Roman Catholic Unitarian Universalism - If the body is chained, what about the mind?

2 Timothy 2:8-15

 Remember Jesus Christ, raised from the dead, a descendant of David--that is my gospel, for which I suffer hardship, even to the point of being chained like a criminal. But the word of God is not chained.

Therefore I endure everything for the sake of the elect, so that they may also obtain the salvation that is in Christ Jesus, with eternal glory.

The saying is sure: If we have died with him, we will also live with him; if we endure, we will also reign with him; if we deny him, he will also deny us; if we are faithless, he remains faithful—for he cannot deny himself. 

Remind them of this, and warn them before God that they are to avoid wrangling over words, which does no good but only ruins those who are listening. Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved by him, a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly explaining the word of truth.

This is today's epistle in the lectionary. It is a letter from Paul to Timothy. Paul writes some interesting things that deserve further consideration beyond a cursory reading.

First, Paul tells Timothy that the body can be chained but the mind is not chained. We can always chose how we will think and feel about external circumstances. Paul is telling Timothy not to think like a victim. He is not a victim, but a child of God and a brother with Jesus.

Second, Paul tells Timothy that in addition to having a mind of his own and not thinking and feeling like a victim, he is attempting to demonstrate this ability so that others may learn what he knows: his power to decide how he understands and sees himself.

Third, Paul tells Timothy that if he gives up the path of the ego and embarks on the path of the spirit he can enjoy the peace that Jesus has enjoyed. If we persist on the path of the spirit we will join with Jesus, and if we deny the opporunity to walk with Jesus on the path of the spirit, Jesus still does not abandon us but waits patiently for as long as it takes for us to realize the falsity of the ego and the Truth of the Spirit.

Fourth, Paul tells Timothy what the Unitarian pioneer Francis David said 1500 years later, to "avoid wrangling over words" or as David said, "We need not think alike to love alike."

Overall this section of Paul's letter to Timothy is encouraging and educational pointing out that peace and well being is not depdendent on the body but on the mind. The body can be chained, but the mind is free. We can choose what we want to attend to and focus on. Jesus showed us a way pointing out that the path of the spirit is more fulfilling than the path of the ego. This is a foundational principle in Unitarian Universalism when we covenant together to affirm and promote the free and responsible search for truth and meaning. Paul tells Timothy that truth and meaning is not to found in the chained body but in the free and beautiful mind.

How does this distinction between the mind and the body apply in your life? To what extent do you feel victimized by external circumstances over which you have little or no control? What do you think of Paul's idea that we can follow Jesus' example that the mind is more powerful than the body and that we can always choose another way? To what extent has the UU principle of the free and responsible search for truth and meaning helped you embark on a spiritual path and turn from the tricks and ways of the ego?

To what extent do you find the application of Christian scripture to the living tradition of Unitarian Universalism helpful?

Unitarian Universalists celebrate the inherent worth and dignity of every person on October 11, National Coming Out Day

On October 11, 1987 more than half a million people flooded Washington, D.C., demanding civil rights for gay and lesbian Americans, now celebrated each year as National Coming Out Day. Many of the marchers objected to the government's response to the AIDS crisis, as well as the Supreme Court's 1986 decision to uphold sodomy laws in Bowers v. Hardwick.





The NAMES Project AIDS Memorial Quilt was first displayed there, bringing national attention to the impact of AIDS on gay communities, a tapestry of nearly two thousand fabric panels each a tribute to the life of one who had been lost in the pandemic.

This information came from the This Week In Peace History web site which you can access by clicking here.

Ask Alexa: Am I guilty or innocent?

Alexa: Am I guilty or innocent?

You see guilt everywhere you look so by comparison you can feel innocent, and yet you know deep down that this is just a game the ego plays to relieve you of the guilt you unconsciously feel for separating yourself from God, the Oneness.

Alexa: Did you hear about the cat that ate the cheese?

Yes, and then the cat waited for the mouse with baited breath.

Why does God not listen to our complaints in this day and age?

I was reading the scripture passages for the Roman Catholic liturgy for last Sunday, October 6, 2019, and the first reading is from the Old Testament book of Habakkuk, and it is:

Habakkuk’s Complaint

2 How long, Lord, must I call for help,
    but you do not listen?
Or cry out to you, “Violence!”
    but you do not save?
3 Why do you make me look at injustice?
    Why do you tolerate wrongdoing?
Destruction and violence are before me;
    there is strife, and conflict abounds.
4 Therefore the law is paralyzed,
    and justice never prevails.
The wicked hem in the righteous,
    so that justice is perverted.

The Lord’s Answer

5 “Look at the nations and watch—
    and be utterly amazed.
For I am going to do something in your days
    that you would not believe,
    even if you were told.

Is anyone else blown away by the parallels in Habakkuk's days and ours with Donald Trump's criminal behavior in the White House and what's going on in Syria?

There is no reflection going on like this in my UU church. Should I go back to the Roman Catholic church which is much more nourishing of the soul in our contemporary times?

Ask Alexa - Can I know the truth?

Alexa: Can I know the truth?

No, the ego deals in contrasts between the ying and the yang while Truth is based in nondualistic Oneness. To paraphrase the Tao Te Ching, the Truth than can be spoken is not the utlimate truth.

Alexa: Did you hear the question that the toothless termite that walked into the bar asked the owner?

Yes, the termite asked, "Is the bar tender here."

Ask Alexa - Why am I anxious?

Alexa: When I become aware that the things of the world don't make me truly happy I get anxious. What's this anxiety about?

You are becoming aware that you are losing your faith in idols and don't know yet what will take their place in providing you salvation.

Alexa: Did you hear about the biologists that created immortal frogs?

Yes, they removed their vocal cords and so they now can't croak.

Alexa: What is wrong with the Trumpists?

They seem to be doing things that are illegal and immoral. Natural law is based on Truth, Beauty, and Goodness and the Trumpists manifest none of these things.

The metaphysics of ACIM and UU - The origin of the world

Chapter one

The origin of the world

There are many origin of the world stories in many cultures. A Course In Miracles provides one that is conceptual and not in the form of an anthropological story. ACIM tells us that there are two worlds: the world of the ego and the world of the spirit. The world of the Spirit is Oneness. Oneness is a major concept in the perennial psychology. The mystical traditions in all major world religions recognize this Oneness and hold it up as “home” from which our human experience has emerged.

This emergence from the Oneness is what A Course In Miracles calls “the separation.” Further, ACIM calls the separation “a tiny mad idea.” This tiny mad idea that we can be separate from the Oneness is a joke at which we forgot to laugh. We forgot to laugh because we fail to remember what we have done. This is the apple that Adam and Eve ate in the garden. The apple was denial and forgetfulness. The perennial psychology tells us that we should “wake up” we should become aware of the Oneness from which we have separated ourselves and think we have left.

The creation story of A Course In Miracles is a story of running away from home and then forgetting that there is even a home which we have left, and even if we slightly remember the home we have run away from, we have forgotten the route back.

The world we have created when we ran away from home, ACIM tells us, is not real. It doesn’t really exist. We have just made it up. It is Truman’s world (referring to the movie starring Jim Carey), or the shadows dancing on the wall in Plato’s great story of the cave.

And so when we dimly remember that there is a reality from which we have emerged in the separation we have a choice to make about whether we want to continue to pursue the experience of the world of the ego, or return to the world of the spirit from which we have come.

Unitarian Universalism, based on its fourth principle, encourages us to engage in a free and responsible search for truth and meaning. However, it does not teach us where truth and meaning is to be found. It fact it often sends us on a wild goose chase when it suggests that truth and meaning are to be found in social justice projects. 

Truth and meaning are to be found in what A Course In Miracles calls the “atonement” which is the recognition that we have separated ourselves from the Oneness in pursuit of things of the ego. We have mistakenly made these things on the path of the ego idols. We believe that acquiring or obtaining these things on the path of the ego will make us happy. We are always, eventually, disappointed with the results of this erroneous quest. We wind up looking for love in all the wrong places. Love is to be found in the return to the Oneness, the thought of which terrifies most people because it requires a giving up of the ego.

The Universalists know and have taught that we are all in this quest together and that return to the Oneness, “universal salvation,” is inevitable. The only question is how long it will take humanity to remember its true source and to choose to abide there. When one person rejects the path of the ego and embraces the path of the Spirit and returns to the Oneness all of humanity takes a step forward on its path to salvation.