Health and Illnesses
March 2014
Again, again we come and go, changed, changing. Hands join, unjoin in love and fear, grief and joy. The circles turn, each giving into each, into all. —Wendell Berry
Articles
What Now?
Fifteen years ago, I was diagnosed with cancer. I had what the surgeon called a ‘strenuous surgery, was off work for nearly three months and debilitated for another six. But…it was OK. The results of the surgery had been the best possible, and this kind of cancer wasn’t supposed to come back. Read more »
Health
I was listening to a tape about health during my hospital stay, and it defined health as the ability to fully participate in one’s life. That stopped me. I had to rewind the tape and listen again. Read more »
Both Whole and Healing
I was diagnosed with a chronic pain disorder when I was 35 years old. Though my symptoms can be traced back many years earlier, I had managed to, well, manage the pain for some time. Read more »
Boldly Co-Existing with Mental Illness
In my senior year of college I had a psychotic manic episode and was hospitalized for two weeks. At 21 years old I received a lifelong companion, bipolar disorder. Read more »
Another Helping of Brokenness
I am prone to sudden jerky movements that are beyond my control. The other day, I was out on an errand. As happens so often when I go out, I experienced how we judge one another. And how sometimes we are both spectacularly loud and spectacularly wrong in our judgments. Read more »
From Your Minister
Recently, at one of CLF’s online worship services, we featured a guest minister, Teresa Ines Soto, who lives with cerebral palsy. Her story prompted several of our members to say that they also live with cerebral palsy, which caused me to reflect on the fact that I had not known that about them. Read more »
REsources for Living
I don’t know about your family, but in my family healthy eating is an ongoing battle. Yes, I am the kind of parent who generally thinks that junk food is bad, and vegetables are good. Not surprisingly, my daughter is equally strong in her opinion that junk food is good, and vegetables are to be ...Read more »
Our Birthright of Healing
The tools and strategies of healing are so innate, so much a part of a common human birthright, that we believers in technology pay very little attention to them. But they have lost none of their power. Read more »
Health and Illnesses
“Again, again we come and go, changed, changing. Hands join, unjoin in love and fear, grief and joy. The circles turn, each giving into each, into all.” —Wendell Berry Read more »
Solitude
February 2014
“One can be instructed in society; one is inspired only in solitude.” —Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Articles
From Loneliness to Solitude
One Sunday morning several years ago I stood on the front steps and greeted those who arrived. These front step greetings are one of my favorite rituals of Sunday morning; a chance for me to connect, if only briefly, with each and every person who walks through the doors. It allows me to take the ...
Power of One
Our culture sends very mixed messages about solitude, being single, and marriage. We believe strongly that each person must be able to stand alone.
Finding Strength in Silence
What I know now, that I did not know several years ago, is that renewal starts from a quiet space. Silence can be a hard commodity to find in our busy lives: either real silence, where you don’t hear anything but the rushing wind, or virtual silence, in which you quiet the noise within.
From Your Minister
In all honesty, I spent the vast majority of time during those ten-day retreats becoming aware of how rarely I am completely present to myself. It was not one blissful moment after another.
REsources for Living
The other day my internet went out. Eventually a guy from the cable company came out and determined that our cable had worn through from rubbing against a tree, and that really all of the cable from the main line to the modem needed to be replaced.
Loneliness and Longing
I have a friend who is a sailor. Sometimes he takes companions with him, but frequently he sails alone.
Solitude
“One can be instructed in society; one is inspired only in solitude.”
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Beginnings
January 2014
Every new beginning comes from some other beginning’s end. —Seneca
Articles
The Beginning is Now
The first time I heard those words was in seminary. I’d just agreed to sing with a newly formed a cappella group, and this song, Another Train, was on the practice CD I’d been sent home with after our first rehearsal. Read more »
In the Beginning . . .
The human mind is naturally drawn to beginnings, with an urge to trace things back, and back, and back—to try to get to the root. There’s a sense that if you know the beginning of something, then you know what it is, and where it might be headed, and how you might deal with it. ...Read more »
Unexpected New Year
I write this, and you will read it, at the start of a “new” year. I say “new” because that is how it has been parceled out in the proper number of days and weeks and months to make a year. Read more »
In the Beginning
Kate is teaching the kids about dinosaur air. That air you breathe that air You have inside you every time You take a breath that’s dinosaur air,’she says. Dinosaurs breathed it. Read more »
From Your Minister
One of my favorite tricks when I am frustrated, bored or stuck is to consider where things have begun. For instance, during the awkward social situations into which pretty much all of us are periodically thrown (like standing in clumps of strangers at receptions and coffee hours), one easy path into conversation is to ask ...Read more »
REsources for Living
Have you recently started up something new? Even if you haven’t, you probably remember a time when you did. Read more »
Where it Starts
The journey of a thousand miles begins with the first step, Lao Tzu said in the Tao. But a better translation of this familiar passage is to say the journey begins beneath our feet not in the first step but in the stillness that precedes it, in the place where we stand before we move, ...Read more »
The Careless Candle
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A candle is a careless thing, God wot. See how it is always
stretching up and reaching out. Read more →
Giving and Receiving
December 2013
I have found that among its other benefits, giving liberates the soul of the giver. —Maya Angelou
Articles
A Unitarian Christmas
Each year the American Family Association (AFA) publishes a “naughty or nice” list. Companies who use Merry Christmas in their advertisements and holiday displays are on the nice list. Read more »
The Gift of Receiving
I used to have a hard time letting people do anything for me. I’d work on my own house, repair my own car—I will admit, in years gone by that was largely because I couldn’t afford to pay anyone. Read more »
Receiving
When I was three or four, my older brother Kevin was in kindergarten. He got to do so many interesting things, while I stayed home. Read more »
A Gratuitous Duck
Maybe I don’t get out much. But I have always heard the word gratuitous associated with “gratuitous sex and violence” in movies I don’t want to see. Read more »
Gerda’s Raspberry
I stopped at the Holocaust Memorial, something I had previously walked quickly past. Names of hundreds of thousands of survivors towered over me, neatly written on giant plexiglass monuments. Read more »
From Your Minister
I still remember the Christmas I was in the 8th grade. There was a box under the tree, a large box, the kind that clothing came in. Read more »
The Careless Candle
A candle is a careless thing, God wot. See how it is alwaysstretching up and reaching out. Read more »
Giving and Receiving
“I have found that among its other benefits, giving liberates the soul of the giver.” —Maya Angelou Read more »
CLF Nominating Committee Seeks Leaders
The Church of the Larger Fellowship Nominating Committee seeks CLF members to run for positions on the Board of Directors beginning June 2014. Read more →
Tie Tack
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There are many relics in our home—objects to which important memories are attached. You probably have some, too.Each recalls some journey, event, or person that is a part of your life’s experience.
They’re precious on that account—religious objects that summon up powerful recollections. One of my favorites is my tie tack. It’s an opal, full of fiery iridescence.
Remember
Memory
November 2013
The true art of memory is the art of attention. —Samuel Johnson
Articles
Pie with Spirits
This is the very pumpkin pie my grandmother made—almost. She was a modern woman who knew how to follow recipes… Read more »
CLF Nominating Committee Seeks Leaders
The Church of the Larger Fellowship Nominating Committee seeks CLF members to run for positions on the Board of Directors beginning June 2014. Read more »
Tie Tack
There are many relics in our home—objects to which important memories are attached. You probably have some, too. Read more »
From Your Minister
Lately, as my Labrador retriever has been reaching the final days of a long, happy life, I have felt moved to sit with her and share… Read more »
REsources for Living
What’s your favorite Thanksgiving memory? I think about being a kid, and watching the Thanksgiving Day parade while the house filled with delicious smells… Read more »
Remember
Remember the sky that you were born under,know each of the star’s stories. Remember the moon, know who she is. Read more »
Do You Remember When?
The whole time between Thanksgiving and Kwanzaa is filled with days of remembrance. In the weeks around the winter solstice those of us in the Northern Hemisphere remind ourselves that we live in a universe where light will push aside the dark… Read more »
The Transformation of Silence
Spiritual Reflection Posts
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