Inspiration: 

 

Beauty is whatever gives joy.
–Edna St. Vincent Millay 

 

 

 

Joy and Beauty

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.

Transcendence does not mean that the holy exists separately from the beauty and heartbreak of life on earth, which pulses in our bodies and daily lives (immanence). Rather, divine mystery is woven throughout every moment of time, every cell of our aging and imperfect bodies, every interaction and choice. Our spiritual practice is to remember to see it.

 

BY MEG RILEY SENIOR MINISTER, CHURCH OF THE LARGER FELLOWSHIP TO READ MORE  

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Inspiration: 

 

He who binds to himself a joy
Does the winged life destroy;
But he who kisses the joy as it flies
Lives in eternity’s sun rise.
–William Blake
A Direction of the Heart

Much of the history of liberal religion, in general—and Unitarian Universalism, in particular—has been devoted to crafting an approach to religion that is more rational, more reasonable, more intellectually coherent, and more congruent with empirical evidence than more traditional belief systems.  I celebrate our cultivation of reasonable religion.  But the life decisions we make—great or small—rarely lend themselves to purely rational processes.  The value judgments we all make on a daily basis—about what we eat, who we love, what we enjoy, what work we undertake—may all lend themselves to attempts at rational explanation by social scientists but arriving at those personal judgments is anything but a purely rational exercise.

What separates the sanctuary from the laboratory, the church from the academy, the congregation from the learned society, is the richness of human feeling that goes into shaping and expressing the values we affirm and promote.  And so we strive to find the balance between head and heart, to create a worldview that meets our deepest emotional needs without acquiescing to the ridiculous.  A faith which represents a direction of the heart need not be grounded in simplistic sentimentalism or frivolous feeling – although sentiment and feeling will be found within it – perhaps even simplicity and a certain measure of frivolity, but it will esteem love and compassion, kindness and responsibility.

by Rev. Stefan Jonasson TO READ MORE  

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Inspiration: 

 

We are shaped by our thoughts; we become what we think. When the mind is pure, joy follows like a shadow that never leaves.
–Buddha 

Joy on a Rainy Day

by Joanna Fontaine Crawford, Intern Minister  

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Inspiration: 

 

Spirit of gladness, open my heart to delight.

Surprised by Joy…and Mud!

I am not a spontaneous person by nature. I do recognize that, from time to time, I need a vacation from all the planning and preparing. These breaks tell me that the earth doesn’t stop spinning if I watch a little baseball before doing the dinner dishes. They help me see that some of my best experiences are unplanned. They remind me that I can’t prepare for every eventuality. During these breaks, I am often surprised by joy. Because it may be disguised as a muddy mess, it helps if I’m paying attention to how I’m feeling when it arrives. Sitting in the muck instead of my kayak on one Saturday, I felt free of concern for a short time, happy to be in the company of friends who could laugh with me, and glad to be part of the mess of life. Joy is something I can’t schedule or plan for – I need to be spontaneous enough to entertain it when it surprises me!

by Iris Hardin  TO READ MORE

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Inspiration: 

 

What do you work hard at for the pure joy of the accomplishment?

Live Joyfully

Why is it that we are so reluctant to show joy? At what point in our childhood, do we stop running to the front door when mom or dad comes home from work? When did we stop squealing with delight at good news, opting instead to express our joy with a calm, “well done” and a pat on the back? Why do we discredit the joy in our accomplishments, explaining our hard work away as good luck or discounting the success as less than it really is? And why is it so much easier to focus on the struggles we face in our relationships – petty jealousies, annoyances, disagreements, misunderstandings – than to focus on the joy that the relationship brings to our life?

Living a graceful and Grace-filled life requires that we not only embrace all of life’s emotions – joy, sadness, anger, happiness, anxiety, serenity – but that we share those emotions with others so that they might embrace them as well.  Negative emotions are often easily exhibited with complaints, eye-rolling, sneers, judgments and grudges. Yet joy – pure, unadulterated blissful joy – is often sedated and tempered.

by Christine Organ  TO READ MORE

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