Welcome to Cell No. 9
One Today – Poem by Richard Blanco
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One sun rose on us today, kindled over our shores,
peeking over the Smokies, greeting the faces
of the Great Lakes, spreading a simple truth
across the Great Plains, then charging across the Rockies.
One light, waking up rooftops, under each one, a story
told by our silent gestures moving behind windows.
From Your Minister – July 2014
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I love acknowledgments pages, and award acceptance speeches, and other public expressions of gratitude where people spell out how their individual success is interconnected with the gifts of other people. And it occurs to me that, rather than going through all of the struggle of writing a book or making a film or performing a song, I can use this column right now for my own acceptance speech, to offer thanks.
For what? You ask. For my life!
REsources for Living
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One of the most exciting things about growing up is that you can do more and more things by yourself.
Babies are totally dependent on others. (There’s not much that a person who hasn’t yet learned how to locate their hands can do on their own.) But before long babies generally learn to roll themselves over, and sit up, and crawl and walk and run and before you know it they have grown into people who can ride a bike or make their own dinner or get a job.
The Sun Shines Not On Us…
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The sun shines not on us but in us. The rivers flow not past, but through us. Thrilling, tingling, vibrating every fiber and cell of the substance of our bodies, making them glide and sing. The trees wave and the flowers bloom in our bodies as well as our souls, and every bird song, wind song, and tremendous storm song of the rocks in the heart of the mountains is our song, our very own, and sings our love.
By John Muir (1838-1914), from his journals
The Faith of a Trapeze Artist
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The word “faith” doesn’t occupy the same place of prominence in Unitarian Universalism that it does in some religious traditions. For many of us, faith has become synonymous with blind acceptance of particular religious beliefs, as in: Jesus died for my sins; God created the world in six days; Noah survived a flood in an ark; a talking snake hoodwinked Adam and Eve.
For most Unitarian Universalists, indeed for most people who live in the modern world and think with modern understandings, such beliefs are neither intellectually tenable nor morally acceptable. Faith defined as religious belief is what Mark Twain was getting at when he said, “Faith is believing what you know ain’t so.”
Embracing the Dangerous and Sacred (Excerpt)
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I have a favorite tree that I like to sit in. Going there is a form of meditation for me. I like to climb up into the branches and look out over the Bay. It is one of my favorite places to sit sipping a cup of coffee while I watch the sun set. The birds fly around me and my cares just melt away. I feel like I am in a sacred and safe world. I love it.
The Risks We Take
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Being alive, truly alive, means taking risks every day.
I live around the corner from my church. One winter Sunday I drove to church because I was bringing a number of props for an intergenerational service. By car, I live about three minutes away.
Finding Our Way in the Wilderness
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Once upon a time there was a child made all of salt. This child very much wanted to know who he was and where he came from. So he set out on a long journey, traveling many lands in pursuit of this understanding. Finally he came to the shores of the great ocean.
“How marvelous,” he cried. “How beautiful!” And he stuck one foot in the water. But then he saw how his toe disappeared and he became afraid. The ocean beckoned him in further, saying: “If you wish to know who you are, do not be afraid.” The salt child walked further and further into the water, dissolving with each step, and at the end, exclaimed, “Ah, now I know who I am.” Read more →
Into the Wilderness
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When Jesus was baptized the spirit descended upon him like a dove and God said, “This is my son, in whom I am well pleased.” It must have been a great feeling, but it didn’t last long. The next thing Jesus knew, the nice spirit that had descended like a dove became aggressive and drove him into the wilderness. There he spent forty days of deprivation, self-examination, and confrontation with the devil. Read more →
