generosity
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“The morning wind forever blows,” says our Unitarian Universalist ancestor Henry David Thoreau in his classic book, Walden. “The morning wind forever blows, the poem of creation is uninterrupted; but few are the ears that hear it.” Thoreau is essentially saying we are already wealthy but that this wealth goes unrecognized. A big part of…
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Part 1 Hospitality. What comes to mind when you hear that word? What’s your definition? Here’s one that comes from Catholic priest Henri Nouwen: “primarily the creation of free space where the stranger can enter and become a friend instead of an enemy. Hospitality is not to change people, but to offer them space where…
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Recently I came to learn that the number one sport in America is not baseball, not basketball or football, not even my beloved figure skating, but birding! That’s what the Audubon website claims, as it says, breathlessly, “Did you know that birding is the number one sport in America? According to the U. S. Fish…
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Khalil Gibran has said, “We are limited, not by our abilities, but by our vision.” Abraham Maslow has said, “In any given moment we have two options: to step forward into growth or step back into safety.” The last time our denomination faced its limitations and stepped forward into growth was 38 years ago, in…
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Go back 2000 years ago. The Christian scriptures tell the story of a time when Rabbi Jesus tried to take a little time off from his ministry and retreated, with his disciples, to a site near the Sea of Galilee. But Jesus was beloved. And supremely fascinating. So, people couldn’t stay away. They ran ahead…
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Today we are talking about the spirituality of money, and, as with everything to do with spirituality, the temptation is to go straight to enlightenment. The temptation is to bypass the mistakes and the trial-and-error pathways and elevate instantly upwards to the God’s own truth. I’m stepping back from that temptation this morning. No spiritual…
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To serve can mean so many things. Kindness to someone you know, kindness to someone you don’t know. To be of use, to help, to make a contribution, to make a difference. To serve can mean so many things. And, all are called to serve. No matter who you are, your age, your collection of…
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To serve can mean so many things. Kindness to someone you know, kindness to someone you don’t know. To be of use, to help, to make a contribution, to make a difference. To serve can mean so many things. And because this is so, it gets to the point that a generic word like “service”…
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At times, I am asked about what Unitarian Universalists have in the way of scriptures. What’s our sacred text, what’s our holy book? What do you say to that, when you believe that truth is abundantly present in the world, comes from many sources, and never ends in its evolution? How do you bind something…
Spiritflow 