Question of the day.

What is the "mighty cloud of witnesses" on which we stand? Name the names of people in your cloud.

Creating the beloved community - Come By Here, Lord

From Krista Tippett's interview with Dr. Vincent Harding in 2011 and broadcast on 11/10/16 in her On Being show on Is America Possible?

Whenever somebody jokes about “Kum Bah Ya,” my mind goes back to the Mississippi summer experience where the movement folks in Mississippi were inviting co-workers to come from all over the country, especially student types, to come and help in the process of voter registration, and Freedom School teaching, and taking great risks on behalf of the transformation of that state and of this nation. There were two weeks of orientation. The first week was the week in which Schwerner and Goodman and their beloved brother Jimmy were there. And it was during the time that they had left the campus that they were first arrested, then released, and then murdered.

The word came back to us at the orientation that the three of them had not been heard from. Bob Moses, the magnificent leader of so much of the work in Mississippi, got up and told these hundreds of predominantly white young people that, if any of them felt that at this point they needed to return home or to their schools, we would not think less of them at all, but would be grateful to them for how far they had come.

But he said let’s take a couple of hours just for people to spend time talking on the phone with parents or whoever to try to make this decision and make it now. What I found as I moved around among the small groups that began to gather together to help each other was that, in group after group, people were singing “Kum Bah Ya.” “Come by here, my Lord, somebody’s missing, Lord, come by here. We all need you, Lord, come by here.”

I could never laugh at “Kum Bah Ya” moments after that because I saw then that almost no one went home from there. They were going to continue on the path that they had committed themselves to. And a great part of the reason why they were able to do that was because of the strength and the power and the commitment that had been gained through that experience of just singing together “Kum Bah Ya.”

Question of the day

What happens to our relationships when someone dies? How can we continue a connection?

Love or doctrine?

"...what I found over the years was that love trumps doctrine every time."

Dr. Vincent Harding, "Is America Possible?", On being with Krista Tippett on 11/10/16

Question of the day?

What is the beloved community? How do we work with others to create it?

Editor's note:
Today, 11/04/17, we are starting a new feature on UU A Way Of Life entitled "Question of the day." As has been said, "We can't find the right answer if we don't ask the right questions." One of the six grounding virtues of the Civil Conversations project is "words that matter." Finding the right words can make a big difference in our conversations with people and the rapport we build. Finding the right words to ask the right questions in a spirit of curiosity which contributes to generous listening can create a "holy instant" of connection in which we are transported into a perfect moment of heaven on earth.

Love does not die - just changes form

I was taught and many other people too in my Catholic upbringing that the body is the temple of the Holy Spirit. A Course In Miracles makes it clear that the body is not the temple of the Holy Spirit but relationships are. It is written in ACIM: "The Holy Spirit's temple is not a body, but a relationship." T-20.VI.5:1 Section VI, The Temple of the Holy Spirit describes this idea in more detail. It is our relationship with our Creator and our fellow Creations in which the Holy Spirit abides. Jesus told us the same thing in the New Testament when he said, "Where two or more are gathered together in My name, there I will be."

Rev. Marlin Lavenhar at All Souls Church in Tulsa Oklahoma gave a wonderful sermon on October 29, 2017 entitled "Gone But Never Forgotten" in which he makes the point that love never dies. Bodies do, but not love. Love just changes form. Love is eternal. People with highly developed spiritual awareness know this. It is another indicator of spiritual maturity.

The poverty of Unitarian Universalism because of its lack of sacraments

Having been raised a Roman Catholic, I was taught about the seven sacraments for the Roman Catholic church which, unlike most of the Protestant denominations, is a sacramental church. These sacraments occur at points in major transitions in the human life cycle: infant baptism at birth, first Eucharist and penance at the "age of reason" around age 7, confirmation in adolescence, marriage and ordination as a gateway to adulthood and generativity, and last rites at death. Other religions have similar rites of passage. Which rites of passage have been meaningful to you in your spiritual life?

Currently, at 71, I am an elder and it is a role I am still learning how to enact for myself and others in my life. Our contemporary society doesn't help much, as there are no clear rites of passage into elderhood other than obtaining Social Security, Medicare, and, perhaps, retiring from one's main career or professions although many continue to work if they are able at least part time.

Elderhood is also a time of generativity when there is a concern about helping the younger generation benefit from what one has learned from one's life experience. This role is not taken by all older people. As one wag put it, "Growing old and growing up are two different things." As we continue to be alive we all grow older but whether we grow up is a choice and intention we each must make. Growing up has to do with spiritual development. It is the ever increasing development of wisdom.

Socrates said an unexamined life is not worth living. If one has lived and is living an examined life, wisdom is the result, it not, then not so much.

Having moved over to Unitarian Universalism I miss the sacramental way of life. UU sometimes celebrate rites of passage with dedications, marriage, funerals but these rituals seems secularized and can be engaged in in other places than in church.

Many of the UUs I have met are also converts with a small minority being cradle UUs. Perhaps one of the contributing factors to the decreasing UU membership is its failure, as a faith tradition, to provide meaningful ways of celebrating major life transitions imbued with spiritual meaning.