Daily Reflections, Day Fifty four, How Do I Want To Live My Life?

Day Fifty four

How do I want to live my life?

“Revelation induces complete but temporary suspension of doubt and fear. It reflects the original form of communication between God and His creations, involving the extremely personal sense of creation sometimes sought in physical relationships.” ACIM.T-1.II.I:1-2

Cosmic consciousness, enlightenment, one with the all, revelation, the experience goes by many labels none of which seem to do the experience justice.

It is a transcendent experience when we seem to be much larger than our bodies and all doubt and fear is risen above and is no longer present in our awareness. Sometimes this experience is achieved in flow and in orgasm. We seek this experience sometimes in physical relationships but the experience has nothing to do with our bodies, but rather with the joining of our minds as we move into the transcendent Oneness of Creation.

Revelation for most human beings is a rare experience but can become more prominent in a person’s life as they become more spiritually awakened. Some people consciously seek revelatory experiences and for others they may appear unbidden and may be experienced as moments of grace.

A person seeking revelation has left the path of the ego and is living a life with a totally different intention having turned their will over to God, their Higher Power, and spiritually has decided to live free and easy instead of full of judgment, guilt, fear, and resentment.

Today, I will take several moments especially when upset and ask myself whether I want to live on the path of the Spirit and experience Oneness with all of creation, or be focused on the particularity of the separateness of the ego with all its doubt and fear?

How do parents choose a church?

Click to enlarge.

From the Barna Goup

Over the years, Barna has conducted research surrounding children’s faith formation, focusing on some of the biggest questions faith leaders and parents are asking: Who is responsible for a child’s faith formation? What role does faith heritage play in spiritual development? What is the link between fun and faith in our homes? Now, in a new report produced in partnership with OneHope, Barna offers pastors and parents a deeper look into the faith formation of children, taking into account our ever-changing cultural and technological landscape.

One of the key findings of Guiding Children to Discover the Bible, Navigate Technology & Follow Jesus shows that nearly six in 10 highly engaged Christian parents say children’s programming is the primary reason they chose their current church (58%), proving that even though children may be small, they carry big weight when it comes to family decisions about where to worship.

For more click here.

Most UU churches are small, under 100 people. It is hard to have youth programming in such small congregations, and yet perhaps one of the reasons that UU churches in general tend to be small is that they are not focused on family ministry. Often parents seek a church that will help them with the faith formation of their children.

UU churches, in general, do a lousy job of faith formation for young people and so they lose an opportunity to be of service to people seeking a faith community for the whole family.

One of the reasons that Unitarian Universalism fails in its youth formation is because it fails to have broadly accepted rituals of developmental milestones. There is no first communion, no first confession, no confirmation, no Bar at Bat Mitzvah, no coming of age ceremonies build into liturgy and worship cycles, etc. With noting specific to prepare children for and nothing for parents to be proud and reassured by, parents are adrift with very little evidence of tangible support in faith formation by their religious congregations and affiliations.

Telling saccharine stories in the first part of the service and then marching the children out of the service to their own special play time seems to be a very anemic approach with very little substance with purposeful character development engaged in in any purposeful, intentional, sustainable way over the childhood life span.

If Unitarian Universalism is to maintain itself as a viable vehicle for nurturing spiritual development, it must give more attention to and increase its game when it comes to family ministry focused on faith formation for all members of the congregation with special emphasis on young people.

Daily Reflections, Day Fifty three, Being aware that we are One with Creation.

Day Fifty three

Being aware that we are One with Creation

“The miracle compares what you have made with creation, accepting what is in accord with it as true, and rejecting what is out of accord as false.” ACIM.T-1.1.50:1

Life can seem very complicated, confusing, scary, and not understandable. We can feel very lonely, angry, guilty, and scared. We come to learn, hopefully, as we become more mature, that these thoughts and feelings about our lives and the world are false and nothing but a projection creating an illusion like a bad dream that seems to us in our dreaming as very real.

And then come fleeting moments when we get a glimmer of hope and encouragement that there has to be more to life than this and there must be a better way. It dawns on us that maybe our thoughts and feelings aren’t right but actually we have become wrong minded and there might be a better way if we could only find it and follow it. The dawning then leads to the search for a more constructive and positive path to truth and meaning.

This reorientation from the path of the ego with its judgment, fear, and guilt to the path of the Spirit with its forgiveness, Love, and harmony is what can be called a miracle. What has seemed very complicated, confusing, scary, depressing turns out to be lovely, peaceful, and forgiving in simply choosing to ask the Holy Spirit for help and submitting our will to the transcendent power of creation from which we have separated ourselves in our tiny mad idea that we can be the authors of our own essence and being.

The idea with we have made ourselves and willfully can control our own fate is sheer madness. We have become drunk with our own desire for grandiosity and power. We learn that this fantasy of our own separate greatness and power is a fixed false belief that has been ruining our lives. We learn that the belief in the promises of the ego are false, and that in the end, what is true is that all there is is Love.

Today, I will remind myself that I don’t want the things of the ego and its empty promises. I will clear away these empty idols and reprioritize my attention onto what is loving and helps me join with others to enhance the level of awareness that we all are One with Creation.

How is partisan political party affiliation like religion?

In the book The Social Psychology of Morality: Exploring The Causes of Good and Evil" there is a chapter written by Jesse Graham and Jonathan Haidt entitled, "Sacred Values and Evil Adversaries: A Moral Foundations Approach" in which they describe the social -functiontionalist approach to describing moral systems and how they function in societies. As part ot this approach, they make a distinction, as much of sociology does, on the distinction between the sacred and the profane.

In describing this distinction between the sacried and the profane they write, "Shared emotions and practices related to sacred things bind people together in cults, churches, and communities. Sacredness does not require a God. Flags, national holidays, and other markers of collective solidarity are sacred in the same way - and serve the same group-binding function- as crosses and holy days." p.13

The MAGA people. the so called Trump base, have been called by media pundits a cult. In talking with people, and observing the jokes about family holiday get togethers being ruined by political discussions,  I get the idea that partisan party affiliation seems to be the same type of group identification as religious affilitation. Challenging a person's partisan political party affiliation seems the same as challenging their beliefs in their religion. The same can be said about die hard fans of a sports team or membership in fraternies, sororities, or civic groups like Rotary, Kiwanis, LIons, Elks, the Masons. I have seen the same identification to volunteer fire departments in rural communities.

At any rate this binding together with group values, beliefs, practices, traditions, rituals, symbols, is the foundational genesis for a moral orientation where the group insiders are good and the outsides are bad or at least suspect as not being "one of us."

Curious about what thoughts people might have about poltical party affiliation functioning for individuals and groups like religion. To what extent are these separation practices of "us and them" the basis of immorality?

Daily Reflections, Day Fifty two, Judgment, guilt, and fear or Love, forgiveness, and bliss?

Day Fifty two

Judgment, guilt and fear or Love, forgiveness, and bliss?

“The miracle makes no distinction among the degrees of misperception. It is a device for perception correction, effective quite apart from the degree or the direction of the error. This is true indiscriminateness.” ACIM.T-1.1.49:1-3

Are we a body with a spirit or a spirit with a body? This is not just a cute or tricky question, the answer makes a big difference to our spiritual development. The answer is that we are a spirit with a body and the body is an illusion because it keeps changing and is merely a vehicle for communication.

Once we realize that we all are Spirit with what appears to be different forms, we realize that we all are One. And this realization is what is miraculous while the forms and their locality make no difference. It is this shift in perception from form and locality to Spirit and nonlocality which is the miracle.

We can choose the ego or the Spirit any time we desire. It makes no difference when or why or what, only the how. We can ask ourselves, “Do I want to go down the path of the ego or the path of the Spirit? Do I want to go down the path of judgment, guilt, and fear or down the path of Love, forgiveness, and bliss?

Today, I will take several moments throughout the day to remind myself that I have a choice. I am a free spirit with the power of intention. Today, I will choose forgiveness and Love.

LGBTQ and the Catholic Church

I wondered if some people might be interested in this short video.

I consider myself a Roman Catholic Unitarian Universalist, obviously what some people consider politically left.

Whenever, I am faced with a moral decision, I think, "What would Love have me do?" Jesus, Buddha, Osho, and many other enlightened people have guided and instructed me.

I am a subscriber to America magazine.

Religion in the public square - What is a UU to do about the impeachment of Donald J. Trump?

As we watch the impeachment trial in the United States Senate unfold of President Donald John Trump, we can only wonder whether the Republican Senators will act in a fair and just way or whether they will act in an unfair and unjust way to obtain some personal benefit.

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

The House of Representatives has decided that President Trump has committed impeachable offenses against the American people as measured against the standards of the constitution of the United States. This decision has been made along party lines with Democrats deciding the President has committed impeachable acts and the Republicans have decided he hasn't.

Which side is right? Where is the truth? This decision about the truth of the allegations will be determined by the evidence. The evidence clearly demonstrates that the behavior was engaged in and the offenses were committed.

The facts are not in dispute, only the interpretation of what the facts mean, and what is to be done about the harm that is alleged to have occurred and continues to occur.

To what extent are denial, minimization, displacement, projection, and rationalization unfair and unjust? These defense mechanisms are permitted in America's adversarial criminal justice system. These defense mechanisms are permitted even if the use of them leads to a false and unfair conclusion.

The problem of justice and fairness is not resolved by siding with one or the other sides of the disgreement and conflict. The problem can only be resolved by questioning the system of adjudication itself.

The problem is not Donald Trump's behavior but the harm that has been done to the democratic institutions and credibility of the U.S. government and the impact on U.S. relationships with its allies and its reputation and credibility around the world.

A constructive adjudication of the charges is not obtained by the congressional conflicted parties but by the offender and the people harmed. What is the harm that Donld Trump's behavior has had on the integrity of the democratic instituions which the American people governed by these institutions have come to depend on? What is the harm that has been done to American's allies. Once this harm is assessed and agreed to, then a plan to repair the harm can be developed.

With Donald Trump's refusal to take responsibility for the harm that has been done, there is little hope that repair of that harm will be attempted by he and his administration. It will be left for others and the best that can be done is that the powers that enabled the perpetration of the injustice to begin with be stripped away from the perpetrator.

In reflecting on this situation of impeachment of Donald Trump which option seems to be the fairest and the most just?

A. Donald Trump is acquitted by the Senate and continues in office.
B. Donald Trump is found culpable and his behavior is censured.
C. Donald Trump is found culpable and is removed from office.
D. The matter is swept under the rug and the American people forget about it.
E. The Senate acquits and citizens become more actively involved in their democracy to advocate for fairness and justice in their political processes.
F. Other _______________________________________-----

What, if anything, should a good Unitarian Univeralist do in regards to this impeachment of President Trump and the harm that has been done to the American people, its allies, and all the people around the world?