Respect for the interdependent web is not enough. We should love and desire our oneness with it

Unitarian Universalists covenant together to affirm and promote a respect for the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part. We might consider that this principle should include not just respect for the interdependent web but a love and desire for the Oneness of Creation

Are you a victim or an agent? Do you feel helpless or a person of influence? Do you have enemies or only friends or potential friends? Do you feel unable to cope with the circumstances in your life or have you developed ways of managing your thoughts and emotions in response to those circumstances? Have you developed a wisdom to accept the things you cannot change and the courage to change the things that you can?

A sign of spiritual maturity is the knowledge and awareness that nobody and no things can make you think, feel, and behave anyway that you don't chose to think, feel, and behave. This awareness and practice brings peace and joy which is constant. Nothing can disturb it without your cooperation.

Some people believe that joy comes and goes, but that is not true. True joy is constant because it is based on balanced constancy which is supported by oneness with Creation. Once the center has been found it is difficult to be knocked off balance for long if at all.

The spirituality mature know the difference between pleasure, happiness, joy, and bliss.

The less spiritually mature settle for pleasure and happiness which is fleeting and can change with the winds. As one advances in spiritual development the awareness that joy and bliss are possible leads to a choice about how one wishes to lead one's life. People are afraid of joy and bliss because they are attached to pleasure and happiness and fear the loss of them. And yet we come to realize that pleasure and happiness are ephemeral and as such aren't "real." What is real is on another level and so we must chose whether we will say trapped in the material world or transition to a higher level of living. It is a choice we can make once we become aware of the option. To realize our full potential and actualize it we must say goodbye to the darker side of our nature.

May the love you desire and deserve flow from gratitude and thanks

Editor's note: 
Rev. Galen Guengerich, pastor at All Soul's Unitarian Church in New York City,  writes that gratitude should be the center of our UU faith. For more click here. I appreciate Rev. Guengerich's idea and being a student of A Course In Miracles and a Roman Catholic Unitarian Universalist, I think that forgiveness comes first, then gratitude. It is hard to feel grateful until one feels forgiven and forgives.

Question of the day

John Gottman says that there must be at least a 5:1 ratio of compliments to criticisms for a marriage and a family to be happy. How prevalent were compliments in your family growing up? In your family now?

Question of the day

What are you most grateful for?

Our most important choice is acknowledgement of Oneness or persistence in our separation

Unitarian Univeralists acknowledge in their seven principles that people need one another when they covenant together to affirm and promote their third principle which is the acceptance of another and encouragement to spiritual growth.

At a deep level people have a choice between the drama of the ego world or the peace and joy of Oneness with creation. Hopefully, people come to a point where they are aware of this choice because often they are unaware and feel trapped in vicious cycles and assume the role of victim of circumstances they perceive as beyond their control. While people cannot always control the circumstances which they perceive, they can, with awareness and intention, control their response and management of those circumstances. When people become aware that they have a choice, the further question, then, is what will they choose?

When people become aware of their errors and mistakes, these errors and mistakes call for correction and repair. This correction and repair cannot be done in isolation and on one's own but requires joining with others. This joining usually requires a request for help. It is not only okay to ask for help, it is necessary for in the requesting and obtaining help two and more become joined in improving their mutual welfare and in doing so the ripple effect blesses the whole world in ways beyond our comprehension.

The person and his/her brother/sister are joined together in the work of salvation which is a theological term meaning liberation from the bonds of error and mistakes to a place of peace and joy and well being.

It is written in A Course In Miracles, "You are your brother's savior. He is yours." T-21.VI.9:1-2

There is a powerful paragraph in ACIM which states, "God is not mocked; no more His Son can be imprisoned save by his own desire. And it is by his own desire that he is freed. Such is his strength, and not his weakness. He is at his own mercy. And where he chooses to be merciful, there is he free. But where he chooses to condemn instead, there is he held a prisoner, waiting in chains his pardon on himself to set him free." T-21.VI.11:5-10

And so another sign of spiritual maturity is the awareness that one has a choice and God is not mocked meaning that God's love for us is constant, universal, and our natural inheritance and what is required of us is simply the choice of acknowledgement instead of denial.

Question of the day

As a child growing up, how did the people in your family handle and manage anger? Have you continued with the same practices or changed them? How?