Month: March 2012

Inspiration:

 

“Be like the bird who, halting in his flight on a limb too slight, feels it give way beneath him, yet sings, knowing he has wings.” – Victor Hugo

 

 

Hope: The Theology of Despair

The one trait that most criminals share is hopelessness. Hopelessness is the root of all deviant behavior. Hopelessness tells us that the future is bleak, that all we have is the present moment. If our personality can be viewed as a chain of memories, hopelessness is the broken link that keeps us from even considering that we are larger than this moment, larger than these bodies, larger than our cultural and national identities. It cuts us off from the recognition that humanity, with all of its accomplishments and failures, is embodied in each person.

My hope was restored by degrees, and I did not do it alone. It has been a group effort. Even during months and years when I had no outside contact I have always felt a part of the “inter-dependent web of existence of which we are a part.” Knowing the truth about why I am in prison, it would be easy to give up hope, embrace bitterness and become what I was portrayed to be. But studying us—humanity—I know and am convinced that the only thing that separates angels from demons is that the latter gave up hope and in doing so came to personify hopelessness and all of its fruit.

There can be no rehabilitation, no reform without hope. Learning from my peers, from the greatest minds, like Emerson and Dr. King, gives me hope. Challenging those who work to keep me in prison, without resorting to lies, and while maintaining my compassion, gives me hope. People like Chaplain Pat—who puts extra care into making sure that UUs in prison stay connected to all of you in the “free world”—give me hope and inspiration. The fact that you donate time and money to spreading and promoting our values and principles gives me hope.

Most of all, my mother’s support and friendship, her strength and resilience, gives me hope that I can live as courageously as she has in a life of brutal adversity and struggle.

Hope, to me, is the mental, emotional and spiritual equivalent of that ineffable force that holds the universe together, and which has given the universe the ability to look upon itself through our eyes, and marvel at the breadth of its diverse and infinite beauty. Hope is not merely an attitude. It is our birthright.

BY DANIEL A. GREEN, CLF MEMBER, NORTH CAROLINA TO READ MORE

Join us at 1:30 pm ET tonight for our service of Reflection & Connection: http://www.livestream.com/questformeaning

Inspiration:

Pied Beauty

Glory be to God for dappled things–
For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow;
For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim;
Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches’ wings;
Landscape plotted and pieced–fold, fallow, and plough;
And all trades, their gear and tackle and trim.

All things counter, original, spare, strange;
Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?)
With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim;
He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change:
Praise Him.

–Gerard Manley Hopkins

Abundant Life

It can be easy to lose track of the simple abundances of life if we are hungry, or unsheltered, or in want of something as simple as mittens in the raw Minnesota winter. Abundance has this dimension—that it is responsive to need. There is a Sufi teaching story that explores the nature of abundance. It tells of a seeker who was meditating in the forest and observed a bear with a mangled foreleg. Unable to run or to hunt, the bear seemed destined to die of starvation, yet as the seeker watched, a fox came with its prey of that day, and after eating its fill, it left the remainder of the meal for the bear. Several days the seeker observed this same pattern, saying to himself, “Behold, how good and generous is God, who feeds the bear by means of the fox, how He provides for all His creatures! I, too, will put my trust in Him utterly.” And the seeker retired to a cave, to await the arrival of his provision, but days passed and nothing came. Finally, on the fifth day, as he was fainting from hunger, a voice said to him, “O thou who art in the path of error, repent! Stop imitating the injured bear, and go out and follow the example of the fox!”

by Kendyl Gibbons, Senior Minister, First Unitarian Society, Minneapolis, Minnesota TO READ MORE

Join us at 7 pm ET tonight for our service of Reflection & Connection: http://www.livestream.com/questformeaning

 

Inspiration:

 

 

You might think the worm has spoiled your apple, but the worm thinks you are demolishing its home.

 

 

 

Hope and a Chessboard

Today I was down at OccupyBoston…I sat on a bench, and a minute or so later a man came and sat next to me…I knew this guy from around camp as one of the homeless members of OccupyBoston, a guy who was always pretty willing to help out, occasionally very loud, and usually trying to break up fights.  I asked him what kind of stuff to do he was looking for.  He responded that he just wanted some money to get something to do…

We spent a half hour trying to play chess.  He’d make a move, I’d start to make a move and he’d say “NO NO, do it THIS way” and show me a better move to make.  After he beat me (or, I suppose, beat himself) a couple of times he said he wanted to see if anybody else wanted to play.  He set up his chess board on the side walk, and one of his friends came over.

Sometimes we need to give food and warmth and spiritual guidance but other times there are smaller, more inexact needs.  Needs like alleviating boredom.  I live in hope that we can someday meet ALL those needs, allowing people to be well fed, comfortable, and nourished mentally and spiritually.

by Andy Coate TO READ MORE

 

Inspiration:

Ring the bells that still can ring 
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack, a crack in everything
That’s how the light gets in.
— Anthem, Leonard Cohen

 

 

Brokenness

When I heard the song Anthem recently, I thought (not for the first time) that this image of light shining through the cracks of our brokenness is such a beautiful one. And then I wondered why I have trouble seeing the light when I’m broken, or why it takes me longer than I’d like to feel its warmth.

I suddenly pictured myself in tears, sitting on the floor, with lots and lots of pieces of an “Iris vase” scattered about me. Some were large and chunky, others were sharp little shards…it was an overwhelming mess.  When my children were small, and we were struggling with a difficult diagnosis for one of them, I felt alone with my broken pieces. All I thought about were my own broken pieces. I couldn’t begin to figure out how to fashion a vase out of the mess around me. Cracked or not.

Before I can see light coming through the cracks of my brokenness, I need some help getting to the point where I am “merely cracked,” and not scattered in countless pieces all over the floor! It takes courage to reveal what feels like such a mess to another, to share my pain and to listen in turn to another’s. The mutual sharing, the listening, the understanding…all these create a connection that is better than any cement for putting together those broken pieces in new ways, stronger ways, ways that allow for a great light to shine through – even when my own little candle has gone out.

Iris Hardin attends Andover Newton Theological School and is a candidate for the Unitarian Universalist ministry.  She is married with three stepchildren in their late twenties and nineteen-year-old twin sons.  Her son Adam has autism. TO READ MORE

 

Inspiration:

 

Forgiveness is the answer to the child’s dream of a miracle by which what is broken is made whole again, what is soiled is made clean again.
–Dag Hammarskjold

 

 

 

 

A Pattern So Vast

Rochelle Melander of the Alban Institute has some good thoughts in her article “Learning to Apologize.” She suggests a four-part process. The first step is to listen and learn how we’ve hurt the other person. It’s usually not comfortable. “We want to say, ‘No, you’re wrong, I’m not that bad!’” Instead, the idea is to be still and listen, and then ask, “Is there more?” And when we’ve heard the whole story, we check to see that we’ve heard well. “Is this what you are saying?” we ask, repeating the story until we get it right.

The second step is to say, “I’m sorry.” Period. We do not qualify our apology by saying, “I’m sorry if you took offense at what I said.” Or “I’m sorry if you felt that way,” or “…if you heard me say that.”

That’s like saying, “I’m sorry you are hyper-sensitive; I’m sorry you are mixed up; I’m sorry you don’t hear well.” The best apology is just, “I’m sorry.”

The third step is to make it right. Both parties talk about what can be done to bring healing. They ask: “What are our needs here?” “What do we do or say differently from now on?” They look each other in the eye and agree on a plan.

The fourth step is to ask for forgiveness. Receiving forgiveness—officially—is essential. It isn’t helpful when the offended person brushes off our apology with, “No big deal,” or “What’s done is done.”

Melander says, “It’s hard to be content with ‘no-big-deal’ responses when we suspect that it was a big deal. These responses don’t have the healing power of ‘I forgive you.’ To say ‘I forgive you’ is to say we are letting go of any claim for punishment or payment. We’re ending our hold on the other person. We’re setting them free.”

by Kate Tucker, Associate Minister, First Universalist Church of Minneapolis TO READ MORE