Category: Meditations

Inspiration:

 

 

No chick would break out of its shell if it were still comfortable inside.

 

 

 

 

Transformation Is

Early on, I grew to love tramping through the woods hunting edible mushrooms. The little depressions filled with pine litter that bloomed after a rain in late summer into a patch of golden chanterelles, the snag that drew woodpeckers seeking sustenance flushing twice a year with the heavy fruit of sulfur shell, the sandy dry patches that bore tiny black trumpets were each and all seasonal treasures of transformation. One wonderful and magical place became yet another. The leaf litter changed to leaf mold and then back to earth and from that once again mushrooms, herbs, and trees grew anew.

Once we harvested those mushrooms, of course, another transformation went on – we washed and cut and cooked them. Those fungi nourished us, changing again. And what we did not eat or could not use went into the compost, to change again to nourishing earth.

Transformation is life, including the transformation that results in death and decay.

by Rev. Naomi King TO READ MORE

Inspiration:

Sorrow prepares you for joy.
It violently sweeps everything out of your house,
so that new joy can find space to enter.
It shakes the yellow leaves
from the bough of your heart,
so that fresh, green leaves can grow in their place.
It pulls up the rotten roots, so that new roots hidden beneath
have room to grow.
Whatever sorrow shakes from your heart,
far better things will take their place.”

― Rumi

Spiritual Courage

Courage and bravery, in my view, are not necessarily the same thing. Bravery, as I understand it, suggests a kind of fearlessness. Brave people face danger willingly, even eagerly, for they are not afraid.

But courage is different. Courage is less about fear and more about something deeper, something, I think, that has to do with one’s spirit or soul. Courage is doing the right thing, even in the face of those who tell us we are crazy or stupid. Courage is taking a stand and living with it. Courage is also about growth: about a willingness to change one’s mind if that is the right thing to do. A brave person may fight when called upon. A courageous person may choose not to fight even if it means certain death.

by Barbara Wells Ten Hove, Co-Minister, Cedars Unitarian Universalist Church, Bainbridge Island, Washington TO READ MORE

Inspiration:

Personal transformation can and does have global effects. As we go, so goes the world, for the world is us. The revolution that will save the world is ultimately a personal one. –Marianne Williamson

Finding the Blessing

(The Brewster, Massachusetts) church was built by wealthy merchants and sea captains in the 18th century. The walls of the fellowship hall are lined with pictures of sailing ships, which they were proud to display.A few years ago, one congregant asked what might seem to be an obvious question: “What were those ships carrying?” They took the question seriously, did their research, and found that many of those ships had been slavers and that, in fact, a good bit of the money that had built that beautiful church had come from the slave trade.

Knowing that history was challenging for them, especially for the few descendants of those captains who were still members. But it proved to be a blessing. They were able to reclaim their history and create a narrative about how that congregation had grown, had struggled to know what they were called to do and been transformed in the process. It was a narrative that acknowledged their past but did not leave them trapped in it.

Unitarian Universalists affirm as one of our seven principles “respect for the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part.” We normally understand that statement as an affirmation of our part in the natural world, and it supports our work for environmental justice. But the interdependent web is also geographical. We are a part of a world community. The web does not stop at our borders, no matter how tall the fences we may build.

And the interdependent web also exists in time. It connects us to our history, to the history of our nations and to a future. This is a faith of both memory and hope.

by Bill Sinkford, Senior Minister, First Unitarian Church Of Portland, Oregon, Former President of the UUA TO READ MORE

Inspiration:

 

 

Creative Spirit, may evolution take place within me as well as around me.

 

Tapping Transformation

Will justice ever roll down like waters? Will we find our way to right relationship in our personal lives, in our neighborhoods, and in our world? Many days, it seems the odds are against us, stacked much higher than forty to one. But if it sounds like too much effort or like something requiring miracles too hard to believe in, our congregations teach us otherwise. For whenever and however we gather in a community of faith, we are powerfully blessed by what the early religious communities in New England called an assembly of “visible saints.” It is a sainthood in which each of us presents to one another tangible evidence of the transformative power of faith moving in our lives today. And when we together act upon our faith, within our church or beyond it, we are also making visible the world’s own transformative turning.

This is the work of congregational life―to open our awareness of the world as it might be and as it is becoming. It awakens us to the transformation already taking place within us and around us, and strengthens our patience and determination to bring that transformation to fruition. For as the maple tree produces sweetness within the fibers of its being, the world carries its own inner inclination toward justice and peace. May we be willing to show up and do the work of tapping.

BY KAREN HERING, CONSULTING LITERARY MINISTER, UNITY CHURCH-UNITARIAN, ST. PAUL, MINNESOTA TO READ MORE

Inspiration:

 

 

What would you need to give up to let something new in your life?

 

 

A World-Wide Journey

I didn’t have the choice of where to live when I was a child. It wasn’t until my third year in college that I had a choice of where I wanted to live and what direction I wanted my life to go. It was then that it became clear to me that my life would not go in the direction my family, or I, had thought it would. As soon as I started questioning the Muslim journey, I realized that I would rock the boat with my family in a way that would forever change how I would be in the world. I would give up the security and stability of being held by the people who raised me if I chose a path that would take me away from Islam. So I did just that. I could not be dishonest with the God who I was raised to believe knew what was in my heart and soul…

Journeys are what happens when we let life take us on a ride. I try to “plan” in life, but like the saying goes, “You make plans and God laughs.” To me, it is more important to be open to new experiences and flexible when need be.

by Aisha Hauser TO READ MORE