Inspiration: 

 

How do you find joy when times are hard?

Joy

Practicing joy does not mean we never feel pain or fear or frustration. Faithfulness is not about believing that everything will always turn out okay. Carl Scovel’s “Great Surmise” does not say that everything will always turn out fine. Sometimes things go terribly wrong. Always, we bear the knowledge that we will lose people we love. My faith is not predicated on never feeling terrible grief. (Good thing.) My faith is that even with all the terrible grief we must bear, even in a world where war is too often thought to be the answer, even in a world where some people believe it is okay to torture and abuse other people, even in this world, an eternal goodness lies deep at the heart of Creation. And this goodness makes love possible.

If this is our faith, our responsibility is great. If we believe this, we are called to attend to the beauty and goodness. That means slowing down sometimes. It means looking deeply and compassionately. It means finding the courage to keep our hearts open. Painting thank-you on our palms for the laughter of the morning. Or singing a song of praise. In these ways we attend to the goodness at the heart of things.

BY MARY KATHERINE MORN, PARISH MINISTER, UNITARIAN UNIVERSALIST CONGREGATION OF FAIRFAX, VIRGINIA  TO READ MORE  

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Inspiration: 

 

There is joy in learning and growing. What will you try today that might bring you joy?

 

 

 

 

Life Unfolding: Transformation

Just as a tree takes on different shapes and sizes throughout its lifespan, from seed to sapling, to sturdy oak, so do we as human beings. We are constantly emerging, growing, and changing shape. For many of us, this includes assuming new roles or taking on new responsibilities. Ideally, I suppose these roles would all converge into one and we would be integrated and whole beings. But that is so difficult sometimes!

Often, our roles conflict with one another, or cause tension in our lives or relationships. But even in those moments, there is a potential for growth and unfolding; there is a chance for transformation. We unfold across our lifespan, and grow more into who we are. In those instances, there is also a possibility of transformation for others’ ideas about us and the many roles we hold. The potential for transformation, for learning, and for understanding lies within us and around us. Perhaps the key to such a discovery or development lies in our ability to live the journey and be open to all of the things (good and bad) that we might realize about ourselves. And perhaps the most effective thing we can do is not strive to become someone or something else, or to change who we are, but to let our lives unfold to exhibit the transformation that has taken place.

Margaret Weis, Ministerial Intern, First Parish of Watertown, Unitarian Universalist. TO READ MORE  

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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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