Vulnerability
October 2017
We are at our most powerful the moment we no longer need to be powerful. ―Eric Micha’el Leventhal
Articles
Sacred Vulnerability
Vulnerability is the core of all emotions and feelings. To feel is to be vulnerable. Read more »
Sustenance During Vulnerability
One of the things that can sustain us in our moments of greatest vulnerability is belonging to a community that we can trust to support us and give us the spiritual resources to continue on. Read more »
The Shadow Side of Vulnerability
During a sabbatical in the UK a few years ago, I had the pleasure of meeting a British Unitarian minister named Jane at a ministers’ retreat. I liked her instantly. Read more »
The Difficult Gifts of Vulnerability
I’m a grown man. I’m doing time for the second time around in the Texas Department of Criminal Justice. In other words, I’m not new to this thing. Read more »
A Hazardous Country
I like the comfort I find when I’m able to be vulnerable. That comfortable space, though, is not easy to find, and from within a prison it may not be the best thing to be vulnerable. Read more »
From Your Minister
Who are the most vulnerable people you know—both individually and because they hold identities which are marginalized and dismissed by powers and principalities? Read more »
REsources for Living
What do you choose to do even though it makes you feel vulnerable? Do you speak up in class or in a meeting? How about if you’re not entirely sure you have the right answer? Read more »
Inhabiting Vulnerability
Vulnerability is not a weakness, a passing indisposition, or something we can arrange to do without; vulnerability is not a choice. Read more »
Vulnerability
October 2017 edition of Quest Monthly – We are at our most powerful the moment we no longer need to be powerful. ―Eric Micha’el Leventhal Read more »
Resilience
September 2017
If your heart is broken, make art with the pieces. ―Shane L. Koyczan
Articles
Riding the Waves
Ten adults face a layoff, a messy divorce, a big mistake, serious health problems, etc. You know, all the stuff of life that launches any of us into unwelcome, uncomfortable, inevitable change. Read more »
A Community of Support
One of the elements that creates resilience in our lives is knowing that we can count on a community that will both support us throughout our spiritual journey and call us toward a vision of who we can become. Read more »
Resilience as a Spiritual Strength
One thing I’ve learned about the word “resilience” is that it initially came from the field of metallurgy, describing how certain metals when heated will lose their shape, but when cooled can amazingly recover their original form, resiliently. Read more »
Stronger in the Broken Places
A famous rabbi once said the truth will set you free. Trouble is, the truth is truth, whether we like it or not. The truth is that we will all break in this life. That’s how we learn to recover. Read more »
Observations at Southwest Atlanta Nature Preserves
Stunning in their endurance, despite chain saws and sewage spills, mounds of old tires, garbage, plastic bottles that blanket creek banks… Read more »
From Your Minister
Times that are hard require more spiritual practice for me. This past year, I’ve been hard at work strengthening my spiritual systems to create more resilience. For me, stronger resilience requires building flexibility, love, agility, and willingness. Read more »
REsources for Living
You know those little, colorful, ultra-bouncy Super Balls? That’s what comes to mind when I think of the word “resilience.” People and other beings who are resilient bounce back when they get dropped. Read more »
Did You Know?
…that congregations and individuals are welcome to share material from Quest Monthly, provided credit is given? Read more »
I Began to Ask Each Time
I began to ask each time: “What’s the worst that could happen to me if I tell this truth?” Read more »
Ways of Knowing
July/August 2017
Happiness exists on earth, and it is won through prudent exercise of reason, knowledge of the harmony of the universe, and constant practice of generosity. —José Martí
Articles
Ways of Knowing
Happiness exists on earth, and it is won through prudent exercise of reason, knowledge of the harmony of the universe, and constant practice of generosity. —José Martí Read more »
Finding True North
When you are facing a juncture in your life, a period of transition, or an important decision, I wonder… Read more »
Reconciling Science and Religion
Resolving the rift between science and religion is deeply personal for me. Read more »
Science and the Sacred
The most profound truths about what it means to be human belong to both science and religion. Read more »
Discovery
This year I became an Uncle, and in a few days time I will become a “goodparent.” Read more »
How Do We Know?
How do we know what we know? Well, as Unitarian Universalists we are committed to an ongoing “search for truth and meaning.” Read more »
REsources for Living
Well, what do you know! No, really: what do you know—and how do you know it? And how do you know that you know it? Read more »
Did You Know?
…that while there is only one issue of Quest Monthly over the summer you can find searchable archives for Quest here. Read more »
Tao Te Ching, 71
Knowing that you don’t know is health… Presuming that you know is disease… Read more »
Spirit/Soul
June 2017
Stop acting so small. You are the Universe in ecstatic motion. —Rumi
Articles
The Soul of the Whole
It seems to me we speak all the time and all at once of two kinds of spiritual integrity, two ways of being deeply, liberally, religious—one looking inward, one looking outward. Read more »
Soul
Not that transparent self tucked under my skin… one day to be set free by my death that it might fly. Read more »
The Movement of the Spirit
Have you ever had a spiritual experience, a sense of movement of the spirit? A flash in time when your appreciation for the world was so complete, so perfect, that you were transfixed and transformed? Read more »
REsources for Living
There are a whole lot of words from poets and preachers and wise folks of various types that have changed how I understand the world, but there’s one quote that has maybe shaped what I’ve done with my life more than any other. Read more »
From Your Minister
“I love seeing that you’re entertaining earth spirits in the yard,” the man said to me, bending his head so that his tall frame could fit through my front door. Read more »
Gardeners of the Spirit
Help us be the always hopeful gardeners of the spirit who know that without darkness nothing comes to birth as without light nothing flowers. Read more »
Did You Know?
…that you can listen to podcasts not only of Quest Monthly, but also of our talk show The VUU? Read more »
Within Us
We live in succession, in division, in parts, in particles. Meantime within is the soul of the whole; the wise silence; the universal beauty, to which every part and particle is equally related, the eternal ONE. Read more »
Money
May 2017
“The price of anything is the amount of life you exchange for it.” —Henry David Thoreau
Articles
Money, Money, Money
At age 10 or 11 I was just beginning to understand more about how the world works, about morals and ethics and my own agency. I was waking up to my ability to make choices about all kinds of things. Read more »
The Values of Money
I grew up poor, although I didn’t think we were. We always had food. My dad drove a car. Read more »
Five Dollars is Five Dollars
I want to tell you a story about a little boy who got up from the table where his older brother and mom sat, to go back to his room. Read more »
Your Money and Your Life
Money is often a source of shame for both those without it and those who have it. Read more »
Be The Light
Help us be the always hopeful gardeners of the spirit who know that without darkness nothing comes to birth, as without light nothing flowers. Read more »
From Your Minister
The word economics comes from a Greek word meaning household management, something I’ve done a lot of in my life. So you’d think I’d have a knack for it. Read more »
REsources for Living
I was amused when my 18-year-old daughter, newly hired at an upscale mall shop during the Christmas rush, reported on how her work was going. “I can’t believe,” she said, “the amount of money that people are willing to spend on soap! Read more »
Did You Know?
…that you can give graduating seniors a gift of Quest Monthly, so that UUism can go with them to college? Click here to learn more. Read more »
The People of the Earth Go Down
The people of the earth go down, Each with his wealth of dream… Read more »
Money
“The price of anything is the amount of life you exchange for it.” —Henry David Thoreau Read more »
Creativity
April 2017
Creativity is piercing the mundane to find the marvelous. —Bill Moyers
Articles
Creativity, Art and Failure
Neil Gaiman, who is a writer and creator of many things, gave a commencement speech that was later published as a book. Read more »
We Journey Together
We journey together in a way that we believe is best for supporting an individual’s growth in the community. Read more »
The Creative Spirit
My son is in kindergarten. Every morning before we leave for school, I check his backpack for the essentials… Read more »
Pure Imagination
We each were born with the powers of creativity. While we’re not all going to be famous artists or poets or musicians, we each have the faculties to use our imagination to create. Read more »
The Spirit of Creativity
While I believe it is true that no one can take your creativity away from you, there are those who sure try. Read more »
From Your Minister
Years ago, a therapist told me that people would rather feel absolutely anything besides helplessness. Read more »
Notice of Annual Meeting
To all members of the Church of the Larger Fellowship, Unitarian Universalist… Read more »
REsources for Living
Many, many years ago I visited the palm reader’s booth at a Renaissance Faire. The palm reader studied my hand for a minute or two, and then pronounced: “You have a lot of creative energy.” Read more »
Did You Know?
…that the CLF has its own talk show? Catch The VUU Thursday mornings on YouTube live, or watch the archived version on YouTube at your convenience. Read more »
Your House
Your house has 1000 rooms… Every closet, drawer, cupboard… box and bin… opens up onto another world… Read more »
Covenant
March 2017
Blessed is the covenant of love, the covenant of mercy… deathless song in the house of night. —Leonard Cohen
Articles
Thus Do We Covenant…
A number of years ago, I was the guest preacher at one of our small congregations in northern New England. Read more »
The Covenants We Keep
My seminary classmate was 30 years older than me. I sat in his small apartment, hoping for the kind of wisdom and guidance I had already come to know he might provide. Read more »
For All Those Who Seek Help
Our liberal religious covenant… is to trust one another enough… to seek help when we’re down and to offer assistance when we’re able. Read more »
Bound in Covenant (Excerpt)
A covenant is not a contract. It is not made and signed and sealed once and for all, sent to the attorneys for safekeeping or guarded under glass in a museum. Read more »
In the Presence of God and One Another (Excerpt)
We are being invited into a place where we move from an idea to an experience. Read more »
From Your Guest Minister
I often wonder if there is much more going on with free will than meets the eye, especially when it comes to finding and joining a spiritual community. Read more »
REsources for Living
I’ve been going lately to choir rehearsals in a classroom at a school for the arts, so I’ve had a chance to read the posters on the front wall. Read more »
Did You Know?
…that you can read blog posts from UUs, including CLF ministers Meg Riley and Lynn Ungar ? Read more »
City Upon a Hill
Now the onely way to avoyde this shipwracke, and to provide for our posterity, is to followe the counsell of Micah, to doe justly, to love mercy, to walk humbly with our God. Read more »
Covenant
Blessed is the covenant of love, the covenant of mercy… deathless song in the house of night. —Leonard Cohen Read more »
Embodiment
February 2017
If anything is sacred, the human body is sacred. —Walt Whitman
Articles
Rise in Body or in Spirit
It was never my goal to become an elder. Over the years I have looked at older men, older than I am, and thought: Someday that might be me. Read more »
Uses of the Erotic
You run into interesting conundrums in church life. For instance, in planning readings for a Valentine’s Day service that honors the erotic, you find that it’s not at all hard to locate some pretty great erotic poems; it’s just a challenge to come up with ones that you can read aloud in church. Read more »
The Least Embodied Church
The CLF is perhaps the least embodied church you will ever find. Read more »
From Your Minister
I’ve always thought that God the Father had a really sick relationship with Mother Earth. Read more »
Biscuits and Star Stuff
“Mama,” said Quinn. “What’s up?” Mama asked. She could see the sun shining on the top of Quinn’s curly hair. She measured another spoonful of mayonnaise into the bowl. Mama was making drop biscuits. Read more »
The CLF Invites GA Delegates
Would you like to represent the Church of the Larger Fellowship at General Assembly (GA) this summer? Read more »
Did You Know?
Did you know that you can listen to Quest Monthly or read (and share) it online? Read more »
Change
January 2017
Because things are the way they are, things will not stay the way they are. —Bertolt Brecht
Articles
Transitions, Expected and Unexpected
Reading #655 in our hymnal, Singing the Living Tradition, is entitled, “Change Alone is Unchanging.” It’s attributed to the ancient Greek philosopher Heraklietos, also known as the weeping philosopher. Read more »
Making Change
Did you know that prisoners now make up more than 20% of the CLF’s membership? Read more »
Moving with Change
Being religiously savvy Unitarian Universalists, most of you probably know that one of the core teachings of Buddhism is impermanence. Read more »
From Your Minister
Here’s how I wish change happened: Change says to The Universe, Hey, I’d like to happen now! And The Universe replies, with ease and joy, That’s terrific! Happen, then! Read more »
REsources for Living
I can’t claim that I’m a big fan of change. I like comfort. I like knowing what to expect. Read more »
Help Wanted:
CLF Pen Pals for some of the 725 CLF members in prisons who are new to Unitarian Universalism. Read more »
Did You Know?
…that you can sign up for CLF online classes to stretch your mind and spirit? Read more »
Wave Driven by Wave
As wave is driven by wave… And each, pursued, pursues the wave ahead… Read more »
Change
Because things are the way they are, things will not stay the way they are. —Bertolt Brecht Read more »
Waiting
PHOTO CREDIT: “Water Protectors in prayer on the frontline at the Backwater Bridge, November 20, 2016” by Rob Wilson, used with permission.
December 2016
Patience is not simply the ability to wait—it’s how we behave while we’re waiting. —Joyce Meyer
Articles
Sweet Anticipation
I had the exquisite experience recently of being in the midst of a community of hope. Read more »
Impatient with Waiting
Because of advances in technology, our world literally moves faster than ever. Read more »
We Needn’t Fear the Darkness
We rail against the darkness, light our fires, dance and shout. And yet… Read more »
A Litany of Waiting
Waiting for the bus. Waiting for the next election. Waiting for Christmas. Read more »
What Are You Waiting For?
In his well-known poem “If,” Rudyard Kipling states: “If you can wait and not be tired by waiting.…” Read more »
From Your Minister
We are so often waiting for something to happen—waiting for appointments, waiting on hold for customer assistance, waiting in line, waiting for approval, waiting for an apology, waiting for a specific date or event! Read more »
REsources for Living
Rachel went outside and looked up at the sky—again. Had the sun gotten any lower in the trees? It was hard to tell. Read more »
Did You Know?
…that the CLF is hoping to send holiday cards to our more than 700 prisoner members? You can help. Read more »
Another Kind of Knowledge
Prepare the way to welcome your inner Christ child—the being of love and light, the spark of holiness that lies deep in us all. Read more »
Waiting
Patience is not simply the ability to wait—it’s how we behave while we’re waiting. —Joyce Meyer Read more »
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