Study guides for the seven principles available.

Need books for your book discussion group, adult education, or workshop presentations this church year? Check out Dave Markham's books available at Amazon.com.

There are two books on books God Revised, revised which reviews Rev. Guengerich's book God Revised, and a Critical Reading of Flight Behavior by Barbara Kingsolver.

There are two books so far in the series on the seven principles. Books are available on the first two principles which come with discussion questions after the reflections.

All of the these books would be great for group discussions. Check them out.

Books of interest to UUs and others

Check out Markham's Behavioral Health

Check out

Markham's Behavioral Health

A confluence of topics dealing with mental health, substance abuse, health, public health, Social Work, education, politics, the humanities, and spirituality at the micro, mezzo, and macro levels.

 In short, this blog is devoted to the improvement of the quality of life of human beings in the universe.

http://markhamsbehavioralhealth.blogspot.com

Click here.

This road will take you closer to the moon

I just love Linda McCullough Moore's writing and her book of short stories, "This Road Will Take You Closer To The Moon" is a gem. The title story describes a Thanksgiving back at home with her mother 20 years after her father has died with her three siblings and nieces and nephews. She describes the typical regression to sibling dynamics of their youth and the interaction with her nieces and nephews one of which, Molly, asks the narrator, Aunt Margaret, to turn a few times returning from the Thanksgiving buffet the whole family has attended which Aunt Margaret obligingly does as little Molly explains the reason for the request as "this road will take us closer to the moon."

The story is one of nostalgia and it is told with dark humor which I love. If there is a moral to the story it is that life, with its better and worse moments, is precious. You either laugh or cry. And I, the reader, does as I benefit from the story of Aunt Margaret's family visit at Thanksgiving.

Whose is the earth?

Climate disruption will hit the poor first and the hardest. Are we ready?

Disruption - Official Trailer from Watch Disruption on Vimeo.

What will we as Unitarian Universalists do to help when the climate disruption hits the poor first and the hardest? Are we ready? How can we prepare?

What kind of meaning is most meaningful for you?

When we consider what a free and responsible search for truth meaning is we have to assume as Dennis Ford points out in his book, The Search For Meaning, that the meaning offered in our culture is no longer persuasive or satisfying, in other words, we aren't buying it, and that living without meaning is not acceptable.

The existentialists have been telling us for decades that life is meaningless and God is dead. The existentialists argue that there is no inherent meaning in life for us to discover, but rather the meaning of life is whatever we want to make it. It's on us. God is dead because the myths that traditional religion has been selling about God are no longer believed and don't work any more to help us create satisfying and fulfilling lives.

In this 21st century, for those in the advanced stages of faith development, meaning is no longer satisfying settling for just buying more stuff and keeping up with the Joneses, vicariously living meaningful lives through our children's achievements, investing ourselves in the fan club of our favorite sport teams or celebrities, drinking, drugging, gambling, pursuing promiscuous sex, eating ourselves to greater and greater levels of obesity, giving our lives over to some corporation where we can work for 40 years to receive a gold watch at the end of our sentence.

The disenchanted usually become anxious and depressed and seek solace from their primary care physician who will prescribed psychotropic drugs to ease the symptoms of the dis-ease. And then there are those who turn to religion or what today they call "spirituality but not religious." There are those who look for guides and more actively engage in a search and those who just coast through life taking it a day at a time and living as if it were a do-it-yourself project.

For those who investigate Unitarian Universalism they receive permission and encouragement to engage in the search itself but that's about it. There is little guidance offered other than referrals to the six sources and joining groups where other seekers supposedly seek too and share anecdotes of the views from their experience traveling through life. The professional ministerial staff if there is one are not people of God, holy people, but rather professional hand holders who are more like the stewards and stewardess of an airplane that the pilot steering a plane to a previously agreed to destination.

The key to the answer of what will make me happy, how can I create a  happy life that is satisfying and fulfilling, is within not without. Jesus is clear about this when He tells us in Luke 17:21, "The Kingdom of God is within you." To what extent does Unitarian Universalism help us with the inward search?

Osho has said,

 "Man can live in two ways: either he can live according to the dictates of others - puritans, the moralists - or he can live according to his own light. It is easy to follow others, it is convenient and comfortable, because when you follow others they feel very good and happy with you.
     Your parents will be happy if you follow their ideas, although their ideas are absolutely worthless because their ideas have not made their lives illuminated, and it is so apparent. They have lived in misery, still they want to impose their ideas on the children. They cannot see a simple fact: that their life has been a failure, that there life has not been creative, that their life has never tasted bliss, that they have not been able to discover truth. They have not known the splendor of existence, they have no idea what it is all about. Still, their egos insist that the children should be obedient; they should follow their dictates."

How do you help people become a light unto themselves? Isn't this what the fourth principle is encouraging? And yet no method is provided. No field manual. No map. People are left to wander. The simple answer to the question is, as Dr. Freud taught us in the 20th century, to make the unconscious conscious. Socrates put it simply 2,000 years earlier "an unexamined life is not worth living", and yet how many people live examined lives in your observation? How does Unitarian Universalism help people live examined lives? How does Unitarian Universalism help us make the unconscious conscious.

Life has meaning of all kinds for all kinds of people in all kinds of cultures in every period of history since homo sapiens evolved into conscious, reflective creatures. The huge question is what kind of meaning is most meaningful for you in your life when and how?

What is the story of your life?

Linda McCullough Moore begins her story, Four Kinds Of People, in her book of short stories, This Road Will Take Us Closer To The Moon with these sentences: 

"I'm sitting in the late afternoon of my existence at Logan Airport reading the fine print on the backside of my boarding pass when my life walks in. Well, one of my lives, my former life. Carlton."

"The wife - I'll call her Mary Ann - asks him how long the layover in Charlotte is. He asks her how the hell would he know. Still the charmer."

"Are those your boys?" I say to Mary Ann.
No, we rented them for the trip. I make the only interesting reply.

"Are you married?" she asks me.
"Not at the moment, but I have high hopes for the thousand priests at Myrtle Beach."
"Oh," she says as though she has some clue what that might mean. I start to explain, but then think better of it. There are about four people in the world who are interested in the difference between Catholic and Episcopalian priests and their matrimonial proclivities.
"And you're not a nun, you say."
"Nope, still not a nun." I can see why she has a little trouble with the weather channel.

One might wonder how one should respond when stories of your past life encounter you unexpectedly and are filtered through the dark veil of ignorance begging for clarification which only the deeply initiated could possibly understand. In such instances the inherent worth and dignity of every person is hard to remember and, if remembered, hard to apply when people are clueless and naive. What does it take in moments like this to live the first principle? Patience, patience, and more patience.

Patience leads to forgiveness which leads to compassion which just might lead to gratitude. The narrator of the story is patient and has a good sense of humor, the kind that can laugh at the incongruity and absurdity of life. It is important to laugh with people and not at people, and experience the mysterious alchemy which transforms pain into peace, darkness into light, banal nonsense into grace.

The older we get the more former lives we have, the more stories that can haunt us, the more experiences we can cherish and enjoy in the sharing with others. We remember the children who were only with us a short time on the trip, the partner(s) we tried to love and hoped would love us, the goals we pursued some with triumph, some with defeat, some just abandoned for various reasons that we can't name or if we can, we don't tell others or want to talk about. Because we believe in the inherent worth and dignity of every person our faith inspires us to be grateful for tomorrow if it comes, because God only knows how the story will continue to be created and unfold, and we are filled with enthusiastic hope for the actualization of the divine potential that we and all our brothers and sisters possess.