Sound File for Spiritual Direction Service

Link Here for a recent sermon about Spiritual Direction.

I have found an office for Spiritual Direction! I'll be at 66th and Duke on Fridays. If you are looking for a spiritual director - contact me. If I'm not the right match I will refer you on to others. If you are unable to afford spiritual direction... I have a limited number of open spots for no-cost sessions.

alternative words to "lord of the Dance"

These words were used for the sermon on Shiva: Lord of the Dance. The author of the original lyrics was inspired by Shiva when he wrote those words about the Christian spirit of life/Christ.

I sleep in the kernel and I dance in the rain,
I dance in the wind, and through the
waving grain,
And when you cut me down, I care nothing for the pain -
In Spring I'll be the Dance again!

CHORUS

3

I dance at the circle of community

I dance in the fire and I dance the windswept tree

I dance in the waves of the bright summer sea

I am the Lord of the wave’s myst’ry

CHORUS

4
The Moon in her phases and the tides of the sea,
The movement of Earth, and the
seasons that will be
Are rhythm for the dancing and a
promise through the years -
The Dance goes on through joy and tears.

CHORUS

5
They cut me down, but I leap up high!
I am life that will never, never die.
I'll live in you and you'll live in me -
I am the Lord of the Dance, said he!

by Hilda Marshall, Marty Hale-Evans and Amy Beltaine, based on the tune by Sydney Carter

Sound file for "Optical Delusion" Sermon

link here

Quotes from "Optical Delusion" sermon

Renowned physicist Albert Einstein’s 1930 work, What I Believe:

He writes on on Nature and Religious Feeling --

"The human mind is not capable of grasping the Universe. We are like a little child entering a huge library. The walls are covered to the ceilings with books in many different tongues… But the child notes a definite plan in the arrangement of the books---a mysterious order which it does not comprehend, but only dimly suspects."

"The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing. One cannot help but be in awe when he contemplates the mysteries of eternity, of life, of the marvelous structure of reality. It is enough if one tries merely to comprehend a little of this mystery every day. Never lose a holy curiosity."

"What I see in Nature is a magnificent structure that we can comprehend only very imperfectly, and that must fill a thinking person with a feeling of "humility."

"The finest emotion of which we are capable is the mystic emotion. Herein lies the germ of all art and all true science. Anyone to whom this feeling is alien, who is no longer capable of wonderment and lives in a state of fear is a dead man. To know that what is impenetrable for us really exists and manifests itself as the highest wisdom and the most radiant beauty, whose gross forms alone are intelligible to our poor faculties - this knowledge, this feeling ... that is the core of the true religious sentiment. In this sense, and in this sense alone, I rank myself among profoundly religious men."

He writes On Widening Circles of Compassion ---

"A human being is part of a whole, called by us the "Universe," a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings, as something separated from the rest--a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circles of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty."

Sermon: Innanna's Journey

to explain why this blog has been stalled... and to park this sermon somewhere. Here is a link to yesterday's sermon. http://uucs.podbean.com/