Minister's Post, Fri Apr 22

Dear Ones,

"Compassion is not condescension, but a leveling of the playing field, a recognition of yourself in others and an acceptance that their stress is your stress, that their happiness is your own." (Stephen Schettini)

Their stress is your stress.
Their happiness is your happiness.
Your pain is my pain.
Your triumph is my triumph.
Their grief is our grief.
Their success is our success.
Anyone's wound is my wound.
Anyone's healing is my healing.

Worth keeping in mind.

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 Apr 10 worship service, "Palm to Palm":



The Apr 17 worship service, "Passover! Easter! Ramadan! Liberation!":



PRACTICE OF THE WEEK: Owning Your Nobility

From Norman Fischer’s Training in Compassion, Trainings #15-19: Grow Five Virtues. For this week: #17, Owning Your Nobility.

You are inherently noble -- inherently motivated to see life truly, generously, magnanimously -- as are the people around you. But the pressures of life and the persistence of human folly can obscure our noble motivation to be wise and compassionate. That's why we need to remind ourselves of our noble heritage as human beings and step up to embody it.

Though you may believe that spiritual practice is a good idea and self-transformation a possibility, when it comes down to it, maybe you don't really think it's possible for you. Owning our nobility, we step into seriousness about transformation.

The heritage, the legacy, of being human is to manifest wisdom, compassion, and lovingkindness, to be fully worthy of our lives, worthy of admiration and celebration. This is your nature, my nature. Given this as a basis for our life, we can be perfectly aware of our many faults. Faults are perfectly natural, like earthquakes or floods. At the same time, deep within us is beauty and nobility. To own your nobility is to remind yourself every day of who you really are.

True nobility is not about lording it over the peasantry. For example, the Dalai Lama is owning his nobility when he says, “I'm just a simple monk. I'm trying my best." I believe he really means this, and he's embodying noble simplicity.

See the full post on Owning Your Nobility: HERE

For the complete list of spiritual practices see the SPIRITUAL PRACTICE DIRECTORY.

Here it is, your...
MOMENT OF ZEN
#117: Mistakes

Kintsugi ("golden joinery"), is the Japanese art of repairing broken pottery by mending the areas of breakage with lacquer dusted or mixed with powdered gold, silver, or platinum. As a philosophy, it treats breakage and repair as part of the history of an object, rather than something to disguise." (Wikipedia)

The art of creating our life is a kintsugi art. Where we are broken, we need to repair and heal. Yet we can reclaim our wholeness in a way that shows off where we have been broken, rather than hiding or minimizing it. Life's beauty manifests as mistakes. Life's perfection presents as golden flaws.

Case

Grouse said, "I feel very nervous when I lead our recitation of the sutras."
Raven said, "Mistakes are part of the ritual."

Verse

"There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so." -Hamlet, Shakespeare

So stop thinking
Except when it's needed
Which isn't as often as you
think.
Haven't you noticed that
Every turn in the road
That led to something you love
Began with a mistake?

Case by Robert Aitken; introduction and verse by Meredith Garmon

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