Daily Compass

Inspiration:

How will you find joy today in work well done?

Meditations in Joy

Find something that gives you pleasure—a favorite piece of music, or a cupcake, or a dip in the pool on a hot day or a walk in the woods (with a dog!) or whatever you like. Just choose something, and be in that joyful experience with your whole body. Pay attention to your skin, your tongue, the palms of your hands. Notice the pace of your heart or the tingling in your toes. Every time something tries to pull you away from your joy, brush it off, and come back to the pleasure of the moment.

BY REV. DR. LYNN UNGAR, MINISTER FOR LIFESPAN LEARNING, CHURCH OF THE LARGER FELLOWSHIP 

Inspiration: 

In times of joy, all of us wished we possessed a tail we could wag.
–W. H. Auden

Puppy

What would it be like
to live this way –
with such an active innocence,
so thoroughly wrapped-round with hope?
Even children lose the ability
to dance with such playful purpose
as these scuffling paws.

On good days I imagine
that God loves like this,
each encounter an uncontainable
wrenching of joy. Such an act
defies responsibility and taste.
It makes a mockery
of newspapers and calendars,
declares bills and paychecks equal
in their delightful ripping
and flat taste against the tongue.

For just a moment, stand still:
eyes wide, ears forward, nose
to the wind. Know that
dinner is provided, and a kind hand
moving toward your neck.
There. Now. Can’t you feel it?
That stray breeze started
as your tail began to wag.

BY REV. DR. LYNN UNGAR, MINISTER FOR LIFESPAN LEARNING, CHURCH OF THE LARGER FELLOWSHIP 

Inspiration: 
When the green woods laugh with the voice of joy,
And the dimpling stream runs laughing by;
When the air does laugh with our merry wit,
And the green hill laughs with the noise of it.
–Lord Byron

Nature

Why would we, as adults, feel the need for free time in nature?

I always believe in the value of doing what our heart calls out for. Your heart knows, your soul knows, your inner child knows that being outside is good. Your heart knows that looking out a window at trees feels better than looking out at a wall. Your heart knows that something about standing on the edge of the ocean having the worries blasted out of you by the blustery winds has the power to change the course of your week.

BY DARCEY LAINE, MINISTER, UNITARIAN UNIVERSALIST CHURCH OF ATHENS AND SHESHEQUIN, PENNSYLVANIA TO READ MORE

Inspiration: 

 

You pray in your distress and in your need; would that you might also pray in the fullness of your joy and in your days of abundance. 
–Khalil Gibran

Gratitude and Wonder

Each day when I wake I am astonished to still be part of this amazing life with all its complexity, diversity, and deep dependence upon the whole. As a christian Universalist, I’ll show that wonderment with a prayer of gratitude and a prayer of awe. But that is only the beginning of the day. How shall I live reverently the rest of the day? How shall I attend to the whole of life, to the whole of creation? How shall I join in the healing and hope of the Holy today? Eco-justice-making is broad path of my living with reverence, from tending the health of where I live to seeking to protect places I will never go and help peoples I will never meet. That is the way of reverence. We may only know imperfectly and in part. We are finite in our hours and our days. But together, tending the good of the whole, we give ultimate praise and thanks, praying without ceasing as our deeds reflect our words, our dreams, and our hearts.

by Rev. Naomi King, City of Refuge Ministries TO READ MORE

Inspiration: 

 

Spirit of joy, make me the bearer of glad tidings.

The Post Office Mission

Like many other Unitarian Universalist congregations, the church of my younger years owes its existence to the Post Office Mission, a forerunner of the present-day Church of the Larger Fellowship. The Post Office Mission was established in 1881 through the efforts of Sallie Ellis, a member of the Unitarian church in Cincinnati, who enlisted the support of her minister, Charles W. Wendte, and the women’s auxiliary of her congregation to promote our liberal faith and serve the needs of isolated Unitarians by distributing sermons, tracts, and other publications through the mail. She placed newspaper ads in various dailies and received such an overwhelming and encouraging response that the model quickly spread to other congregations and women’s auxiliaries. By 1885, the original Cincinnati mission had distributed 22,000 tracts and Sallie Ellis had personally written more than 2,500 letters to inquirers!

…In the 130 years since Sallie Ellis mailed out her first tract, the phenomenon that became CLF has seen both remarkable continuity of purpose and almost unimaginable changes in method and structure. We may not be inclined to think of the postal service as a “technology” but, if we do, it will be readily apparent that the women who established the Post Office Mission were exploiting the best technologies available to them to serve religious liberals and promote our shared faith. As times changed, the mission and methods have changed to meet new challenges and exploit new technologies and techniques. Can we be equally imaginative today? How different might the CLF appear to us 130 years from now? Or, in this rapidly changing digital age in which we live, how different must we be just 130 days from now, if we are to fulfill our evolving mission?

by Rev. Stefan Jonasson, CLF Board Member TO READ MORE