If you would like to see what the fourth principle, the free and responsible search for truth and meaning, means in everyday life watch The Seeker about a man who was Amish who became an atheist and yet maintained his Amish life style. The video is about 18 minutes. For more click here.
The gift of Christ is all I seek today
What is the “gift of Christ”? It is the vision of the healed world where there is no separation, no division, only One. It is the vision of the UU sixth principle, “The goal of world community with peace, liberty, and justice for all.” This goal has been achieved already in God’s vision. It is human egos which have obstructed the view of it. If we can clear away the barriers and obstacles erected in the ego world, we can see the gift of Christ, holiness, clearly.
In Alcoholic Anonymous it is suggested, in step eleven, that we seek to improve our conscious contact with God through prayer, meditation, and mindfulness.
In Unitarian Universalism we join together to affirm and promote the goal of world community with peace, liberty, and justice for all.
Today, it is suggested that we reflect continually on the gift of Christ which is the holiness of the world. Like the buddhist monk said to the hot dog vendor, “Make me one with everything.”
Cultivating the field of Love
Once we become parents, we are forever changed. No matter how your child comes into your life—by birth, by adoption, through parenthood, or grandparenthood, or the synchronicity of friends or strangers—your love for a child opens the field of love. To the degree that you cultivate the field in the ways we’ve discussed—unconditional love, actively engaging the child in spiritual reflection and contemplation, conversation and right action in everyday life—the field becomes your child’s spiritual reality, your family’s spiritual reality, and your own.
Miller, Dr. Lisa. The Spiritual Child (pp. 317-318). St. Martin's Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
The “field of Love” is the manifestation of God’s love in the world displayed by the communication, verbal and nonverbal, from the parent, and other people, with whom the child interacts. Because the bonds of attachment are usually the strongest with parents and sometimes grandparents, the experience of God’s love in these relationships are the most significant and intense.
This manifestation of unconditional love is what we refer to in “The Lord’s Prayer” when we say “Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”
When have you felt most loved? Most safe? Most comforted, reassured, peaceful?
Was there a “field of Love” in which you lived, experienced, and were nurtured?
The experience of the “field of love” contributes to what psychologists call “attachment styles.” There are four attachment styles; secure, anxious, avoidant, and dysregulated. A person's attachment style based on the type of field of love they experience in their lives has a significant influence on the development of that person's spiritual life. Can you give an example of how the field of love you have experienced in your life has contributed to your attachment style?
There is a peace that Christ bestows on us.
Another way of thinking about “Christ” is as a non dualistic Oneness. No division, no separation, no fragmentation, no pieces or parts but a wholeness, holiness, get it?
In Roman Catholicsim, the religion I was raised in, the idea of the non dualistic Oneness is called “The Body Of Christ.” The Body of Christ can be thought of as what the Unitarian Universalists call the “interdependent web of existence of which we are a part.”
Once we heal the separation, the divisiveness, there is a peace in the wholeness, in the holiness. In Alcoholic Anonymous it is suggested, in step eleven, that we enhance our conscious contact with God through prayer and meditation, what some, nowadays, call “mindfulness.”
In Unitarian Universalism we affirm and promote the love of the interdependent web of existence of which we are a part.
Today, we remind ourselves that when we rise above the world of the ego to the world of the Spirit, we experience great peace and joy. We have come home.
We can see how our spiritual growth as parents can progress in tandem with our children’s spiritual development.
The arrival of a child in our lives awakens us spiritually, whether we call it that or not. Haven’t we all, upon becoming a parent, felt the “something more,” experienced something difficult to describe but very real stirred by this new being in our lives? Many parents, particularly fathers, have told me that they “did not believe in anything” until their child was born.
Miller, Dr. Lisa. The Spiritual Child (p. 317). St. Martin's Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
Parenthood is an opportunity for spiritual growth. It is an opportunity to create a better version of ourselves which moves us from an egocentric level of consciousness to an ethnocentric and worldcentric view.
Our sense of purpose is enhanced beyond our individual sense of self to a concern for the next generation and the world they will be living in. Our narcissistic motivations and incentives are enlarged and move beyond just the egocentric self.
Parenthood raises existential questions, if we allow a recognition of them, about why a person is born, what the purpose of life is, what really matters to be created before physical death occurs. Why has this soul become incarnated into this physical body and how can I recognize, acknowledge, and nurture this soul’s development and how does this desire to nurture and facilitate encourage and enhance one’s own spiritual development?
If you are or have been a parent how has raising children influenced for better or worse your own spiritual development?
In Unitarian Universalism we covenant together to affirm and promote the free and responsible search for truth and meaning. How does being a parent shape that search?
Let not my world obscure the sight of Christ
Once again, A Course In Miracles workbook asks us what world we choose to see and live in: the world of the ego or the world of the Spirit? We didn’t have a choice until we learned we have it, and now that we know, it is up to us to decide. So, today’s lesson suggests that we choose the world of the Spirit and say to ourselves, “Let not my world (the world of the ego) obscure the sight of Christ (the world of the Spirit).
In Alcoholic Anonymous it is suggested, in step three, that we make a decision to turn our will and lives over to the care of God.
In Unitarian Universalism we covenant together to affirm and promote the inherent worth and dignity of every person. Notice that the principle states “inherent.” That is, it suggests that we use what some call the “sight of Christ.”
Today’s lesson is very simple. It simply suggests that we say to ourselves to not let our egos interfere with our seeing Love. Another way of applying this lesson is to simply ask ourselves every time we make a decision, “What would Love have me do.” What Love would have me do is the “sight of Christ.”
The holy Christ is born in me today.
The word “Christ” comes from the Greek and means “anointed one.” Today’s lesson is referring to the awareness that we, humans, each have a Divine Spark and are holy. “Born in me today” means we have become aware of this holiness, and acknowledge it.
In Alcoholics Anonymous it is suggested, in step eleven, that we improve our conscious contact with God through prayer and meditation. In this activity we recognize and acknowledge that the holy Christ is born in us today.
In Unitarian Universalism we join together to affirm and promote the inherent worth and dignity of every person and in doing so we recognize and acknowledge that the holy Christ is within each one of us.
Today, it is suggested in lesson #303 that we reflect on the idea that the awareness of the holy Christ being within me is to be recognized and acknowledged. Namaste!
