As the canvass season and our annual pledge drive begin here at Community UU, and I am thinking about the giving and the receiving -- which is to say, the reciprocity, of congregational life. Melina Bondy makes the point well:
"Reciprocity is a dance like life itself. The air we breathe, the food we eat, the wounds we carry, and the love we share are all given and received.... When we give without differentiating self from other, and when we receive without differentiating it from the giving, then we can find the gift of dana [generosity, giving] everywhere."Reciprocity is the stuff of a rich and full life.
Yours in the faith we share,
Meredith
Join a Journey Group: http://cucwp.org/journey-groups
I.C.Y.M.I. (In Case You Missed It)
The Mar 27 worship service, "Biology and Spirituality":
PRACTICE OF THE WEEK: EcoSpiritual: Deep Time Journeys
It’s time again for our Ecospiritual practice for this month – brought to you by Community UU’s Environmental Practices Social Justice Team. Deep Time Journeys.
For sustaining ecospiritual awareness and action, it helps to cultivate perspective – keep the long view in mind. If the 4.5 billion year history of Earth were condensed to a single year, life first appeared about Mar 22; the big jump to eukaryotes (nucleated cells) on Jun 19. Multicellular animals on Nov 12. Sharks appeared on Nov 26. Dinosaurs roamed from Dec 12-26.
Homo habilis appeared on Dec 31, just after 6:30pm; Homo erectus at 8:20pm. Anatomically modern humans first appeared at 11:45pm on Dec 31 – only the last 15 minutes of earth’s “year.”
It is as though Gaia blinked, and suddenly found all of us here! But in another blink we could be gone. Life, and the Earth would go on without us. Our 15-minute-old species won’t make it another minute with our contemporary lifestyle. The truly enduring life forms, our single-celled siblings, will continue happily into the next year without us.
This line of reflection might be uncomfortable – or comforting. We are part of a story much greater than our own, the grand story of life itself. Looking through the lens of deep time, we can see humanity more clearly as a precious and rare spark of Earth's self-awareness.
Ecospiritual practices for this month include designing a deep time altar and visiting meditatively a museum of geology or natural history. For the details on these, as well as group activities for your Ecospiritual group, see the full post: EcoSpiritual: Deep Time Journeys
Here it is, your...
MOMENT OF ZEN
#114: Hide Yourself
"Some of the Pharisees in the crowd said to him, 'Teacher, order your disciples to stop.'The stones are shouting in any case. You pour out from everything in the universe, as the whole universe pours out from you. Nothing can be hidden.
He answered, 'I tell you, if these were silent, the stones would shout out.'" (Luke 19:39-40)
Case
One evening Wolverine appeared and said, "I've been thinking about hiding myself and fasting."Verse
Raven kicked a twig at Wolverine and said, "Hide yourself in that."
Wolverine stepped behind Black Bear and said, "I'm hidden."
Raven said, "Piffle. You don't even dream of my meaning."
Wolverine was silent.
Woodpecker spoke up and said, "What is your meaning?"
Raven said, "Good question, Wolverine."
We named our car Blue,
and pronouned her,
as one does to recognize a personality,
part intrinsic, part projection,
as personalities are.
We wondered at the borders.
When the CD player stopped working,
Was that Blue? Or just Blue's?
"Where does a personality stop?"
I asked my spouse,
after I'd slid in a CD to no effect.
She turned on the left blinker, slowed for a turn,
and said to the oncoming traffic,
"Nowhere to hide."
Case by Robert Aitken; introduction and verse by Meredith Garmon
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