A Prayer for the Caregivers
You know who you are.
You put your own life on hold, move across the country to sit by the bedside.
You process the hospital bills, pay them, know they matter more than the car you had thought you needed.
You explain patiently, one more time, to the one who won’t remember.
You make 100 phone calls searching for a kidney donor.
You hold the shaking body through the nightmares, even in your sleep.
You take time to find the one food she will still eat.
You rub ice chips on his lips, and then chapstick.
You find hours you don’t have, rush to the hospice. You’ll sleep later.
You know who you are.
You couldn’t do anything else.
It is your privilege and your duty to be right where you are.
Getting Out of Our Own Way Faithfully
Recently, I was on my way out the door at my local library. It was newsletter folding day, and several volunteers were out sick. I was asked to help out.
Now I pray regularly to be ready to help when asked. I had things to be done, but nothing urgent. Still, there was a moment of wrestling with the unplanned request. I stayed. I folded newsletters with my neighbors. I had a wonderful time and we all were able to go into a beautiful day sooner because of working together. It was a joy – and a moment of spiritual practice when I could transcend my expectations and plans for the day and answer the needs I met along the way. I was given the opportunity to live faithfully, to practice neighborliness and to be generous with what I had – time – letting go of my schedule that did not need to be so rigid.
The Transcendent Within
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In a small but intriguing book called Religious Integrity for Everyone, my colleague Fred Campbell noted how “transcendence” implies “larger than.” He explained that “Communities are larger than individuals [and] God is a word used to point to some inclusive reality much larger [still].” With such a helpful frame, one can understand the meaningful arc of a life path, using whatever language resonates within.
The God Beyond
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I want to start out with two stories.
The first—ancient—is about Abraham, the father of faith for Christians, Muslims and Jews. In biblical accounts it’s difficult to discern what Abraham actually believed. He doesn’t possess a certainty of faith. He is regularly confused and asks many questions, often without receiving very satisfying answers. But this patriarch of the three great western traditions did indeed possess at least one marvelous religious experience.
Transcending Boundaries
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When I was a child, I would stand and gaze at the starry firmament and contemplate infinity. As I stood there, the boundary that is time dissolved; I expanded my Spirit to fill the boundary that is space. My being stilled and all fear, anxiety, and anguish disappeared. Forgotten were the chores, the homework, the ordinary around me.
Oppression
Notice of Annual Meeting
Notice to all members of the Church of the Larger Fellowship, Unitarian Universalist:
Per Article VII, Sections 1 and 2, of the Church of the Larger Fellowship (CLF) Bylaws, the 42nd Annual Meeting will be held via conference call and screen-sharing on June 27, 2012, at 6:00PM Eastern time.
We will post all the necessary documents and contact information here by June 15, 2012. You can download the materials, print them, fill out the ballot, if it’s necessary, and send it along to the CLF office at 24 Farnsworth Street, Boston MA 02210. Or call the CLF office at 617-948-6166 and request a paper copy.
The purpose of the meeting is to elect a moderator from among members present to preside at the meeting, and to elect, if contested, from the slate of candidates presented on the ballot, three members to three-year terms and two members to one-year terms on the board of directors, and the clerk and the treasurer.
Lucia Santini Field, Clerk, May 1, 2012
From Your Minister
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I am talking to a man whose wife has just told him she loves someone else. I need to go to the ocean, says this Midwesterner, to see something bigger than my pain.
I am on the phone with a woman whose sister is dying. Her sister’s young child is inconsolable. Even here, says the woman on the phone, there is beauty. There is joy. Even here, there is something beyond the pain.
REsources for Living
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Get over yourself! Or at least get beyond yourself. That’s kind of the idea of “transcendence,” our theme for this month. When you transcend something you go beyond it. Read more →
Walking (Excerpt)
Tonight I walk. I am watching the sky. I think of the people who came before me and how they knew the placement of stars in the sky, watched the moving sun long and hard enough to witness how a certain angle of light touched a stone only once a year. Read more →
