Spirituality
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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.…
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Since its founding in 1970, the French magazine called Charlie Hebdo has been a vocal advocate for free expression and liberation from forms of power that demand unquestioning, unthinking obedience. It’s been the target of three terrorist attacks. The one in 2015 led to the death of twelve people including the man whose picture you…
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Someone asks, “What is Unitarian Universalism?” “What do Unitarian Universalists believe?” What do you do? People are going to ask. It’s inevitable, in this world in which folks are generally not familiar with what those two very long words strung together, “Unitarian Universalism,” mean. I think elevator speeches (brief statements between 30 seconds and 2…
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Sex therapist and educator Marty Klein, Ph. D., says that people ask him all the time about what “normal” looks like. His reply? “I say forget the number of times people have sex per month, or how often someone masturbates, or how long it takes to climax. Those averages tell you nothing. Knowing that you…
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Owning Your Own Shadow
The concept of enlightenment, often associated with spiritual awakening, is explored in connection with the psychological concept of the “Shadow” by Carl Jung and others. The “Shadow” represents the suppressed or hidden negative aspects of ourselves. It is emphasized that acknowledging and integrating the Shadow is essential for inner balance. The need to recognize the…
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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…
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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…
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As a spiritual being having a human experience, I like to follow the science. Not that I disvalue more traditional sources of spiritual wisdom. But it’s thrilling when they and science dovetail. It’s thrilling when wisdom thousands of years old and cutting-edge science sing in harmony. I had a moment of thrill, recently, when I…
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