Showing posts with label Principle 6. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Principle 6. Show all posts

Tuesday, January 29, 2019

Today's lesson - Be responsive not reactive by looking at things a different better way.


Today's lesson is number 33 in A Course In Miracles which is "There is another way of looking at the world."

The goal here is to be responsive and not reactive. Don't get your chain yanked. Don't get your buttons pushed. Don't let your goat get gotten.

How?

Back off. Stand down. Take a time out. Change the subject. Walk away. Take a deep breath and say to yourself with a laugh, "There is another way of looking at this shit."

Simply, chill.

You can chill by calming down and "turning it over" as they say in Alcoholic Anonymous. Easy does it. Take things one day at a time or one step at a time or one moment at a time.

Get things in perspective, become objective, and then do the next best right thing.

When you are upset, remind yourself that there is another way of looking at things. Choose again.

Unitarian Universalists covenant together to affirm and promote the goal of world community with peace, liberty, and justice for all. UUs believe that there is another way of looking at the world than the path of the ego would have us believe.

Wednesday, August 29, 2018

John McCain disrespects American's rights to free speech calling them "low life scum."

In 2015 when John McCain was the Chairman of the Senate Armed Services committee, he called protesters, exercising their first amendment right of free speech, "low life scum" and threatened to have them arrested if they didn't get out of his hearing.

With this behavior, McCain presaged Donald Trump's bullying and abusive behavior in American government activities



Senator McCain's behavior toward American's right to free speech at a Senate Armed Forces Committee hearing violates the Unitarian Univeralist fifth principle of the right to conscience and the use of the democratic process.

The video clip is from Democracy Now! on 08/27/18.

Friday, March 30, 2018

Unitarian Universalists are a group of well wishers for the world

Unitarian Universalists covenant together to affirm and promote the goal of world community with peace, liberty, and justice for all. This is the sixth of seven principles with which UUs covenant. With this principle, UUs are called to be "well wishers." Our ministry is to wish our fellow sentient beings well.

When we wish someone well, we benefit whether the wish is of help to the person or not.

A gift is not given with results guaranteed. It is the thought and intention that counts. What happens after that is out of the giver's control.

Wishes well meant are never wasted though they may lie dormant until the receiver is ready to accept what has been offered.

Well wishes and actions last forever on the path of the spirit. They are from the Divine spark within the giver to the Divine Spark in the intended receiver, and an attempt at joining and becoming One has occurred. This attempt at building the At-one-ment is never wasted. The gift is not given to impose or imprison but to liberate, and is sometimes perceived as a threat and distrusted. It is best, then, to turn the outcome of the wishes over to the Higher Power to do with them as is Wished.

It is in relinquishing control over the outcome of the wishes well meant that the true meaning of the gift is fulfilled for in maintaining some control and expectation the gift was never wholly given.

Wishes for well being are never wasted even if sometimes defensively dismissed or even twisted into an attack. If this occurs, forgiveness is suggested and the continuation on the path of the spirit by the well wisher.

The law of karma teaches us that we get what we give, we learn what we teach, as we sow we will reap. The walk with Love is a path of unconditional well wishing which brings peace, and bliss.

Friday, December 29, 2017

The UU goal is peace, liberty, and justice for all. How are we doing?

Do UUs, as a group, tend to experience abundance or deprivation? Do they tend to live in heaven or hell? They covenant together to affirm and promote the goal of world community, liberty, and justice for all. To what extent are UUs making progress towards their goal?

People have a choice: gratitude or complaint, blessing or curse, enough or deprivation. It is a matter of the mind not of circumstances. The richest person in the world is the one for whom whatever they have is enough. The poorest person in the world is the one for whom anything is never good enough.

What kind of a person do you intend to be? The spiritual person is the first and lives in heaven and the deprived person who is unspiritual lives in hell.

This existential awareness is simple. Which do you choose: gratitude or deprivation?

Sunday, September 10, 2017

Could forgiveness be a practice in Unitarian Universalism to bring us to Love?

George you asked me what my most important spiritual practice is and I told you forgiveness. You asked me how that practice is engaged in. This is an excellent question and worth exploring because forgiveness is both the easiest thing in the world and the most difficult.

Forgiveness is difficult because our ego wants to hold on to resentments, grudges, and grievances because these negative feelings makes us feel more powerful, confident, and justified. Also, our grievances are embedded in our fears of being hurt again and still feeling wounded from past hurts. The ego thinks the way to rectify injustice and hurt is vengeance. As Gandhi said, "An eye for an eye makes us both blind."

There also is a misguided belief that vengeance is a deterrent to others committing future injustices. However, psychological and sociological research has demonstrated repeatedly that threats of vengeance do not deter the commitment of future injustice but seem to increase it. The explanation of this phenomenon can be based on the idea of separation in A Course In Miracles. Vengeance, engaged in or threatened increases separation and decreases the union of the Sons of God with each other and with their Creator. Perceiving the perpetrator as "the other" " and "not like us" makes it easier to engage in violent thoughts, words, and behavior.

What repairs separation and restores relationship and reunion is forgiveness. These principles are the basis of a model of conflict and criminal justice resolution called restorative justice. Restorative justice is another topic for another time so let is suffice for this letter to continue to focus on the idea of forgiveness.

Forgiveness is the letting go of the negative hurts of the past which are no longer present in the now except in our fantasies. These fantasies are comprised of what evil we think has been done to us. Our thoughts about this evil is based on our fears and these are based on fears for the body because nothing can harm our spirit without our cooperation and acceptance of the false belief in our spiritual harm. Who can harm us spiritually unless we believe this can be done? Jesus, as he is being executed, says, "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do." It's as if Jesus is laughing at the absurdity of the idea that his executioners could rid the world of His ideas and love by killing His body. Didn't work, did it, George? Jesus' love and ideas are still here over 2000 years later. The attempt of evil to extinguish Jesus's love of God and us, His brothers and sisters, didn't work. What do you make of that? Seems miraculous doesn't it?

Forgiveness, George, is simply the rising above the physical, ego plain, and deciding to focus on the here and now reality of the spiritual plain which is the dimension of life which entails God's love and the union of the Sons and Daughters of the Spirit of Life. Where would you rather dwell, George, in the land of anguish, suffering, and victimhood, or the land of peace, contentment, joy and beloved son or daughter of creation?

The most important part of the practice of forgiveness George is to, as they say in AA, turn it over to your Higher Power, whatever you conceive your Higher Power to be. The other saying I like from AA is "Let go and let God." If Jesus can say as they are killing Him, "Father, forgive them for they know not what they do," why can't we do the same thing?

Forgiveness, as a spiritual practice, is just that, "a practice." We have to practice forgiveness. Some days we do better at it than others, but the key is patience and persistence. It usually takes repeated attempts to rise above past hurts and injustice and to focus in the here and now.

It is a disappointment that Unitarian Universalism does not articulate a practice of forgiveness more explicitly like other religions do. UU does not have rituals of confession, repentance, exoneration, and redemption and we are the poorer for it. Historically, especially in the Universalist tradition, there was a belief in the unconditional love of the creator and being loved unconditionally why would forgiveness even be necessary since sin is not seen as real or having a significance for eternal well being.

Martin Luther King, Jr. said "Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that."

Bottom line, George, is to strive to live in the light, and to do that we must tune into Creations love for us so we can extend it to others. As UUs we covenant together to promote and affirm the goal of world community with peace, liberty, and justice for all. I think for UUs and others to practice this principle we must learn how to love and this requires the removal of the barriers and obstacles to our awareness of Love's presence and that removal is best accomplished through forgiveness.

Love,

Uncle David
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