Ask Alexa - Does God love the world unconditionally?

Alexa: Don't the Universalists believe that God loves the world unconditionally?

It is His creation so how could He not?

Alexa: Did you hear about the members of chess club, at a chess convention, who got into an argument in the hotel lobby about which team was best?

Yes, and the manager asked them to leave saying, "I can't stand chess nuts boasting in an open foyer."

Today's lesson, 32, "I have invented the world I see."

Psychologists call it a "self fulfilling prophecy," meaning that we see what we expect. The placebo effect is another example of this same idea of projection.

When we realize that we do this on the path of the ego, we realize that we make up our own reality. The bumper sticker reads, "Reality is when it happens to you."

What we think we see on the path of the ego is different from the peace on the path of the spirit in our inner vision.

Unitarian Univeralists know this when they covenant together to affirm and promote the free and responsible search for truth and meaning. Truth and meaning lies within not without.

Spend some time today going within even if just for a few minutes, or even seconds, to remind yourself that you invent the external world you think you see when you interpret your experiences and attempt to make meaning from them.

These interpretations and meanings can be changed, diminished, and eliminated. All it takes is your decision about the path you want to walk on: the path of the ego or the path of the spirit.

Ask Alexa - How can I love some people and not others?

Alexa: If, as the Univeralists taught, God loves all of humanity unconditionally, how can I love some people and not others?

You can't without feeling great guilt and you can choose again.

Alexa:Did you hear about the Buddhist who refused Novocain during a root canal?

Yes, he wanted to transcend dental medication.

Can I just live in the moment?

Osho has said, "The eternal is hidden in the moment, and the vastness of infinity is contained in the atom. He who ignores the atom, thinking it is just an atom, loses the infinite itself. It is only done by digging in the lowest that you find the highest."

Osho said further, "The ocean is made up of many single drops. And life consists of many individual moments. He who becomes aware of the drop comes to know the whole ocean. And he who has experienced the moment has experienced the whole of life."

Unitarian Universalists covenant together to affirm and promote the interdependent web of all existence and as such recognize the nondualistic Oneness. UUs, like people in twelve step programs, take things one step at a time, one day at a time, one moment at a time.

It is important to recognize that there is no time. It is a social construction that divides up our perceptions into before, now, and after. This is not true for all cultures and has become more pronounced in ours after the industrial revolution. In our modern era we have become mircromanagers where we have come to believe that we have to make each minute count. This is insanity and destroys our peace.

Osho tells us to live in the moment. Live in the moment because, in reality, that is all there is.

Today's lesson - I am not a victim.

Today's lesson, number 31, in A Course Of Miracles is "I am not the victim of the world I see."

Monkey mind clings to our thoughts and won't let go. Should I fight them, encourage them, just watch them?

Just watch them like the leaves in a wind. They are like clouds floating by even if they are like thunder clouds full of power and fury.

As you watch this drama play out, go up to 35, 000 feet and realize that these leaves and clouds are all below you. You are not a victim of their influence, but rather the witness to the nonsense which ulitmately has no power over you.

Forgiveness is to rise above the insanity and realize it is not real. Indeed, my spirit is not a victim: never was, not now, never will be.

Unitarian Universalists know they are not victims because they covenant together to affirm and promote the respect, the love, the awareness of the interdependent web of all existence of which they are a part, and being the whole there are no victims in the bliss of Oneness.

Ask Alexa - Why can't I let bygones be bygones?

Alexa: Why can't I let bygones be bygones and start each day fresh and happy?

Because you are full of guilt and resentment and won't let it go.

Alexa: Did you hear about the two eskimos who sank in their kayak and drowned?

Yes, I heard they were chilly and started a fire to warm up and learned too late that you can't have your kayak and heat it too.

On The Shortness of Life - "Life is long enough" if it is well lived.

At church two weeks ago an acquaintance shared with me that he is a student of stoic philosophy. I was delighted to learn this, because it is an interest of mine as well.

I have noticed that Seneca's essay entitled, "On The Shortness Of Life" has become popular again over the last couple of years so I thought it is worth a discussion here on UU A Way of Life Ministries blog. Over the next few weeks, there will be posts describing ideas from this work. Please share your ideas and comments.

Seneca's idea that life is long enough is based on the presumption that it is well lived. As a kid, I found myself mildly depressed and I would reassure myself by muttering, "It's not a bad life if you know how to live it."

I was probably 10 years old when I realized this and could articulate it. Where I got the idea from I do not know. It was long before I learned about Seneca and the stoic philosophy.

Talking with my daughter 60 years later, we both commiserated that this idea is not studied in our schools. It is a basic existential question which is not overtly asked and studied by the young.

In our society, young people are fed a steady diet of materialism, consumerism, competitiveness, and violence. Competitiveness and regenerative violence is the basis of our American society. Based on these egotistical values, life seems very short indeed with young people dying from gun violence and drug overdoses. The death rate from drug overdoses, gun violence (2/3rds suicide), and DWI fatalities are leading causes of death.

Life, indeed, can be short for many, even if they have lived for years. As Osho has said, growing old, and growing up are two different things.

What is the good life? What does the well lived life consist of? If we are to die well, we have to live well.

Unitarian Univeralists covenant together to affirm and promote seven principles implying that this covenant and the application of these principles are the basis of a well lived life.

The fourth principle, to affirm and promote the free and responsible search for truth and meaning, is something which it seems Seneca would heartily approve of and, in fact, seems to at the end of his essay as we shall see.

Will you join me in reading and reflecting along as we study On The Shortness of Life?