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 »
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 »
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 »
Vulnerability
October 2013
“Courage is vulnerability. Vulnerability is courage. Like shadow and light, neither one can exist without the other.” —Wai Lan Yuen
Articles
Sustainable Empathy
Traveling home at the end of a really hot day, I got to Grand Central Terminal and made my way down to the 7 train like I always do. Read more »
On the Mend: Brokenness and Healing
A friend of mine slipped on the ice and broke her ankle one winter and was laid up for weeks and weeks. As I expressed my sympathy for her misfortune and suffering, a surprising phrase slipped out of my mouth. Read more »
Vulnerability and Compassion
The pragmatist philosopher-activist Jane Addams in her first book, Democracy and Social Ethics (1902), examined the great gap that she believed was then opening up between “old” and “new” ways of thinking about poverty. Read more »
Facing Vulnerability
Why is it so hard to be vulnerable? Vulnerability is both necessary to create the real connections we crave as human beings, and it involves the risk of being rejected for the true and vulnerable selves that we might share with others. Read more »
From Your Minister
Over ten million people have now watched online a 20-minute talk called “The Power of Vulnerability.” It’s a talk by Brené Brown, a researcher on the topic. Read more »
REsources for Living
Imagine that you are standing in front of a group of colleagues, or your entire class, about to give a presentation. Read more »
The Transformation of Silence
In the cause of silence, each of us draws the face of her own fear—fear of contempt, of censure, or some judgment, or recognition, of challenge or annihilation. Read more »
Vulnerability
“Courage is vulnerability. Vulnerability is courage. Like shadow and light, neither one can exist without the other.” —Wai Lan Yue Read more »
Community
September 2013
“We have all known the long loneliness, and we have learned that the only solution is love, and that love comes with community.” —Dorothy Day
Articles
On Going to Church (Excerpt)
I come to church—and would whether I was a preacher or not—because I fall below my own standards and need to be constantly brought back to them. Read more »
All Our Relations
Community has been lost in today’s world. People have become so engrossed in their own wants, dreams and desires that they don’t worry about helping anyone else. Read more »
Who Knows You?
Some of the old New England graveyards are serene little pockets of neglect. Their slate tombstones lean at odd angles and the elegant calligraphy is barely legible, spelling out obscure colonial names like Ozias and Zebulon. Read more »
From Your Minister
Though the extended community of Unitarian Universalists is a profoundly important one for me, if I had to name where I’ve learned the most about how to create deep and grounded community, it would not be church of any kind. Read more »
REsources for Living
What communities do you belong to? Very likely there is the community of your family, and your neighborhood might or might not feel like a community… Read more »
Community
“We have all known the long loneliness, and we have learned that the only solution is love, and that love comes with community.” —Dorothy Day Read more »
Dreaming in Circles
It is said that if a group of people sleep arranged in a circle—heads at the center and feet out like spokes—they create a dream circle. Read more »
The Light of the Faith
Imagine stepping into the sanctuary of the Unitarian Universalist Society of Geneva, Illinois. With narrow rows of wooden pews and the bright glow of stained glass along each side of the meetinghouse, you might think you had gone back in time. Read more »
Vision
July-August 2013
“There are always flowers for those who want to see them.” —Henri Matisse
Articles
Clarity of Hindsight
Knowing what you now know, would you do it all over again? Whatever it is. Marry your spouse? Pursue your career? Buy that house? Go to that college? Enlist? Join the Peace Corps? End that relationship? Plant that crop? Invest in those stocks? Read more »
Finding True Identity
Filled with the holy Spirit, Jesus returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit into the desert. (Luke 4:1) He’s really not much different from us, the man who walked deep into that desert. Read more »
Possibilities and Limits
We are on a dismounted patrol to the top of some ancient ruins. A short walk, but the ground is loose and steep. Rocks and dirt slide down as we walk up. The only way to make it up a steep hill while laden with gear is to look ahead but watch where you put ...Read more »
Solemn Te Deum for Peace
Can you imagine it? Palestinians and Israelis settling down together in their common lands bound together by the silver covenant of Jordan… Read more »
From Your Minister
In the dream, I am alone in a round stone tower. I do not want to be there, but I am trapped in its dark, damp, cold, airless space. And then, almost in a whisper, comes a soft voice, Keep looking there is a door. And suddenly the door is there. I can see light, ...Read more »
Thank You!
The CLF applauds the vision of the members of the congregations listed below. We are deeply thankful that they have chosen to hold special collections during their services to benefit the CLF’s Prison Ministry. If your bricks and mortar congregation holds special collections, we hope you will consider joining them in supporting this life-changing ministry. Read more »
On Living (Part I)
Living is no laughing matter: you must live with great seriousness like a squirrel, for example I mean without looking for something beyond and above living… Read more »
REsources for Living
What if you had x-ray vision like Superman? What would you use it for? Of course, real x-rays let you see through skin and muscle to the bones underneath, but they wouldn’t let you look through the walls of buildings to see what the villains were up to inside. But never mind. It’s our game ...Read more »
Rebirth
June 2013
“Nothing remains as it was. If you know this, you can begin again, with pure joy in the uprooting.” —Judith Minty
Articles
Finding Life in the Land of Death
If I were trying to develop and deliver a talk about the history of Unitarian Universalist opposition to war and war-making institutions, I could have hammered this out and gone right back to dipping peppermint Jo Jo’s in milk and watching Dr. Who on Netflix. Read more »
Dancing into the Heart of God
Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Rumi was born in 1207 in Afghanistan, which was then within the Persian empire. Read more »
Annual Meeting
The CLF Annual Meeting will be held on June 27, 2013 at 6:00PM Eastern Time by teleconference and screenshare. That means that CLF members can call in to a conference call number and participate by telephone. Read more »
From Your Minister
Before rebirth, there has to be birth. I have never given birth, but I have been privileged to witness two human babies, six puppies, three kittens, and a few birds and turtles enter the world. And I suspect all of us have watched documentaries of the same kinds of thing. Read more »
REsources for Living
Perhaps you have seen the bumper sticker: “Born OK the first time.” That’s where we UUs tend to come down. You don’t need to be born again. We don’t hold with the notion of original sin, that babies are born carrying the sin of Adam and Eve’s rebellion. Read more »
In My Own Worst Season
In my own worst seasons I’ve come back from the colorless world of despair by forcing myself to look hard, for a long time, at a single glorious thing: a flame of red geranium outside my bedroom window. Read more »
Rebirth
“Nothing remains as it was. If you know this, you can begin again, with pure joy in the uprooting.” —Judith Minty Read more »
Creation
May 2013
“The creation of a thousand forests is in one acorn.” —Ralph Waldo Emerson
Articles
The Adventure of Creativity
The main point of the sermon was that I really don’t care whether there is a shred of historical truth in the story of Jesus. What I care about is that it’s a good story, and it contains truths about life—about how to live my life. Read more »
The Garden of Eden
I was nine or ten when my mother gave me permission to plant and tend my first garden. She was a gardener too. In addition to ten children, my mother raised several lavish beds of exquisite purple and gold irises. I’ve associated irises with her ever since, and so they’ve always been my favorite ...Read more »
Where I Come From is Like This
When I was twenty-three, I felt myself skating over the surface of my life. So focused on who I was, I wasn’t paying attention to where I was. Beauties would pass me by. I would find my mind in tomorrow already, not noticing today. Read more »
From Your Minister
Thomas King poses those questions after sharing a completely different kind of creation story than Genesis, a Native American story involving mud and rain and animals and humans and deities, all engaged in the messy process of co-creating a world of balance and connection and ongoing, meaningful relationships which are fraught with conflict. Read more »
REsources for Living
It seems that for as long as we’ve had people, we’ve had stories of creation. As human beings we like to have an explanation of where we come from and why things are the way they are. The world is created through the splitting of a great cosmic egg, or a great cosmic monster. Read more »
Another Kind of Knowledge
I believe there is only one power, one shaping urge, but I also believe that it infuses everything the glistening track of the snail along with the gleaming eye of the fawn, the grain in the oak, the froth on the creek, the coiled proteins in my blood and in yours, the mind that strings ...Read more »
Awakening
April 2013
“A single event can awaken within us a stranger totally unknown to us. To live is to be slowly born.” —Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
Articles
Swimming in the Deep End: Merging with the River
Walking along the American River I came upon a tiny cove. I sat on some boulders near where the cove and the river met. In front of me the main body of the river rushed by at thousands of gallons a minute. Read more »
On Mortality
It seems that the older I get, the more I understand the way mortality shapes our perception and our willingness to be fully in this world. It’s not something I used to think about directly too scary but now I often find myself reading the obituaries, musing on what I would want my own to ...Read more »
On Mortality
Until I turned forty-six, it was easy to imagine that growing old was something that happened to others, that death was a long way off. While I hope death is a long way off, I’m coming to accept that it will happen to me, that none of us no matter how healthy or fit will ...Read more »
Listening For Our Song
On sabbatical in East Africa, I heard a story of a people who believe that we are each created with our own song. Their tradition as a community is to honor that song by singing it as a welcome when a child is born, as a comfort when the child is ill, in celebration when ...Read more »
Making a Fist
For the first time, on the road north of Tampico,I felt the life sliding out of me,a drum in the desert, harder and harder to hear.I was seven, I lay in the car… Read more »
From Your Minister
When did you have your first moment of spiritual awakening one which you knew consciously as spiritual awakening? I can still remember mine vividly. I was just out of college, working as a secretary, drinking too much on weekends because I couldn’t think what else to do, talking endlessly with friends about the elusive purpose ...Read more »
REsources for Living
What does it take to become enlightened? What is required in order to awaken to the truth of the universe? How do you go from your ordinary I wonder if we’re out of milk? frame of mind into a higher consciousness? Read more »
Awakening
“A single event can awaken within us a stranger totally unknown to us. To live is to be slowly born.” —Antoine de Saint-Exupéry Read more »
Everything We Need
We already have everything we need. There is no need for self-improvement. All these trips that we lay on ourselves the heavy-duty fearing that we’re bad and hoping that we’re good, the identities that we so dearly cling to, the rage, the jealousy and the addictions of all kinds never touch our basic wealth. Read more »
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