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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.”
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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.
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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 →
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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 →
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When I was a kid, my father had a reason why just about everything my siblings and I might do was risky and might ultimately lead to death, or at least dismemberment. He often provided cautionary tales about people who had injured themselves or died, invoking names we’d never heard of as if he was mourning them still.
Pop a pimple? Toddy Mackil’s grandfather knew someone who died that way. Thought it was a pimple, burst a blood vessel, and WOOP, dead in minutes.
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What’s the riskiest thing you’ve ever done? Jump out of a plane? Travel to a foreign country? Ride a bike downhill with no hands? Change jobs? Make friends with a stranger? Swing upside down on the monkey bars? Tell someone you love them? Read more →
June 2014
“Why not go out on a limb? That’s where the fruit is.” —Will Rogers
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Quest for Meaning is a program of the Church of the Larger Fellowship (CLF).
As a Unitarian Universalist congregation with no geographical boundary, the CLF creates global spiritual community, rooted in profound love, which cultivates wonder, imagination, and the courage to act.