This Sunday was the story of the Buddha and the Mustard Seed. In this story a mother brings her sick child to the Buddha to be healed, but the child is not sick, it has died. The Buddha tells the mother he can make a special medicine if she can find a rare ingredient, which is a mustard seed from a house where no one has been sad or experienced loss. She cannot find one in the end, but finds she is not alone. What she has discovered in her searching are companions, compassion and community. It has perhaps expanded …
Our religious education year has begun. My spiritual practice this semester in teaching is to join the Jr. High youth to explore UU Identity and History. I can tell already that I am in for a great deal of learning. Already I have been entering the year with a bit of trepidation. My familiar desire to nurture the deep learning of our youth and children is teetering and toying with the growing realization that, in this environment, it would benefit me to loosen up a bit and be flexible (maybe even humorous). In uncertainty I tend to get more firm
I am reeling with delighted depth.
I had coffee with God recently. The beloved was dressed up in the skin of a regular human being, but my goodness was it beautiful. I am not sure why, but with some people it is just so obvious that the Divine is peeking out of them in all kinds of ways, winking, receiving and saturated with suchness. When I am especially dizzy with kisses from the Universe, I have no trouble seeing it in everything, that luminescent glow of aliveness. Did I say how beautiful, how gorgeously stunning it is to see people, …
Fall is here. School is underway.
And now our own school (RE) at Unity has begun. In teacher training this fall KP challenged us to bring our passions to our practice of teaching; to practice meeting the passions of our children, to risk being undone. A beautiful and sober invitation as we begin the year. At it’s heart we are called to prepare ourselves to be fully alive and fully in relationship to ourselves and the children we companion and witness in our classes. It is to be ready to be lit up like our flaming chalice. …
When you read the writings of mystics from any tradition, one thing you notice is their different perception of time. The now moment- this precise and ever opening point of time- is a flow of change and movement. Here in this moment, things are happening the way they are happening. We are happening however we are happening. When I am absorbed in this very moment, all is well.
Waiting, seen from this point, is a tear or a fracture in the now moment as we anticipate a time that has not yet blossomed into the now. This separation is a …
I have been waking up. I am waking up. Sometimes the dreams carried inside fade out and then re-emerge. The dreams are like everything else, they hang out in the soul. They are not lost. They have been planted and are waiting for the right conditions to open, to sprout, to transform.
My favorite thing is being in deep conversation about this human spiritual journey. How are things moving, for you? For me? For us? When does a community weave and open to the same strumming melody? How does the melody co-create our community, our bodies, our way of being …