The Transcendent Within
Podcast: Download (12.0MB)
Subscribe: More
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
Podcast: Download (9.3MB)
Subscribe: More
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
Podcast: Download (2.3MB)
Subscribe: More
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
Podcast: Download (6.9MB)
Subscribe: More
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
Podcast: Download (5.2MB)
Subscribe: More
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 →
Transcendence
June 2012
“All peoples are members of the same body, created from one essence. ” —Saadi
Articles
The Transcendent Within
In a very real way, these encounters helped me to learn to transcend first my self, then my family unit, and then even my country—to understand that there was a lot more of value out there beyond my own immediate world. I then internalized that broader perspective and took to heart a wider reality shown ...Read more »
The God Beyond
And so it is that Abraham’s act of practical compassion leads to an encounter with the divine. It was in Abraham’s lived experience—in the choice to transcend a focus on his own needs—that the divine was ushered in. Read more »
Transcending Boundaries
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 ...Read more »
Oppression
Is a question of strength, of unshed tears, of being trampled under, and always, always, remembering you are human. Read more »
Notice of Annual Meeting
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. Read more »
From Your Minister
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. Read more »
REsources for Living
Our Unitarian Universalist Principles and Purposes statement describes one of the sources of our living tradition as: “Direct experience of that transcending mystery and wonder, affirmed in all cultures, which moves us to a renewal of the spirit and an openness to the forces that create and uphold life.” 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 »
Transcendence
“All peoples are members of the same body, created from one essence. ” —Saadi Read more »
