suffering

Four Noble Truths

Aug 20, 2023

Beloved Community, Love and Justice, Science and Spirituality, Sermon, Spiritual Biography, Spirituality, Unitarian Universalism, Wellness, World Religions

allegory of the coffee bean, Buddhism, evolution, Four Noble Truths, glimmers, grace, Rachel Naomi Remen, Socrates, suffering, Survival strategies, trauma, Zen Flesh Zen Bones

“The unexamined life is not worth living.” A man named Socrates said that long, long ago. Do you believe it? That we diminish ourselves to the degree that we are apathetic about the truth, or that unconscious biases dictate how we see the world, or that we have a habit of confusing appearances with reality? …
A Vision for Church-Based Justice Work

Jan 23, 2022

Beloved Community, Interdependent Web of All Existence, Love and Justice, Sermon, Spirituality, Unitarian Universalism

activism and contemplation, church-based justice work, Dan Hotchkiss, exectations, George Reavis, justice-heartedness, Richard Rohr, standards for success, stereotypical social justice impacts, suffering

Back in the 1940s, a man by the name of George Reavis, who was then Assistant Superintendent of the Cincinnati Public Schools, wanted to point out something about expectations–expectations that are institutionalized, expectations that become across-the-board standards. Expectations that are also unrealistic and unfair. He wrote a fable. Here it is: Once upon a time…