What is the nature of this hell we have created for ourselves?

What is the nature of this hell we call our lives?

They mythic answer from the Christian bible and from St. Augustine is it is the original sin when Eve and Adam ate the apple of knowledge in the garden of Eden. The story tells us that God was angry with Eve and Adam's disobedience and so cast them out of the garden into a life of misery and anguish.

Upon reflection, Universalists, have rejected the story and asked, "What kind of a God is this?" They have gone on and said, "This is not my God. My God loves God's creation unconditionally. It all is good."

In A Course In Miracles, it teaches that human beings have done this to themselves by separating themselves from God thinking that they know better and want to be the authors of their own lives rather than acknowledge their radical dependence on the interdependent web of existence. Human beings think that they know better than God, than Life, until their illusions no longer are manageable. Most people become increasingly anxious until they hit bottom and then, if they are wise, they surrender and attempt to discern the will of God for them rather than the other way around.

There is a bumper sticker which says, "If God is your co-pilot switch seats."

We create our hell by believing in specialness. Some things are better and other things are lacking. We are told that judgement is the root of evil and sin. Who, after all, are we to judge? Our perceptions and understandings are faulty and this faultiness leads to mayhem. We would be very wise to recognize and acknowledge that we don't know what we think we do. The answer to our illusional ways is forgiveness. We, first, have to forgive ourselves our arrogance and pride and willfulness thinking that we are in charge of anything. We can all die in the next hour in a car crash, from a heart attack of stroke. Which one of us is really in charge of this thing we call Life?

Forgiving our arrogance and our judgment of our brothers and sisters, we should enjoy the beauty and bliss of the moment. Spontaneity is the elixir of Life when we go with the flow and become one with God and all of God's creation.

Prophetic voices and events - Where was the media on climate change in 2017?

Lisa Hymas, the climate and energy program director at Media Matters, has said that the biggest missed story in 2017 by the media is climate change. Ms. Hymas writes that while the media focused on the shenanigans of Donald Trump, it failed to connect the dots of climate change which has contributed to the weather disasters of huricanes, fires, melting glazier ice, rising sea levels, and continued rising of Carbon Dioxide in our atmosphere.

Hymas is just one of several people like Al Gore and James Hansen and Bill McKibben who have raised prophetic voices and organized inhabitants of the planet to take steps to protect our environment and ecologies.

These efforts fly in the face of corporations who profit from fossil fuels and U.S. President Donald Trump who has pulled the U.S. out of the Paris Climate accords. To overcome climate change deniers, capitalist polluters, political sell-outs, an unresponsive media, the citizen demand for political and corporate accountability must continue to grow.

We must each do our part responding to these prophetic voices and adding our own until the chorus of calls to protect Mother Earth are heard around the planet.

Unitarian Universalists in particular need to act on their seventh principle in which they covenant together to affirm and promote the "respect for the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part."

For more from Lisa Hymas click here.

Prophetic voices and events - an explanation

The second of the six sources to which Unitarian Universalists attribute their "living tradition" is "Words and deeds of prophetic woman and men which challenge us to confront powers and structures of evil with justice, compassion, and the transforming power of love." Now that Advent is over, UUAWOL is beginning a year long series on what is being called "Prophetic voices and events of women and men...." The change is the focus on the voice and not the person and the event not the individual.

No person is perfect and most people communicate good things and bad things. Events often get mischaracterized as the work of one person when that person is just a symbol or manifestation of a far more dynamic social movement. The title of this series will be "Prophetic voices and events" and I hope they may resonate with you and perhaps move your life forward in positive ways.

In case you were wondering.............

The two shoemakers got married because they were sole mates.

Question of the day

Do you pray? If so, how?

Prophetic women and men - Kenneth Wapnick died on 12/27/13

Today is the day Kenneth Wapnick died 4 years ago in 2013 at the age of 70. Dr. Wapnick was a psychologist who was teacher of A Course In Miracles. He was involved in the initial development, publishing and teaching of The Course. He knew the author, Helen Schucman, personally, as well as her transcriber, William Thetford.

Dr. Wapnick's legacy is enormous with numerous books and video lectures of his teachings on the course.

Dr. Wapnick is a prophetic figure in our contemporary times who has had a tremendous positive influence on facilitating the spiritual growth of people in our current world. His body is gone but his spirit is very much with us.

For more click here.

Prophetic women and men - Kwanzaa founder Dr. Maulana Karenga

Kawanzaa was started on December 26, 1966, 51 years ago by Dr. Maulana Karenga. It is celebrated for 7 days. You can read more about it by clicking here.