Minister's Post, Fri May 6

Dear Ones,

As we reflect this month on borders and boundaries, let me use this space this week to share with you an excerpt (which is also in this month's PACKET) from an essay by my colleague UU minister, Rev. Josh Pawelek. Josh writes:

"I come back time and time again to the words of one of Unitarian Universalism’s spiritual forebears, the 19th century Unitarian minister turned Transcendentalist philosopher and essayist, Ralph Waldo Emerson, who once said, “Spirit primarily means wind; transgression; the crossing of a line.” Although it was not the point he was making, I have always heard in these words a claim about what it means to be a spiritual person.

Like the desert that belongs to no one, like the sky that is wide open, wind knows no borders. It blows where it blows. It transgresses. It crosses lines. It picks things up from one place and puts them down in another. If spirit primarily means wind, then I say being a spiritual person means cultivating a willingness and a desire to cross the lines that separate us from the rest of life. Being a spiritual person means actively transgressing our habitual ways of thinking, our creeds and dogmas, our unexamined assumptions and conventions that keep us separate from the rest of life. To be a spiritual person means being willing to cross borders, especially those that arbitrarily and unfairly separate us from the rest of life. If you are in doubt, err on the side of crossing."

So, the challenge: What are you going to do today -- this week -- this month -- to cross a line that separates you from the rest of 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 Apr 24 worship service, "Borders and Belonging":



The May 1 Service, "Beltane":



Here it is, your...
MOMENT OF ZEN
#119: Vast Indeed

Continuing from the previous segment, in which Porcupine asked whether Zen had a moral basis, we now see Porcupine reflecting on immense vastness. Whatever we can conceive or imagine of the size and multifarious diversity of the world, it is actually much bigger than that -- we are much bigger than that. Also tiny (though I don't think that's why Porcupine wept).

Case

Porcupine came to see Raven after the talk that night and said, "The Blue Planet is immensely vast, isn't it!"
Raven said, "It doesn't stop there."
Porcupine wept.
Raven said, "Vast indeed. Vast indeed."

Verse

Himalayan mountains, your broken heart, bubonic plague.
Kalahari desert, maternal devotion, 100-year-old oak tree.
Sequoia National Forest, honor killings, birds in your vicinity right now.
Great Barrier Reef, all the Aprils of your life, bees and octopuses.
Yangtze River, lovers' ardor, the current pandemic
A million bereaved, a billion, everyone.
Monastic practice, householder practice, whole- and half-hearted practice.
Petty violence and genocidal wars and your lovingkindness.
Vastness never stops.
In the midst of it, something purple.

Case adapted from Robert Aitken; introduction and verse by Meredith Garmon

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