UUCLB: At your home: On your computer

You can watch the service online at 10 am, using this link: https://zoom.us/j/658658707

So much is changing, so rapidly. In the last few weeks, the coronavirus has altered every aspect of our lives, personally and socially: the way we live, … read more.

Churches measure time differently: not in years, or fads, or decades, or generations. We’re here for the long haul, longer even than human lifetimes. When the church says, “We will get through this” that’s a promise.

A homily about our instinctive need to come together during times of crisis, and, when the crisis demands we don’t gather physically, how we can gather in other ways.

Click this LINK to see Facebook video of this service.

Spring Forward! Time change occurs at 2:00 am, March 8. Adjust your clocks! For some, the goal of religion is not directed at improving the self but is directed outward toward improving the lives of others. The spiritual question of purpose, “What should I do?” becomes the generous offer, “What can I do, for you?”

The spiritual sense of “right” begins with intuiting a standard beyond our personal preference and then working to conform our lives to that standard. For some the standard exists in God, or a sacred text. For Unitarian Universalists the standard more often exists in a personal intuition about the best and highest for ourselves.

For many the goal of religion is simply peace. Indeed, “spirituality” often conjures images and feelings of peace, calm, stillness, equanimity. The spiritual goal of peace is not to overcome the challenges of life but to distance oneself from them, not to “win” with one side of the struggle against the other, but to unite the sides and forget the struggle.

Unitarian Universalists have had a difficult relationship with power, lately. But we don’t need to feel ambivalent about having power, only be more cognizant and careful about how we use it. Power is merely the ability to effect change in the world. Without it, no goal for a different future would ever be reached.

Some religious experiences are grandiose: miracles, theophanies, resurrection. But the unlikelihood of that model of instant total transformation can make spiritual growth seem impossible. In truth, the more reliable route to achieving our faith goals is through slow, steady work, and patience for incremental change.