Henry David Thoreau
-
Transcendentalism, Part 1: Introduction
It was the Persian mystic and poet Jalāl al-Dīn Muḥammad Rūmī who said, in the 13th century, “The task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.” These words are at once hopeful and sobering. Love is a human potential.…
-
Respecting Nature’s Wildness: Active Hope Part 1
Around 170 years ago, our Unitarian Universalist spiritual ancestor Henry David Thoreau spoke about wildness. “Our village life would stagnate,” he said, “if it were not for the unexplored forests and meadows which surround it. We need the tonic of wildness […] We must be refreshed by the sight of inexhaustible vigor, vast and titanic…
-
There is countercultural wisdom in this church! I know it is so, because countercultural wisdom has structured my ministerial work among you. You’ve built sabbatical time into it. For every year of usual work, you have granted me a month of sabbatical leave which is not vacation time but, instead, work in a different key.…
-
“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…
-
Part 1 Some time ago I posted on Facebook one of my all-time favorite Unitarian Universalist jokes: How many UUs (that’s how we shorten our VERY LONG NAME) does it take to change a lightbulb? Here’s the answer: We choose not to make a statement either in favor of or against the need for a…
-
Sacredness in Stone
One of the many stones I have taken from vacation spots sits on our West Shore altar right now. It’s from the shore of Lake Michigan, when I was still in seminary all of 20+ years ago. It’s sizeable, bigger than my fist, and it has a vein of quartz separating top from bottom. As…
-
We begin today at the very beginning of our Unitarian Universalist faith, 2000 years ago, with certain Jesus-followers who did not believe Jesus was equal to God. Jesus was very special in some sense, but not equal to God. Call these Jesus followers Unitarians. There were also those who did not believe that God would…
Spiritflow 