UUAWOL weekly report for week of 01/28/18

Weekly report from UUAWOL 01/28/18 – 02/03/18

Stats

1.    During the week of 01/28/18 – 012/03/18  UUAWOL received 1995 views up 889 from the previous week.

2.    The heaviest viewing day was Thursday, 02/01/18 with 941 views.

3.    The average number of views per day was 285 while the average number of views the preceding week was 158.

Highlights

1.    The statistics reporting views above are very misleading. There were 635 views on Tuesday probably because of the Michael Moore video on the Women’s march the previous Saturday. Viewers accessed this page because of an interest in Michael Moore not Unitarian Universalism. The same thing happened on Thursday with 941 views of the video about the net neutrality whopper at Burger King. This very large viewing days probably had nothing to do with Unitarian Universalism.

2.    Since eliminating the columns on Question of The Day, and In Case You Were Wondering, views have dropped, but they were dropping already so it is hard to know the impact of their discontinuation. It is intended that the UU A Way Of Life blog be for people looking for stimulation for the serious study of UU theology and not just entertainment. UUAWOL is willing to sacrifice quantity for quality.

Plans - Short term

            While the columns on Question of the Day, and In Case You Were Wondering were discontinued the columns on Prophetic Voices and Spiritual Practices will continue but not on a daily basis. Also, a new column on the Interior Spiritual Life has been added.

Plans - long term

1.    Build a model of UU theology

2.    Create a dictionary of UU terms

3.    Further develop an articulation of the values that comprise a good life.

4.    Describe and encourage deliberate practice of an interior spiritual life.

Changing course

Unitarian Universalism has been attractive for their coffee hours. It is not a very spiritually deep religion. Outside of the transcendentalist roots, there isn't much of a mystical tradition. Some might say that UUs in general don't take the interior spiritual life very seriously, and therefore does not have much to offer the serious spiritual seeker. If Unitarian Universalism is to survive as a denomination it needs to change course and provide a more detailed map of the interior spiritual life.

This pursuit of a deeper more interior spiritual life is not for everyone and yet for the few who chose it, they become the yeast in the dough, the salt of the earth. There are glimmers of such activity and it needs recognition, acknowledgement, and resonant attention.

The saying goes, "Be careful what you wish for because you will probably get it."

Do we really know what we want?

Most people asked what they wish for, the most common answer given is "To win millions of dollars in the lottery."

And if asked, "What would you do with your millions?" they have silly answers.

Observing this phenomenon in our materialistic world leaves me feeling sad.

We dream silly dreams. Our values, what matters to us, don't run very deep or true. And in our anguish when we see such suffering in the world, we wonder what's gone wrong.

What went wrong is our dreams. We dream silly dreams and when we get what we thought we wanted, we are miserable because the dreams we dreamt were misguided.

The dreams we dreamt were misguided because our minds are sick. Our minds have been sickened by the path of the ego which is contaminated and toxic. It does not lead us to health and happiness but to sickness and grief. You would think our societies, our cultures, our educational systems, our religions would have taught us this by now, at this point in human history. These societies, cultures, educational systems, religions either have failed us or if they, in part, tried to teach us better, we ignored those lessons and failed in our studies.

If we recognize the failure of our choice in pursuing the path of the ego, we can then consider deciding to embark on the path of the spirit. In order to set off on this path of the spirit, we have to let go off our bull shit and that scares the hell out of us. The thought of it makes us tremble. Anxiety disorders are the most prevalent psychiatric diagnoses in the United States in our times. Anxiety medications the most commonly prescribed.

However, with guidance and support, embarking on the path of the spirit is not only possible, but, once over our stage fright, fabulously satisfying, and fulfilling. We come to realize that our former lives on the path of the ego were unmanageable, and changing course to the path of the spirit makes all the difference.

What is the interior spiritual life like?

This week a new column is starting entitled and tagged, "Interior Spiritual Life."

 Socrates said that "an unexamined life is not worth living." How many people do you know who live examined lives?

What response would you get if you asked family members or friends, "What is you interior spiritual life like?" If you were asked, what would you say? Do you even have a way of thinking about this topic that would lend itself to helping you formulate an answer? Maybe not everyone would even want an interior spiritual life. They are too extroverted and sensation seekers.

Yet, the majority of human beings do want an interior spiritual life and in fact, when polled people asked their religious preference often answer that they are not religious but they are spiritual. If the interviewer followed up with these folks and asked what they meant by that it is not clear how many could provide a coherent, meaningful answer.

 And so, this week we are starting this new column on UU A Way Of life exploring a vocabulary, a map, of what the Interior Spiritual Life might look like. Based on the observations of the Perennial Philosophy, the hypothesis is that the content of the Interior Spiritual Life will be the same for every human being, but there will be unique differences in form from culture to culture, religion to religion, personality to personality.

 This introductory post is an invitation to join us in our research, the purpose of which is to gather data that would provide us with a map, a description, a vocabulary, of the interior spiritual life. It is hoped you will join in the research by adding ideas, values, reports of practices in the comments. Longer letters are very much welcomed to davidgmarkham@gmail.com.

As Elmo says, to paraphrase, "Just because you can't describe your interior spiritual life now doesn't mean you don't have one, and you will be able to describe it later if you practice describing it."

My Kind Of Church Music - Buddy Guy and Friends, Skin Deep

Buddy Guy and friends, Skin Deep, produced by Playing for Change.

Prophetic voices in New York State calling for continued help for people in Puerto Rico

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo and New York Lt. Governor Kathy Hochul and other New Yorkers are prophetic voices calling for help to our brothers and sisters in Puerto Rico.


This appeared on a Buffalo, NY TV station on Satuday, February 3, 2018

Feelin groovey about the fourth principle

Unitarian Universalists covenent together to affirm and promote the free and responsible search for truth and meaning. Where, pray tell, is truth and meaning to be found?

Taking the path of the spirit instead of the path of the ego is not so much difficult as it is unsettling. It fills us with fear to give up that with which we have become familiar even though the familiar gives us much pain.

Once embarked on, the path of the spirit calls to us and we have a longing to return home to that from which we have come. When we can get past the hurtles and obstacles presented by our own ego, we feel the bright, calm peace of heaven to which we belong.

First we catch a glimpse of this bright, calm peace within us, and then we find ways to become aware and more centered and it becomes more than a glimpse when it becomes a more regular part of our experience, and then we become aware that we can sustain this peaceful centeredness as we go about our bodily activities, and finally we long for it to be our customary consciousness.

Some would say this awareness takes practice and yet it is attained not by striving but by excluding and removing the barriers and obstacles to Love's presence which we laughingly come to realize was there all along. We were just so pre-ocuppied and distracted that we were not aware of what was there, from which we came, and to which we are going.

So, slow down, you move too fast, you've got to make the morning last, to steal a lyric from Paul Simon and Art Garunkel's great song, the 59th Street Bridge Song (Feelin groovey)

Heaven on earth

Unitarian Universalists gently laugh when they say they are not interested in getting people into heaven, but heaven into people. And it is in the third principle of Unitarian Universalism that covenant together to affirm and promote the acceptance of one another and encouragement to spiritual growth in our congregations ( and it should be added, "and in the world.")

It is taught in A Course In Miracles that in our ego mind we have just made our lives up. It is written, "Into eternity, where all is one, there crept a tiny, mad idea, at which the Son Of God remembered not to laugh. In his forgetting did the thought become a serious idea, and possible of both accomplishment and real effects. Together, we can laugh them both a way, and understand that time cannot intrude upon eternity. It is a joke to think that time can come to circumvent eternity, which means there is no time." T-27.VIII.6:2-5 And it is this "tiny mad idea," that is the separation which has caused all the drama, all the problems, all the wars, all the pain and suffering, all the anguish, and grief, and sorrow. In short, it is this "tiny mad idea" that has caused hell on earth.

There is a saying, "Religion is for people afraid of going to hell. Spirituality is for people who have been there." Those of us who have chosen the path of the spirit and have left the path of the ego understand the consequences of the "tiny mad idea" that we are separate from Godliness and separate from our brothers and sisters.

Forgiving our mistake thinking that the path of the ego is real and turning our attention and intention to the Love of Godliness we create for ourselves and others a heaven on earth.