Poetically Dwelling on the Earth as a Mortal

May 9, 2013 By Leave a Comment
edwards

I am a religious skeptic. I don’t believe in Yahweh, Allah, Krishna, or Ogun; nor do I believe in the resurrection of bodies two days dead and buried, nor water changing into wine, nor men walking about unharmed in fiery furnaces. Likewise for angels, ghosts, demons, statues that weep milk, and miraculous cures effected by the blessed water of Lourdes. About my skepticism, I feel neither pride nor shame; it’s not an achievement, nor is it a failing. It’s just a fact about me . . . a fact … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Atheism, Creation Spirituality, Mysticism, Sermons, Spiritual Direction, Spiritual Practices Tagged With: Leave a Comment

Pragmatic Buddhism, Westernized Dharma, 21st-century Sangha

May 6, 2013 By Leave a Comment
buddha

When I was about fifteen years old, I accidentally ran into some of the classic early meditation experiences described in the ancient texts and my reluctant spiritual quest began. I did not realize what had happened, nor did I realize that I had crossed something like a point of no return, something I would later call “The Arising and Passing Away.” I knew that I had had a very strange dream with bright lights, that my entire body and world had seemed to explode like fireworks, and that … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Buddhism, Mysticism, Sermons, Spiritual Practices, Unitarian Universalism Tagged With: , , , Leave a Comment

Wendell Berry, Climate Change, and Earth Breathing

April 22, 2013 By Leave a Comment
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Wendell Berry is the author of more than fifty books of poetry, fiction, and essays, and for more than forty years, he has lived and farmed with his wife, Tanya Berry, in Kentucky. Berry is also a well-known environmental activist, and he will be present to participate this summer at the annual Unitarian Universalist General Assembly, which this year will be in Louisville, Kentucky. Berry will be joining thousands of Unitarian Universalists from around the continent on Thursday, June 20 at a … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Climate Change, Creation Spirituality, Ecology, Sermons, Spiritual Practices, Unitarian Universalism Leave a Comment

The Spirituality of Spring: Creativity as Spiritual Practice

April 14, 2013 By Leave a Comment
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i thank You God for most this amazing day: for the leaping greenly spirits of trees and a blue true dream of sky; and for everything which is natural which is infinite which is yes   (i who have died am alive again today, and this is the sun's birthday; this is the birth day of life and of love and wings: and of the gay great happening illimitably earth)   how should tasting touching hearing seeing breathing any — lifted from the no of all nothing … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Creation Spirituality, Sermons Tagged With: , , , , , , , Leave a Comment

Did You Just Send That Woman To a Church To Get Help with an Abortion?

April 8, 2013 By 2 Comments
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Today, in the year 2013, when we reflect on what it means to talk about reproductive justice, we are inherit a strong history. To remember how we reached this present moment, we invite you to hear ten landmark changes in the history of reproductive justice. Because we have to begin somewhere, it is significant to note how long contraception has  been a controversial in our nation. In the 1850s, amid opposition from conservatives and feminists alike, the first rubber condoms are … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Feminist Theology, Politics, Sermons, Unitarian Universalism Tagged With: , , , , 2 Comments

Practice Resurrection

April 1, 2013 By Leave a Comment
J.Z. Smith

There’s a man I’d like to tell you about — a man named Hermann Gunkel. But before I tell you about him, I would like to tell you about two groups that I also wish could meet Mr. Gunkel. The first group to whom I’d like to introduce Mr. Gunkel is conservative Christians. I spent a lot of time in my childhood in conservative Christian congregations, and there was much emphasis on belief — believing doctrines on Good Friday such as the “necessity and efficacy of the substitutionary … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Easter, Sermons, Unitarian Universalism Leave a Comment