To what extent are you a bottomless pit?

 Beyond all idols

If what we long for is completeness, wholeness, to become One with All, then why do we pursue idols thinking that they will complete us and make us whole? 

Is the idol we pursue romantic love, money, status, power, material things? None of these idols can complete us. We are like bottomless pits. If we get an inch we want a foot. If we get a foot we want a yard. If we get a yard we want 10 years, then 100 yards, then 1,000 yards, then a mile, then 10 miles…………...When will it ever stop?

A Course In Miracles tells us that what we seek we already have.

T-30.III.4. It never is the idol that you want. But what you think it offers you, you want indeed and have the right to ask for. Nor could it be possible it be denied. Your will to be complete is but God’s Will, and this is given you by being His. God knows not form. He cannot answer you in terms that have no meaning. And your will could not be satisfied with empty forms, made but to fill a gap that is not there. It is not this you want. Creation gives no separate person and no separate thing the power to complete the Son of God. What idol can be called upon to give the Son of God what he already has?

A Course in Miracles . Foundation for Inner Peace. P.631

T-30.III.8. The Thoughts of God are far beyond all change, and shine forever. They await not birth. They wait for welcome and remembering. The Thought God holds of you is like a star, unchangeable in an eternal sky. So high in Heaven is it set that those outside of Heaven know not it is there. Yet still and white and lovely will it shine through all eternity. There was no time it was not there; no instant when its light grew dimmer or less perfect ever was.

A Course in Miracles . Foundation for Inner Peace. P.632

The Course tells us that God’s love is always there for us. All we need do is remember and welcome it.

Unitarian Universalists covenant together to affirm and promote the inherent worth and dignity of every person. This means the person doesn't have to do anything, acquire anything, achieve anything, be associated with anyone, believe anything in particular, to be saved. 

UUs believe that people are already saved. They probably just don't know it yet. They are not aware of it. They need to remember it and become aware of it. Of course, it helps if they are coached, suggested, encouraged, supported in remembering and welcoming. The new fangled idea for this is "self compassion."

Will you find what you have been looking for all along?

T-30.II.1. Do you not understand that to oppose the Holy Spirit is to fight yourself? He tells you but your will; He speaks for you. In His Divinity is but your own. And all He knows is but your knowledge, saved for you that you may do your will through Him. God asks you do your will. He joins with you. He did not set His Kingdom up alone. And Heaven itself but represents your will, where everything created is for you.

A Course in Miracles . Foundation for Inner Peace. P.629

How long will I find my Self and look instead to idols for my happiness? How long can this go on?

It can go on until I come to the realization that I am powerless to control the life I think I am living in the dream. Can I give up, give in, turn it over? When I finally do this, I experience tremendous relief, tremendous liberation, tremendous freedom to just be with God, the Oneness, the All.

The peace of God is mine if I only will recognize the fundamental truth that I am okay just the way I am being One with God.

Become one with the Tao. Go with the flow. Stop resisting the Love of the Oneness.

Universalists know this. It is the basis of their faith. They believe in Universal salvation and the Unconditional Love of God. Universalists covenant together to affirm and promote the free and responsible search for truth and meaning and this search will eventually take them to the awareness that God’s will for them is exactly what they have been looking for all along.

God's will or my will?

I like to say that you and God are a dynamic duo. Bringing your will into alignment with God’s will for you is unbeatable and unstoppable and you will have a great day no matter what.

Unitarian Universalists covenant together to affirm and promote the free and responsible search for truth and meaning. That truth and meaning is best found in discerning God’s will for you and all of humanity. Universalists believe in the Universal unconditional love of God and universal salvation. In the meantime, human beings make a lot of mistakes because they are listening to the ego instead of to God. When we make mistakes, God laughs lovingly, and waits for us to change our minds and choose again.

From Commetary on A Course In Miracles by David G. Markham Chapter three

Alexa goes to the birds.

A Couse In Miracles and Unitarian Universalism - What kind of day do you want?

This section of  A Course In Miracles, reads, “But think about the kind of day you want, and tell yourself there is a way in which this very day can happen just like that. Then try again to have the day you want.” T-30.1.1:8-9

You might be thinking, “What kind of psychobabble is this? It sounds like the power of positive thinking.”

From A Course In Miracles commentary by David G. Markham, Chapter 30, I.Rules For Decision

Unitarian Universalists covenant together to accept one another and encourage each other's spiritual growth. To what extent is this happening in your congregation?

What is the spiritual path like?

What is the spiritual path like? It is not a bunch of ideas, beliefs, allegiance to creeds, but it is a set of behaviors, practises.

One of the most basic of spiritual practises is forgiveness in the place of judgment. Forgiveness is of spirit while judgment is of the ego.

To follow the commentary on  A Course In Miracles click here.

Public theology - Is the US in need of a spiritual revolution?

People have a remarkable capacity to bring themselves into conformity with opinions that are clearly contrary to the evidence, if it reduces social dissonance. To do otherwise would rock the boat, expose the fact that the emperor has no clothes. (As we used to joke, you can fool some of the people all the time—and that’s our target market!)

Jain, Naveen. Moonshots : Creating a World of Abundance (p. 86). John August Media, LLC.

It is a psychological fact that perception is reality for most people. However, Jain misses the observation about what influences our perception, and the answer to that is our beliefs.

As Flip Wilson used to say in his Geraldine routine, "Honey, what you see is what you get!" Or better said, "Honey, what you think you see is what you get!"

This, of course, leads to the idea of bias and prejudice which we are confronting as a nation with Black Lives Matter and the xenophobia, racism, and mysogony coming from the highest office in our country, and being acted out in our communities every day with horrific consequences decreasing significantly the quality of life in our communties and country.

If there to be a moonshot that would eliminate the xenophobia, racism, and mysgogony in our country what might it be?

Martin Luther King, Jr.'s leadership fascilitating nonviolent civil disobedience, based on love for our enemies, worked somewhat in the US in gettng rid of the Jim Crow laws in our Southern States in the 50s and 60s as it did for Gandhi in India in throwing off British colonialism.

What would be a moonshot in our current time to overcome Trumpism?

It seems to me that we would utlitmately have to change people's belief systems about separation, isolation, othering, and encourage people to look for their problems within rather than without. What we need is a spiritual revolution in the US if we are going to signicantly make headway in what I think of as a spritiual sickness. We can coerce people's poltical behavior by criminalizing it but criminalizing behavior does not necessarily lead to a postive corrective spiritual change.

The moonshot that could bring about a spiritual revolution is our country is the spread of the covenantal relationship of Unitarian Universalism which is based on our seven principles. UUs are lousy marketers and operate on the idea of attraction rather than marketing.

The other big problem is that UUs are not aware of the goldmine they are sitting on. If we uncovered the shade over our lamp, we could significantly help the world. Can we find ways to let out little light shine?