singing in a duet, a quartet, a chorus, working with another, or many others, on any project. There is an Irish proverb:, “Many hands make light work.”

Back in the 1970s Bell telephone had a commercial which suggested that we “reach out and touch someone.”

As Unitarian Universalists we covenant together to affirm and promote the inherent worth and dignity of every person, and to accept one another and encourage each others spiritual growth.

Today, facilitate a miracle happening by sharing yourself with another in loving kindness in some small way.



Sunday, August 11, 2019

A Couse In Miracles and Unitarian Universalism - What kind of day do you want?


This section of  A Course In Miracles, reads, “But think about the kind of day you want, and tell yourself there is a way in which this very day can happen just like that. Then try again to have the day you want.” T-30.1.1:8-9

You might be thinking, “What kind of psychobabble is this? It sounds like the power of positive thinking.”


From A Course In Miracles commentary by David G. Markham, Chapter 30, I.Rules For Decision

Unitarian Universalists covenant together to accept one another and encourage each other's spiritual growth. To what extent is this happening in your congregation?

Tuesday, June 25, 2019

A Course In Miracles and Unitarian Universalism - In what do you place your faith?

From A Course In Miracles:

T-21.II.9. We have already said that wishful thinking is how the ego deals with what it wants, to make it so.

There is no better demonstration of the power of wanting, and therefore of faith, to make its goals seem real and possible.

Faith in the unreal leads to adjustments of reality to make it fit the goal of madness.

The goal of sin induces the perception of a fearful world to justify its purpose. What you desire, you will see. And if its reality is false, you will uphold it by not realizing all the adjustments you have introduced to make it so.

Schucman, Dr. Helen. A Course in Miracles (p. 450). Foundation for Inner Peace.

Comment:

How we wish for things. We have our hearts set on what we think must be so, ought to be so, should be so.

The old saying is, "Be careful what you wish for, you just might get it." We wish for all kinds of things which the world of the ego has told us will make us happier, safer, more attractice to others, more loved, smarter, more successful, etc.

When things don't seem to be working out we become frustrated, angry, resentful, afraid, embarassed, depressed, anxious, and we start treating these symptoms with chemicals like alcohol, drugs, medications, sex, gambling, video games, Facebook, religion, work, sex, food.

Sin is the separation from God, from the Oneness, and this induces guilt because unconsciously we think God will punish us for our separation and desire to be the boss of ourselves and our own lives. Our Universalist faith teaches us that God loves us uncondtionally and just laughs at our wilful insanity like a parent might laugh at a child engaged in childish activity.

Addiction is defined as "doing the same thing over and over hoping for a different result." And the Course asks us, "Would you rather be right or be happy."

Unfortunately, most of us would rather be right and we defend the misguided beliefs, values, practices that we hold dear.

What is called for is placement of our faith in the path of the spirit and not in the path of the ego. This means we look within and "get right with ourselves." This means being honest, being genuine, authentic, sincere, once again innocent.

Jesus has told us that unless we become as little children we cannot enter the kingdom of heaven. What Jesus is talking about is a remembering our innocense before the world of the ego corrupted us misleading us to put our faith in things that could never make us happy. The belief in the power of immaginary things to provide us with a deep seated fulfillment and satisfaction is barkinig up the wrong tree. We have put our faith in the wrong things and the wrong place.

The third principle of Unitarian Universalism asks us to affirm and promote the free and responsible search for truth and meaning. Are you looking in the right place?.

Monday, June 10, 2019

Let your love flow.

The third principle/value of Unitarian Universalism is "Acceptance of one another and encouragement to spiritual growth in our congregations." So I offer this brief meditation.

We are all part of the ONE. We are all part of LIFE whatever we conceptualize and understand LIFE to be. LIFE flows. Things are born; things die. The moon waxes and wanes. The tide come in and go out. Night turns into day, and day turns into night again. Things differentiate and articulate, and then dissolve, evaporate, and absorb back again into the all. We are drops of the great ocean of LIFE. It is a mystery................ Relax, go with the ride, as the Desiderata says:

You are a child of the universe,
no less than the trees and the stars;
you have a right to be here.
And whether or not it is clear to you,
no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.
Therefore be at peace with God,
whatever you conceive Him to be,
and whatever your labors and aspirations,
in the noisy confusion of life keep peace with your soul.


Let your love flow by the Bellamy Brothers

Friday, March 22, 2019

Today's lesson - Let your little light shine along with the Tao of Creation.


Today's lesson is number 73 in A Course In Miracles which is "I will there be light."

The "light" being referred to comes from within not from without.

The "light" is the holiness that you have forgotten is the essence of your being.

We access this light when we bring our will into alignment with God's will for me and God's  creation.

In Unitarian Univeralism, this light is the awarenss of our innate holiness and what Universalists teach is universal salvation. This salvation is Unconditional Love of creation.

Unitarian Univeralists recognize this light in all of God's creation when they covenant together to affirm and promote their third principle which is the acceptance of another and encouragement to spiritual growth in our congregations and throughout all of God's creation.

Our mission statement at UU A Way of Life ministries is to "sanctify the world by helping people become aware of their holiness." One way of pursuing this mission is to recognize, acknowledge, and extend the light with us based on our Oneness with the Tao and flowing with Our will for creation.

This practice involves giving up our grievances and sense of victimhood. We are presented with forgivness opportunities many times duing the day when we can choose either the darkness, resentments, anger, bitterness, and fear of the path of the ego, or the light, remembrance, joy, and peace of the Tao.




Sunday, February 24, 2019

Today's lesson - Unitarian Univeralism: a path of holiness,


Today's lesson is based on lesson 51 in A Course In Miracles which is a review of the first five lessons: "Nothing I see means anything; I have given what I see all the meaning it has for me; I do not understand anything I see; These thoughts do not mean anything; and I am never upset for the reason I think."

The Course teaches that perception is projection. We see what we believe we are going to see. Thus, what we think we see are illusions, are projections, are biases, are what psychologists call "selective perception." This is a hard idea to understand because on the path of the ego we believe that seeing is believing when it is really the other way around, believing is seeing. This idea of perception being the result of projection is what the Course calls "wrong minded." We have separated ourselves from the nondualistic Oneness of God by breaking up what we think is reality into billions of parts. Walking the path of the ego is the equivalent of the "Big Bang."

The Course is teaching that we have a decison making mind and that once we realize that perception is projection, that we just make shit up, we can choose  a better way, or the "right mind." The right mind we think with God which is unconditional Love for all of creation. We learn that there is one for all and all for one. The Course calls this "vision" as distinguished from "seeing." When we align our thoughts and beliefs with the nonjudgmental, unconditonal Love of God, we are walking the path of the spirit instead of the path of the ego.

In Unitarian Univeralism we covenant together to affirm and promote seven principles which help us to walk on the path of the spirit right mindedly and engage in the vision with God. There are other ways to engage in the vision with the mind of God and yet, for some, Unitarian Univeralism implementing its third principle of acceptance of one another and encouragement to spiritual growth, is a helpful strategy to become aware of one's holiness and the holiness of others. It is in this encouragement to spiritual growth and awareness that Unitarian Univeralism carries out its mission to sanctify the world.

Wednesday, January 2, 2019

Is it all good?


The gentle and weak live long.
The hard and stiff are brittle, fragile, and easily break.

Going with the flo is life giving.
Damning the river creates pressure and stress.

Jesus said, "The first shall be last, and the last shall be first."
He was talking about Love and domination.

The loving are patient, flexible, gentle, accomodating.
The dominant pressure, obstruct, punish, demand.

Unitarian Universalists know that their covenant requires respect, acceptance, and encouragement of others. UUs know that curiosity liberates while certainty deadens. UUs know that everything has a place in the interdependent web of existence. UUs say joyfully, "Even in pain and suffering, it's all good."


Saturday, December 22, 2018

Does our society care more about money than people?


"Our country’s problems go deeper than economics, said David Brooks in The New York Times. We’ve had 10 years of economic expansion, and the GDP is currently growing at a robust 3.5 percent a year. Yet many employers can’t find workers with necessary skills, and jobs that provide dignity and middle-class wages are dwindling. Millions of people suffer “a crisis of connection.” In many rural and working-class communities, people are no longer involved in churches and community organizations; they’re less likely to know their neighbors and less likely to get married. “It’s not jobs, jobs, jobs” or better welfare programs that will save us from this ongoing “social catastrophe.” It’s human relationships, and a society that cares about people more than money."

From The Week, December 14,2018, p.17

Unitarian Universalists covenant together to affirm and promote the acceptance of one another and encouragement to spiritual growth.

Monday, December 17, 2018

Should we take people where they're at?


As a Social Worker I was taught to have a non-judgmental attitude. Dr. Maureen Didier taught us to "take the client where they're at, not where you want them to be, not where you think they should be, you have to take them where they're at." Carl Rogers taught counseling psychologists that one of the therapeutic factors in a psychotherapeutic relationship is "unconditional positive regard." 

Tonight, in my evening prayers I read in the Manual for Teachers in A Course In Miracles "God’s teachers do not judge. To judge is to be dishonest, for to judge is to assume a position you do not have. Judgment without self-deception is impossible.” M-4.III.1:1-4

Among the characteristics of a Teacher of God is tolerance and by tolerance is meant a non-judgmental attitude.
The third principle upon which Unitarian Univeralists base their covenant is to affirm and promote acceptance of one another and encouragement to spiritual growth in our congregations. Perhaps this acceptance and encouragement to spiritual growth should be practiced every where not just in UU congregations.

Thursday, November 8, 2018

What is the purpose of our lives?

Schooling focuses on learning about the world.
Education focuses on learning about oneself.

Self knowledge is what makes a person wise. It is this wisdom which is eternal and does not die,

Mastering others is a fool's quest that does damage and inflicts harm.
In AA the slogan is "Take your own inventory not everyone else's."

In Unitarian Univeralism we covenant together to affirm and promote the acceptance of one another and encouragement to spiritual growth. This is the purpose of our lives and the mission of our faith.


Monday, November 5, 2018

How do UUs influence change?


Only the stupid and desperate try to change things by force from the top down.

The wise and patient change things subtly, gently from the bottom up.

Force leads to resistance.

Gentleness leads to flexibility.

Those with an ego who change things by force boast.

Those on the path of the spirit change things gently and praise God.

Unitarian Universalists covenant together to affirm and promote the acceptance of one another and encouragement to spiritual growth in their congregations and throughout their communities. Acceptance implies inclusion, even of diversity, and rather than a melting pot, UUs make a beautiful mosaic of a tossed salad.


Thursday, November 1, 2018

All Saints Day, November 1, 2018

Today, November 1, is All Saints Day. It is a day celebrated in the Catholic church since the seventh century. It is one of those holy days which is celebrated here at UU A Way Of Life of Ministries where our mission is to santify the world by helping people become holy. There are many holy people who have gone before us and who are here  with us now.

People who have achieved holiness are people who have awakened and who have walked, or are walking, on the path of the spirit instead of the ego. These people radiate joy and peace and empathy for others.

Who are the holy people in your life you have learned from and benefited from knowing?

The holiest person I have known is Rev. Edward J. Lintz, the pastor at the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary Roman Catholic Church in Brockport, NY in the 60s and 70s.

People with holiness function with integrity. They are authentic, genuine, honest, fair, and nonjudgmental. These people give us love and hope and a sense of reassurance that there is goodness in the world.

The third principle of our Unitarian Univeralist covenant is the acceptance of one another and encouragement to spiritual growth which is something we aspire to do every day at UU A Way of Life ministries where our UU covenant based on our seven principles is not just pious words but a way of life. It is in daily living this life that we intend to become holy.


Thursday, October 11, 2018

Do you live a life of primal virtue?

Back in the 60s we boomers talked about whether people had "their shit together." Psychologists talk about the "well integrated personality."

In the 60s when we met someone we noticed whether we got "good vibes" or "bad vibes." The Beach Boys even had a hit song named "Good Vibrations."

Do we walk though the world, our lives, with grace?

The Tao Te Ching in chapter ten asks:

"Understanding and being open to all things,
are you able to do nothing?"

And then it follows with:

"Giving birth and nourishing,
Bearing yet not possessing,
Working yet not taking credit,
Leading yet not dominating,"

The last verse states - "This is primal virtue."

Do Unitarian Univeralists practice primal virtue? Is this ideal a part of their faith?

Unitarian Univeralists covenant together to affirm and promote the responsible search for truth and meaning which requires them, if they seriously live their faith, to proceed in their lives with immense curiosity which gives birth and nourishes 10,000 ideas and questions.

Unitarian Univeralists covenant together to affirm and promote justice, equity, and compassion in their human relations which requires them, if they seriously live their faith, to bear and not possess, and work and yet not take credit.

Unitarian Univeralists covenant together to affirm and promote the acceptance of one another and encouragement to spirital growth which requires them, if they seriously live their faith, to lead and yet not dominate.

Unitarian Univeralists who covenant together to affirm and promote their seven principles, serioulsy living their faith, continually live lives of what the Tao Te Ching calls "primal virtue." The more successful practitioners of the faith are, the more they have their shit together and exude good vibrations.



Saturday, September 15, 2018

UUAWOL ministries index - believers in God in U.S.



  • percentage of Americans who say they believe in "the God of the Bible" = 56
  • percentage of Americans who say they believe in "some higher power" = 33
Unitarian Univeralists covenant together to affirm and promote the acceptance of one another and encouragement to spiritual growth

Monday, September 10, 2018

What is shifting in crisis that is a spiritual awakening?

Steve Taylor in his book, The Leap, describes different kinds of awakening. People can awaken in different ways. Some awakeners are natural born, some awaken gradually, and some awaken suddenly in a crisis which Taylor calls "the shifters." Shifters are people who awaken in response to a crisis. They are people who are sometimes referred to has having a conversion experience, or a nervous break down, or have been traumatized.

The crisis precipitating an awakening can be a near death experience, an unexpected death of a loved one, a health crisis, even the loss of a job or a natural disaster. The purification, and renunciation are imposed on the person due to the external circumstances of the crisis. However, the tendency toward ethical behavior, service, and meditation were there all along. So while the awakening appears to be sudden due to external circumstances, the soil was fertile and the seeds already there. Here, at UUAWOL ministries, we call this shift, "the dawning." It dawns on people as a result of the crisis that they can not go on living the way they have been, that there must be a better way. And with this dawning the search begins.

With the awakening of the shifters, there is a clear demarcation of the before and after. After the shift, the awakened person will say that their lives will never be the same again. They can't go back to their pre-shift state. They are living in the new normal.

Unitarian Univeralism and most religions have little to say about this kind of crisis precipitated shift in consciousness. It is seen more as a psychological phenomenon than a spiritual one and yet for the individual living through the experience it clearly is felt as spiritual and they are less aware of psychological changes.

Unitarian Univeralists covenant together to affirm and promote the acceptance of one another and encouragement to spiritual growth but, as a practical manner, does very little to recognize, acknowledge, and support the awakening process in these kinds of situations other than, perhaps, with pastoral care if the pastor is at an advanced stage of spiritual development his/her self.

Here at UUAWOL ministries our mission is to sanctify the world by helping people to become holy and we recognize that crises in people's lives, while unexpected and full of alarm and suffering, can also be the catalyst for spiritual transformation in individuals who are ready for it. We also recognize that there may be many such souls among us who have kept their experiences private for fear of not being understood or their experience as being misconstrued. The enactment of the third principle calls us to nonjudgmental attendance to the sharing of one another's experience.



Sunday, September 9, 2018

UUAWOL ministries index


  • There are 51 million Catholics in the U.S. which is equal to what percentage of the U.S. population = 21%
  • The percentage which Catholicism dropped of the U.S. population between 2007 and 2014 = 24% - 21%
  • Percentage of the U. S. population who are former Catholics = 13%
  • Percentage of the U. S. population who have converted to Catholicism = 2%
  • Ratio of Catholic drop outs to Catholic converts = 6.5:1
I am a Roman Catholic Unitarian Univeralist and there are many like me. I call myself a "Roman Catholic Unitarian Universalist because the Unitarian Universalists will accept me while if I called myself a Unitarian Univeralist Roman Catholic, the Roman Catholics would not.

The third principle of Unitarian Univeralism is to affirm and promote the acceptance of one another and encouragement to spiritual growth in our congregations.

Sunday, August 19, 2018

When it comes to spiritual consciousness are most Americans asleep?

The mission of UU A Way Of Life ministries is to sanctify the world by helping people become holy. Most people are spiritually asleep when it comes to their spiritual consciousness. The third principle of Unitarian Universalism is to convenant together to affirma and promote ..."encouragement to spiritual growth..."

The perennial psychology distinguishes between the states of human consciousness as asleep and awake. Most human beings spend most of their lives with their consciousness asleep. Steve Taylor describes the sleep state of consciousness in his book, The Leap, as having four categories of signs and symptoms: affective, perceptual, conceptual and behavioral. We will be taking these categories of signs and symptoms of a sleeping consciousness one at a time. In this article we will describe the signs and symptoms of the affective category. These signs and symptoms of the affective category are not in any particular order.

First, there is a feeling of separation and disconnection from the ground of our being, from a holistic appreciation of existence itself. The biggest problem according to social psychologists in our current times in spite of social media is loneliness. There is a sense of fragmentation. Of things not filling together and being connected in a harmonious ways. The biggest fear we all experience, manifested in a multitude of ways, is abandonment and neglect. Our biggest fear is being unloved. Our anxiety and level of alarm is always at at a low level. It is the back ground noise of our lives.

Second, there is what Taylor calls "thought chatter," the buddhists call "monkey mind," and the psychologists call "rumination." These constant thoughts keep us awake at night and even if we fall asleep exhausted, we wake up in the middle of the night, when the worries take us over again and prevent us from going back to sleep. We deal with this thought chatter by keeping busy and distracting ourselves with sensory excitement whether it is shopping, sports, sex, gambling, workaholism, religion, food, substances, and what we used to call "the hustle."

Third, there is what Taylor calls "abstraction" which he describes as "Rather than live in the world, we live in our minds." or what we might call in our internet age "virtual reality." Our own reality is depressing, boring, upsetting, and so we create and construct virtual realities to live and operate in. This is much more easily done in our internet age with compulsive use of social media and "surfing the web" in a mindless fashion to entertain ourselves or, at least, dull the pain.

Fourth, there is anxiety and discontent. The biggest psychiatric problem in the United States are anxiety disorders and depression for which millions of dollars of medications are prescribed per year. Taylor writes, "In our sleep state there's a sense of fear. Our separateness creates a sense of vulnerability and insecurity, of being threatened by the world and other people."  Our constant use of media, entertainment, and advertising magnifies our sense of vulnerability and insecurity. Mother Teresa said, The greatest disease in the West today is not TB or leprosy; it is being unwanted, unloved, and uncared for. We can cure physical diseases with medicine, but the only cure for loneliness, despair, and hopelessness is love. There are many in the world who are dying for a piece of bread but there are many more dying for a little love. The poverty in the West is a different kind of poverty -- it is not only a poverty of loneliness but also of spirituality. There's a hunger for love, as there is a hunger for God.”

Mother Teresa's comment that the U.S. is materially very rich, but spiritually very poor might lead one to the conclusion that most Americans are asleep when it comes to spiritual consciousness.



Saturday, August 18, 2018

How does a person awaken?

Unitarian Univeralists covenant together to affirm and promote the acceptance of another and encouragement to spiritual growth. What is this "spiritual growth" to which the principle refers? In the perennial psychology the epitome of spiritual growth is called enlightnement or awakening.

How does a person achieve enlightenment or awaken? According to Steve Taylor in his book, The Leap, there are three ways: a small number of people are born awake (They have been called "old souls"), some awaken gradually, and some awake in a miraculous moment often induced in a crisis.

The greatest number of people reaching enlightenment are probably in category two, the gradual awakeners. These are people who engage in spiritual practices such as prayer, fasting, meditation, community service in mindful ways, spiritual reading, etc.

Awakening has several associations in psychology such as emotional intelligence and Murray Bowen's concept of "differentiation." Both EQ and differentiation require self knowledge, self control, motivation, empathy, and social skills (interpersonal connections called in religious language agape or love).

The first two aspects of EQ: self knowledge and self control get the biggest focus in religious practices. Shedding the ego, undoing social conditioning, leaving the path of the ego to enter onto the path of the spirit, is the road to enlightenment.


Wednesday, August 8, 2018

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.


Print Friendly and PDF