Who is this son or daughter I cannot explain?

"She is my daughter, or she was before she grew into this person I cannot explain - I, who offer mitigating explanation for every member of my family - ..."

Linda McCullough Moore, "On My Way Now", The Sun Magazine, April, 2014, p.18

Indeed, who are these children we have raised who have become adults we do not know and who go their own way sometimes attacking us with resentments of what we did or didn't do. They haven't learned yet that imperfection is a common human affliction but it will come with time and we can hope that by the end of our lives we will have found the courage and faith to forgive ourselves and them and this whole sorry, weary world which has led us astray from appreciation of the transcendent mystery.

And our faith teaches us that in the end we are just a small part of the interdependent web of existence born out of the awesome power of Life, the ground of our being, and for which we could give thanks and praise if we can overcome the obstacles to the awareness of Love's presence. Our goal as Unitarian Universalists is not to get people into heaven, but heaven into people and forgiveness is the alchemy which turns coal into gold.

Forgiveness is the elixir of life

Forgiveness is the elixir of life.
With forgiveness all things become experienced anew.
Peace comes with oneness recognized.

Editor's note:
It reads in A Course In Miracles: "Can you imagine how beautiful those you forgive will look to you?" T-17.2.1:1

It is very hard for our ego minds to forgive. It feels better to harbor resentments because then we feel justified in our defensiveness and retaliatory attacks. We feel safer without forgiveness because our defensiveness is born out of our fears because we lack faith. Jesus said, "Oh ye of little faith! If you only knew how much God loves you."

In Unitarian Universalism our third principle is "acceptance of one another and encouragement to spiritual growth in our congregations." This acceptance requires forgiveness for without it we probably project our fears of many kinds which keep us estranged. How can UUs better practice forgiveness?

Forgiveness doesn't always mean reconciliation. They can be two different things. I can forgive someone for my sake without wanting to reconcile with them, but my rising above my petty resentments and grievances frees me to be more loving.

Are we sleep walking through life because of our conditioning?

Making the unconscious conscious is

The Challenge of a life well lived

Epiphany after epiphany until enlightenment

http://youtu.be/4X7b2E_Jq-k

Forgiveness is the way to the Kingdom

Dropped my fantasies, found peace.

Fantasies change reality by projection.

What you think you see, you get.

Bring fantasies to truth - peace!

Editor's note:
I wrote the haiku above based on a verse from A Course In Miracles from Chapter 17, Forgiveness And The Holy Relationship, Section 1, "Bringing fantasy to truth." The two verses are:

"Fantasies change reality. That is their purpose. They cannot do so in reality but they can do so in the mind that would have reality be different." T-17.1.1:9-10

One of the primary 7 values of Unitarian Universalism is the free and responsible search for truth and meaning. Where does this search take us ultimately but into our own mind and awareness. If we are on the right track it gives us peace, and if we are on the wrong track anxiety. As the bumper says, "Don't believe everything you think."

My Kind Of Church Music - "You're So Vain", Carly Simon

"You had me several years ago when I was still quite naive
Well you said that we made such a pretty pair
and that you would never leave

But you gave away the things you loved and one of them was me
I had some dreams they were clouds in my coffee, clouds in my coffee and....

You're so vain, you probably think this song is about you....."

Looking for Love will never be found in a "special relationship". It is an illusion, barking up the wrong tree. Love is within you and you experience it when you share what you have that's positive with someone else. It isn't "out there" and can't be "given to you" but something realized within oneself.

Religion is about the search for bliss, the search for the transcendent reality, and for that we must turn inward not outward. How does Unitarian Universalism help us achieve our bliss?

Carly blames the other for being vain and thereby disappointed, cheated, betrayed. However, this disappointment, resentment, betrayal can only occur when we are looking for love in the wrong places. It is in having our heart broken that we realize that we were barking up the wrong tree and that Love is freely available if we turn inward and not allow ourselves to be seduced by temptations of an easy fix supplied by empty and impossible promises by an ego as delusional as ourselves.

Reading the stoics, A Course In Miracles, and Unitarian Universalism - It's all vanity

I have recently begun reading the stoics, and I have long been a student of A Course In Miracles, and even though I am unchurched at the moment, I think of myself as a Unitarian Universalist.

The stoic philosophy is considered to be the foundational ideas behind the psychotherapy of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. The basic idea is that our thoughts are what cause our emotional distress, and behavioral dysfunction. Today in my study of A Course In Miracles, I am reading the chapter on Forgiveness and the Holy Relationship. UUs covenant to affirm and promote the values of the inherent worth and dignity of every person and the acceptance of one another and encouragement to spiritual growth in our congregations and I like to add "in the world".

The first verse in the chapter on Forgiveness and the Holy Relationship reads" The betrayal of the Son of God lies only in illusions, and all his "sins" are but his own imagining." T-17.1.1:1 In other words, it's all bull shit. This seems to tie directly to the UU belief in Universalism. God, the Higher Power, Mother Nature, Life, whatever you want to call the transcendent loves us dearly and all the crap, the conditionings, the projections, the fantasies are illusions which we create. These illusions have very little or nothing to do with the essential reality of Love.

Throughout the day I forget this and get caught up in the nonsense. Every now and then, I catch myself, and pull back, step down, take a deep breath figuratively if not literally, and I remind myself that within me is the divine spark and this is part of the all, of everything, and I become aware of being one with everything, the universal. I rise above the nonsense and know that this isn't real and will pass away as surely as the next thought will come. Monkey mind the Buddhists call it. Being raised in the Christian tradition I am reminded of Ecclesiastes 1:2 Vanity of vanities, said the Preacher, vanity of vanities; all is vanity.

Unitarian Universalism has taken a wrong turn from its spiritual underpinnings when it gets too involved in social justice issues. It might as well be the Rotary, Kiwanis, Lions or some other civic organization. It is easy to get caught up in the dramas of social justice and forget in the grand scheme of things, it is all illusions. We have to choose between God or Caesar and Jesus very aptly says "Give to God the things that are God's and to Caesar the things that are Caesar's." And when we, as UU's become hyper focused on Caesar and forget about God, we are in trouble, because we have given vanity a reality and importance it does not deserve. We are called to Universal Love and our church should help us develop and sustain this enlightened awareness. This is its mission and should be its vision. What helps you become a better person every day to awaken yourself and inspire others?