"There is something that urges me to tell you... how much I admire your utter self denial [and] readiness to serve, to sacrifice all, your time, your health, your well being, to help, help, help. I am not what you may actually call a believer. But if your kind of life is the profession of your faith—as it is, I feel sure—then religion, ceasing to be magic and mysticism, becomes confession to practical philosophy and—what is more—to active, really useful social work. And this religion—with or without a heading—is one to which even a 'godless' fellow like myself can say wholeheartedly, Yes!"
If there is one thing I admire most about UU philosophy, it is wholehearted devotion to love and compassion and justice. It is following up on flowery words with action. It is feeding the hungry, reaching out a helping hand to the weak and helpless, giving hope to the hopeless. It is BEING Christ, rather than talking about him. Of course, those are all my words, not theirs. Those are my impressions from the outside, and I should mention that my impressions from the outside are quite frequently not exactly right in real life.
- Direct experience of that transcending mystery and wonder, affirmed in all cultures, which moves us to a renewal of the spirit and an openness to the forces which create and uphold life;
- Words and deeds of prophetic women and men which challenge us to confront powers and structures of evil with justice, compassion, and the transforming power of love;
- Wisdom from the world's religions which inspires us in our ethical and spiritual life;
- Jewish and Christian teachings which call us to respond to God's love by loving our neighbors as ourselves;
- Humanist teachings which counsel us to heed the guidance of reason and the results of science, and warn us against idolatries of the mind and spirit;
- Spiritual teachings of earth-centered traditions which celebrate the sacred circle of life and instruct us to live in harmony with the rhythms of nature.
The transforming power of love. Fierce love for those around us. As you know, I am studying to become a Chaplain. One thing that draws me to the Chaplain ministry is the ability to love people - not from behind a pulpit, or within the walls of a church alone, but where they are: in the place where they fell through the ice and discovered nothing was below to catch them except freezing hell. The place where their lives are altered forever on the corner of a street, watching their friend slip away. The place where loss and life intersect and grief guides broken hearts toward an answer. The answer I want to give them is not just an ethereal being somewhere in the atmosphere. The answer I want to give them is love. Fierce Love.
I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God.... (Romans 8:37-39)
Nothing at all standing between us and God's love. Not the icy waters suffocating our breath, not the chill of death gripping our heart, not the greatest distance in the world.
God is LOVE, the Bible says. If we were made in the image of God - that is, with his purpose - then we, too, are love: it is indeed our greatest and most important function. "In the beginning was the Word and the Word was Love, and the Word was with Love, and the Word WAS love." (John 1:1)
That word, LOGOS in the Greek, is the marriage of human reasoning and Divine intelligence.
God is LOVE, the Bible says. If we were made in the image of God - that is, with his purpose - then we, too, are love: it is indeed our greatest and most important function. "In the beginning was the Word and the Word was Love, and the Word was with Love, and the Word WAS love." (John 1:1)
That word, LOGOS in the Greek, is the marriage of human reasoning and Divine intelligence.
I leave you with this video... encouraging you to greater heights of FIERCE LOVE!
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