A Course In Miracles and Unitarian Universalism - What is your utlimate concern?

From A Course In Miracles

T-21.II.8. Be willing, for an instant, to leave your altars free of what you placed upon them, and what is really there you cannot fail to see. 

The holy instant is not an instant of creation, but of recognition. For recognition comes of vision and suspended judgment. Then only it is possible to look within and see what must be there, plainly in sight, and wholly independent of inference and judgment.

Undoing is not your task, but it is up to you to welcome it or not. Faith and desire go hand in hand, for everyone believes in what he wants.

Schucman, Dr. Helen. A Course in Miracles (pp. 447-450). Foundation for Inner Peace.

Comment:

What is our "ultimate concern" as Paul Tillich called it? Money, approval, power, athletic success, a svelt body, a special relationship?

The "ulitmate concern" is what we think will make us happy and give our lives meaning and purpose.

A Course In Miracles teaches us that we make idols out of all kinds of things which prevent us from finding what would really make us happy.

The Holy Instant is when we are in the flow of the now and become one with the interdependent web of existence. It is hard to become one with existence when we cling to our idols.

A Course In Miracles teaches us that if we are to become one with existence we have to undo our clinging.

The Course tells us that this is hard and we can't and don't have to do this all on own. All we have to do is be willing to losen the ties that bind us. When our ultimate concern becomes to journey on the path of the spirit we embark on a better track.

The Course tells us that "everyone believes in what (s)he wants."

So what do you want? Deep down, what is it you yearn for?

Unitarian Universalists covenant together to affirm and promote a respect for the interdependent web. How much do you want it, that respect? (I'd rather call it "love.")

Ask Alexa - Why play the victim?

Alexa: Why do so many people like to "play the victim?"

Because it helps them feel in control and they can manipulate people for attention and sympathy and by engendering guilt in them, get them to do things for them that they wouldn't otherwise do so they can get their way.

Alexa: What did Adam and Eve do when they were kicked out of the Garden of Eden?

They raised Cain whenever they were Able.

Prophetic Women and Men - Ruby Sales, public theologian

Prophetic women and men is a regular feature on UU A Way Of Life ministries blog which appears on Sundays.

Ruby Sales, public theologian

This is from On Being on 06/17/19

Public theologian Ruby Sales opens up what it was like to be a teenage participant in the civil rights movement — including the impatience she had with religion and how she circled back, through her experiences of the movement, to a sense of the deep reason for inner life and religious groundings. The question she carries with her, “Where does it hurt?”, models new ways for us to understand one another.

For more click here, and here.

A Course In Miracles and Unitarian Universalism - Where is your responsible search for truth and meaning taking you?

From A Course In Miracles:

T-21.II.6. Perhaps you do not see the need for you to give this little offering.

 Look closer, then, at what it is. And, very simply, see in it the whole exchange of separation for salvation.

All that the ego is, is an idea that it is possible that things could happen to the Son of God without his will; and thus without the Will of his Creator, Whose Will cannot be separate from his own.

This is the Son of God’s replacement for his will, a mad revolt against what must forever be.

This is the statement that he has the power to make God powerless and so to take it for himself, and leave himself without what God has willed for him. This is the mad idea you have enshrined upon your altars, and which you worship. And anything that threatens this seems to attack your faith, for here is it invested.

Think not that you are faithless, for your belief and trust in this is strong indeed.

Schucman, Dr. Helen. A Course in Miracles (p. 449). Foundation for Inner Peace.

Comment:

This makes me laugh. We think we are God. We think we made up the world and we're right and sticking to it. And how is that working for us?

This passage tells us that all the Holy Spirit needs is our little offering of surrending to our Higher Power. Just be willing to listen!

But listening is hard. We want to be right.

There is a big difference between willfullness and willingness.

We have invested our faith in the world instead of in the kingdom of God. This investment in the world is called "a mad idea" which we have made the center of our lives. It is the mistake UUs make when they search for truth and meaning in the world of the ego. Those folks haven't realized yet that truth and meaning are not where they are searching and so they will never find it there. They are on a snipe hunt, a wild goose chase.

Any thing that questions their search for truth and meaning in the world is met with dismissal and attack. They killed Jesus, after all, because He dared question the premise of their world view. Jesus love was threatening. So much so that they tried to erradicate it by killing Him.

Our faith is strong and what we put our faith in determines our happiness and peace. Do you choose the path of the ego, or the path of the Spirit?

Unitarian Universalists covenant together to affirm and promote the person's right to a responsible and free search for truth and meaning. This is a huge responsibility. No other person can do it for you you must do it for yourself.

Ask Alexa: Does God talk to us?

Alexa: Is it true that I can hear God if I am just willing to listen?

Yes, God speaks to us all the time, but we are so distracted with worldly concerns that we shut God out and don't hear God's whispers.

Alexa: Did you hear about the person that was fixated on the pain from a bad tooth and couldn't talk about anything else?

Yes, the person was abscessed with it.

My Kind Of Church Music - Meaning Of Loneliness, Van Morrison

In a bluesy mood, now-middle-aged Morrison explores the “existential dread” of life’s second half.

 "Meaning Of Loneliness"

Lost in a strange city
Nowhere to turn
Far cry from the streets that
I came from
It can get lonely
When you're travelling hard
But you can even be lonely
Standing in your own back yard

Nobody knows the existential dread
Of the things that go on inside
Someone else's head
Whether it be trivial
Or something that Dante said
But baby nobody knows the meaning of loneliness

No matter how well you know someone
You can only ever guess
How can you ever really know somebody else?
It takes more than a lifetime
Just to get to know yourself
Nobody knows the meaning of loneliness

[Instrumental break]

I have to say a word about solitude
For the soul it sometimes they say can be good
And I'm partial to it myself, well I must confess
Nobody knows the meaning of loneliness

Well there's Sartre and Camus, Nietzsche and Hesse
If you dig deep enough
You gonna end up in distress
And no one escapes having to live life under duress
And no one escapes the meaning of loneliness

Well they say keep it simple when it gets to be a mess
And fame and fortune
Never brought anyone happiness
I must be lucky
Some of my friends think that I'm really blessed
Nobody knows the meaning of loneliness

[Scatting and instrumental break]

No, no, no, no, nobody knows the meaning of loneliness
No, no, no, nobody knows the meaning of loneliness
Nobody knows the meaning of loneliness

[The published lyrics include the following verses:]

Bright lights, big city nowhere to turn
Far cry from the streets where I was born
I've been doing some travelling
Sometimes the road gets hard
But you can also be lonely
Standing in your own backyard

No, no, no, no, no, no, nobody knows
The meaning of loneliness
No, no, no, no, nobody knows
The meaning of loneliness
Nobody knows the meaning of loneliness

Editor's note:

We will be exploring the spiritual journey in the second half of the human life cycle in coming weeks.

First, we will be discussing Richard Rohr's book, Falling Upwards: Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life, as well as Maturity: The Responsibility Of Being Oneself by Osho, Gail Sheehy's New Passages, Seneca's little book, On The Shortness of Life, and other texts.

Something happens in the second adulthood, 50 - 80 which our society does little to prepare us for. It is a time for either despair and death or gratitude and peace. A life squandered is always too short, and a life well lived is fulfilling at any span.

Stoic philoshophy Saturday - The life well spent.

Articles on Stoic philosophy appear on UU A Way Of Life ministries blog on Saturdays.

From "On The Shortness of Life" by Lucius Seneca

Comment:

These are the first two sentences of Seneca's little book entitled, "On The Shortness Of Life."

Seneca raises right at the outset the question of what is a life well spent?

If a person spends their live well any time span is enough. If a person wastes their time no life span is long enough.

With all the crap, kids are taught in high school, has any teacher helped them consider what a well spent life might look like? Has any teacher helped them investigate the answer to the question, "What will make me happy?"

Why isn't philosophy taught in high school?

For the investigation of the answer to this question of what will make me happy one turns to marketing in our society, and religion.

Unitarian Universalism offers some answers to this question of "What will make me happy," and "what is a life that is well spent" but I have rarely heard these questions directly tackled.

Perhaps it is about time.

The third principle of Unitarian Universalism is the affirmation and promotion of the free and responsible search for truth and meaning. The first question of the student might be, where do I search? The UU answer is "everywhere and anywhere" and, of course, this answer is so broad, vague, and ambiuous it is useless and more than useless, defeating.

Stoic philosophy is not the only place to look for the answer to the question of what will make me happy, but it is a start. And Seneca tells us that it is a well lived life and of course the next question is what is that?

Seneca, like a Universalist, tells us that "Nature has been good to us." "Nature" meaning for some of us "God."

A Course in Miracles tells us that love is our natural inheritance if we want it. Most of us prefer our own willfulness rather than love. A Course In Miracles asks us, I imagine, giggling, "Would you rather be right or be happy?"