The Politics Of Love -Are our politics aligned with spiritual truth?

Any person, economic system, or political establishment that fails to concern itself with the pain of others is out of alignment with spiritual truth. And where there is a lack of spiritual alignment, chaos is inevitable. 

Spirituality is the path of the heart, and compassion for the human condition. Yet American politics has developed for decades in a direction that has had increasing disregard for such tender mercies.

Williamson, Marianne. A Politics of Love (p. 8). HarperOne.

Unitarian Universalists covenant together to affirm and promote justice, equity, and compassion in human relations.

UUs believe in a politics of love not hate and fear.

Check out my new blog: Markhams Slow News

Check out my new blog Markhams Slow News.

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Ask Alexa - What's the difference between pleasure, happiness, joy, and bliss?

Alexa: What is the difference between pleasure, happiness, joy, and bliss?

Pleasure is scratching an itch, happiness is getting your desires fulfilled, joy is an abiding sense of well being, and bliss is being in a flow state where a person experiences a oneness with the universe.

Alexa: Did you hear how the orthodonist charged his patients?

Yes, he did not charge for every single service, but requested his patients plunk down money for a retainer.

Spiritual practice of the day - eat well and say grace before your meal

One of the most important spiritual practices is to eat well. As part of this practice say "grace" before you eat. This "grace" is a moment of articulating gratitude for the blessings we receive and to consume our food and beverages in a mindful way.

A Course In Miracles and Unitarian Universalism - where should I search for truth and meaning?

It is written in A Course In Miracles:

T-29.VII.5. Idols must fall because they have no life, and what is lifeless is a sign of death. You came to die, and what would you expect but to perceive the signs of death you seek? 

No sadness and no suffering proclaim a message other than an idol found that represents a parody of life which, in its lifelessness, is really death, conceived as real and given living form. Yet each must fail and crumble and decay, because a form of death cannot be life, and what is sacrificed cannot be whole. 

T-29.VII.6. All idols of this world were made to keep the truth within from being known to you, and to maintain allegiance to the dream that you must find what is outside yourself to be complete and happy. 

It is vain to worship idols in the hope of peace. God dwells within, and your completion lies in Him. No idol takes His place. Look not to idols. Do not seek outside yourself.

A Course in Miracles . Foundation for Inner Peace. p. 618

Unitarian Universalists covenant together to affirm and promote the free and responsible search for truth and meaning. Where should they search? Where should they look for truth and meaning? A Course In Miracles which describes a metaphysical thought system, tells us it is a waste of time to look outside ourselves. Mystical traditions of all the major religions tell us the same thing.

Jesus tells us that the Kingdom of God is within you.

Buddha tells us that the source of suffering is from attachment to external things.

Moses tells us in giving us the Ten Commandments that we are not worship idols and not make anything other than Godliness our god.

How do we search then? We close our eyes, take three deep breaths, and watch our monkey mind of thoughts and feelings until they evaporate and disappear.

Feds, under Trump, bring back practice of the death penalty.

From the Washintgon Post on 07/25/19

The Justice Department announced Thursday that it plans to resume executing prisoners awaiting the death penalty, ending almost two decadesin which the federal government had not imposed capital punishment on prisoners.

Attorney General William P. Barr ordered the Bureau of Prisons to schedule executions for five inmates on death row. The prisoners were convicted of murdering children.

The Trump administration’s push to resume capital punishment in the federal system, while not surprising, goes against the recent trend of declining executions across the country.

The last federal execution was in 2003. In the years since, there has been an informal moratorium on executions of federal prisoners, as Justice Department officials reviewed its lethal-injection procedures. That practice was underscored during the Obama administration by then-Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr.’s personal opposition to the death penalty, even while he approved prosecutors’ decisions to seek the death penalty in specific trials.

Editorial note:

Pope Francis declared last year that the death penalty was no longer permissable under Catholic teaching.

Back in the 1980s, Cardinal Joseph Bernadin popularized the concept of the "consistent life ethic" meaning that pro-life proponents to be consistent also should be against the death penalty, war, and euthanasia.

Republicans have always been very conficted and contradictory about the consistency of their pro life positions. This is very apparent now in the era of Trumpism as Republican states have passed legislation making abortion unavailable in their states but still promoting the death penalty and being "hawks" when it comes to war mongering.

The United States is the only first world country that still practices the death penalty.

Unitarian Universalists covenant together to affirm and promote the inherent worth and dignity of every person. As Sister Helen Prejan, the author of Dead Man Walking, has said, "Every person is worth more than their worst act."

The death wish has its fans in Maryland and around the world.

Boxer Maxim Dadshev killed in boxing fight last Friday, 07/19/19, in Maryland.