Prophetic voices and events - Trump the new Herod attacking the innocents

Today, December 28, is the feast of the Holy Innocents. It is the day that we remember that Herod ordered the killing of all male children under 2 in Bethlehem. This story is told in Matthew 2:16.

It seems terrible and something that happened 2,000 years ago. But then I read what the Trump administration is doing in the New York Times on 12/21/17 in an article entitled, Trump Administration Considers Separating Families to Combat Illegal Immigration

"The Trump administration is considering a plan to separate parents from their children when families are caught entering the country illegally, according to officials who have been briefed on the plans. The forceful move is meant to discourage border crossings, but immigrant groups have denounced it as draconian and inhumane."

Not so different. Trump is the new Herod. 

To stand on the side of love we must diminish if not eliminate our fears

Unitarian Universalists covenant together to affirm and promote the acceptance of one another and encouragement to spiritual growth. How do we help the people in our society with their fears? How do we act as agents of healing instead of hurt?

There are certain people who can't trust anyone. Everyone is suspect as being a potential for hurt and pain. The attitude is "get them before they get you." If you doubt this observation look at the popularity of guns in the United States. There are more guns in the United States than there are people, more guns than one for every person in the U.S. And it is statically more likely a person will die by a gun if they own a gun than if they don't.

Why the fear? Where does it come from? Fear is generated by the belief that one's fellow citizens are enemies not friends. We have created hell on earth for ourselves and this hell is a major symptom of our spiritual poverty as a nation. In our attempts to manage our fears of the other by arming ourselves we inadvertently wind up damaging ourselves up to an including over 30,000 deaths per year.

Supposing we decided to see people as friends and not enemies? Supposing we decided to help others and not defend ourselves because of our fears of their possible attack? Supposing we decided to heal our nation and no longer hurt ourselves and others because of our defensiveness?

Supposing we asked ourselves how we really wanted to live our lives and worked together to create heaven on earth instead of the hell we have made? Jesus tells Peter to put his sword away and says, "Those who live by the sword will die by the sword." Matt 26:52. The spiritually mature get this and not only have put their guns away but reached out to the people who frighten them in a spirit of radical hospitality. They have decided to live lives of peace, joy, contentment, and healing instead of fear, anguish, stress, and war.

Prophetic voices and events - Noah Worcester: Peace advocate

December 28, 1815, the Massachusetts Peace Society was organized by Unitarian Minister, Noah Worcester. It was the first peace society in the world. Rev. Worcester was called, "apostle of peace."

The Rev. Willian Ellery Channing gave the eulogy at Rev. Worcester's funeral in 1835. Here is part of what Channing said,

"He was distinguished above all whom I have known, by his comprehension and deep feeling of the spirit of Christianity; by the sympathy with which he seized on the character of Jesus Christ as a manifestation of Perfect Love; by the honor in which he held the mild,- humble, forgiving, disinterested virtues of our religion. This distinguishing trait of his mind was embodied and brought out in his whole life and conduct. He especially expressed it in his labors for the promotion of Universal Peace on the earth. He was struck, as no other man within my acquaintance has been, with the monstrous incongruity between the spirit of Christianity and the spirit of Christian communities; between Christ's teaching of peace, mercy, forgiveness, and the wars which divide and desolate the church and the world. Every man has particular impressions which rule over and give a hue to his mind. Every man is struck by some evils rather than others. The excellent individual of whom I speak was shocked, heart-smitten, by nothing so much as by seeing that man hates man, that man destroys his brother, that man has drenched the earth with his brother's blood, that man, in his insanity, has crowned the murderer of his race with the highest honors; and, still worse, that Christian hates Christian, that church wars against church, that differences of forms and opinions array against each other those whom Christ died to join together in closest brotherhood, and that Christian zeal is spent in building up sects, rather than in spreading the spirit of Christ, and enlarging and binding together the universal church. The great evil on which his mind and heart fixed, was War, Discord, Intolerance, the substitution of force for Reason and Love. To spread peace on earth became the object of his life."^[1]

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11 year old boy explains the interdependent web, UUs seventh principle

Do you pray? If so, how? Brother David Stendl-Rast explains

Yesterday, December 27, 2017, the Question Of The Day on UUAWOL was "Do you pray? If so, how?" Here's Brother David Stendl-Rast's answer to that question talking with Jack Kornfield.

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

Question of the day

Do you covenant with anyone? If so, who?