An online magazine of faith based on a free and responsible search for truth and meaning. The mission of Unitarian Universalism: A Way Of Life ministries is to provide information, teach skills, and clarify values to facilitate the evolutionary development of increasingly higher levels of spiritual development for human beings around the world.
The miracle, as described in A Course In Miracles, is a correction in perception from the world of the ego to the world of Spirit. The world of the ego is based on scarcity and lack. The world of the Spirit is based on wholeness (holiness) and abundance. Which are you entitled to?
If you believe the world is one of scarcity and lack, you will be filled with grievances and resentments, anger and guilt, and above all else, fear. If you believe that the world is one of wholeness and abundance, you will be filled with peace and bliss and loving kindness towards yourself and towards others.
In Alcoholics Anonymous we are encouraged in the first three steps to admit that our pursuit of things on the path of the ego leaves our lives unmanageable and that we would be wise to work the steps in pursuit of a better way. This decision is a miracle.
In Unitarian Universalism, we covenant together to affirm and promote the free and responsible search for truth and meaning which leads us to an awareness of the inherent worth and dignity of every person and an appreciation of the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part.
Today we are asked to take 2, 10 - 15 minutes periods, and as often throughout the day as we remember to remind ourselves,to remember that we are entitled to Love and as we accept this truth we replace grievances with peace and bliss.
It is good to remind ourselves that in the end, when it’s all said and done, we are under no laws but God’s. How easy it is to forget this when we believe in and pursue the idols of the ego. When we hit bottom, it dawns on us that there must be a better way and with this realization our search begins within instead of without and the light has come.
In step two in Alcoholics Anonymous we come to believe that a Power greater than ourselves can restore us to sanity.
In Unitarian Universalism we affirm and promote a free and responsible search for truth and meaning. This takes courage. It takes a willingness to march to no drummer but our Higher Power which UUs call Love. One of the memes of UU is “being on the side of Love.” When we take the side of Love the light has come.
Today, I will take 2 periods of 10 - 15 minutes and settle in and await the light. It comes when we turn our willfulness over to the willingness to align ourselves with God’s will. “Let go and let God” as they say in AA.
Darkness and evil surrounds us on the path of the ego. “There’s always something” as the Jewish mother, the Irish mother, the Italian mother is said to have said. And yet the problem is not the upsetting “something” but what we want to make of it, how we take it, the interpretation of the meaning of the “something” that upsets us. We can be reactive or responsive. It’s up to us once we are aware of what is upsetting us. Today we are encouraged to will light and not darkness. In the process of willing light we relax, turn our will over and realize that there is no will but God’s. Trying to force my own willfulness is a losing proposition. Being willing to surrender to the will of God brings peace and joy.
In Alcoholic Anonymous, the slogan is, “Let go and let God.” We are asked in the third step to make a decision to turn our will over to the care of God as we understand God. We admitted in the first step that our life was unmanageable. Our willfulness has really screwed things up. It dawned on us that there must be a better way and we sought help. It was in the fellowship where we learned the steps that enabled our lives to embark on a better path. We decided to set the ego aside and follow the call of Spirit, our Higher Power.
In Unitarian Universalism, we covenant together to affirm and promote the inherent worth and dignity of every person from which the light emanates. We further affirmed and promoted the acceptance of one another and encouragement to spiritual growth by engaging in a free and responsible search for truth and meaning that takes one within and not without.
UUs will there be light and recognize that Love is the way when we respect the interdependent web of all existence which is summed up in an awareness of the non dualistic Oneness which is the Ground of our Being.
Today, we are asked to take 10 - 15 periods twice to reflect on the desire for light and to do God’s will. In addition whenever we find ourselves angry, guilty, fearful, we will remind ourselves that we choose to focus on light and God’s will. We choose to follow the path of the Spirit and not the path of the ego.
72 - Holding grievances is an attack on God’s plan for salvation.
Human beings, being conditioned by society, are willful, but we learn, as we mature, that willfulness will not get us into heaven. We learn, sometimes with great pain and anguish, that it is willingness that gets us into heaven not willfulness. Are we willing to align our will with God’s will for us? The stoics call this “amor fati” which means “love your fate.” In other words we should lean in not lean out.
In Alcoholics Anonymous we are asked to make a fearless moral inventory of ourselves. Do you notice that the step is not simply “make a moral inventory” but a “fearless” one? What are the mistakes we have made in our life? What do those mistakes have in common? It is our willfulness. We have not listened to God’s will for us. We have not listened to what Love would have us do.
In Unitarian Universalism we covenant together to affirm and promote a free and responsible search for truth and meaning. Do you notice that the principle calls us not just for a free search for truth and meaning but for a “responsible” search for truth and meaning. What does this responsibility entail? It entails searching for what Love would have us do not just our own will.
Today, we are asked to take 2 10 - 15 minute periods to do a fearless moral inventory and to acknowledge that only God’s plan for salvation will work. God wants us back with the Oneness and not separated egos. Whenever we indulge our ego by holding grievances, we are on the wrong track and not following God’s plan for salvation which is to follow the path made up of what Love would have us do.
69 - My grievances hide the light of the world in me.
70 - My salvation comes from me.
The impulse of the ego, based on our social conditioning and socialization, is to look for happiness in things outside ourselves. These perceived external objects of happiness are mirages and we idolize them. Only after disappointment and sometimes tragedy do we come to realize that our seeking truth and meaning in external things on the path of the ego is a fool’s search.
Filled with grievances and heart ache, it finally dawns on us that there must be a better way. In this dawning, we begin a search within and find that our grievances have hidden the life of the world from our awareness. We come to finally realize that our salvation comes from within us. As Jesus taught, “The kingdom of God is within you.”
In Alcoholics Anonymous, in the eleventh step, we seek conscious contact with our Higher Power through prayer and meditation asking for knowledge of Love’s will for us and the power to carry that out.
In Unitarian Universalism, we covenant together to affirm and promote the free and responsible search for truth and meaning which eventually will involve looking inward to the Ground of our Being.
Today we are asked to take 2 10-15 minute periods to look within and get past our grievances to become aware of the light within and to realize that the Source of our salvation is within us all along.
After a few moments of reflection the answer comes as clear as a bell to most people.
People are like onions with layer upon layer upon layer of socialization and conditioning to be dug through until we arrive at our heart which is a brilliant diamond shining with all its lustrous beauty. Love, God, the Oness, the Ground Of Our Being, the Force, our Higher Power, whatever we choose to call it, is who we really are, is our Essence.
In Alcoholics Anonymous, we are encouraged in step eleven to seek through prayer and meditation conscious contact with God as we understand God and to bring our will into alignment with what we believe is God’s will for us and the power to carry that out. As St. Paul writes in one of his letters to the Corinthians, “If God is with you, who can be against you?”
In Unitarian Universalism, we covenant together to affirm and promote the inherent worth and dignity of every person which includes ourselves. We are not inherently defective and inadequate, born with original sin as some religions teach, but the opposite, inherently holy and beautiful, a manifestation of our Source.
Today, we are asked to take 10 - 15 minutes twice and many times during the day to remember who we really are and from whence we have emerged in this incarnation.
