April 2010

Each of the two of us has experiences during the services of looking at your faces and feeling touched by your lives or listening to a hymn medley with tears in our eyes with love for you all.   When we’re running low, such moments fill us.

Unitarian Universalists have always spoken of salvation as universal.  Our Universalist ancestors believed God was love; love was for all people and all were all destined for salvation.

Unitarian Universalism is about individual and universal healing.  Our is a living tradition of working for human rights to bring justice and beloved community to all.  We take actions for salvation on earth for ourselves and others.  We are motivated not by fear of an after-life in hell but by our experience of and our actions for heaven on earth.

What experiences at UUCB help keep you going?  What experiences are saving for you?

How can you increase the odds on such life-saving experiences for others in the congregation?

When you join in coffee and conversation, please speak with others of your church experiences which lift your spirit, that keep you going.  Then invite others to share. Such conversations keep our community alive!

With love and gratitude for you,

Activities, Journal and Discussion Questions

• When you’ve hit rock bottom, what has kept you going?  When you feel low and wonder what it is all about, what gets you out of bed?  When you question your worth, what lifts your spirit?
• When you are running low, what moments at church fill you?
• During social times at church, invite conversations on when the church lifts spirits, provides meaning and purpose, touches lives deeply.
• How do you see this community and yourself bringing about justice and beloved community in the world?   What more do you want to do?
• How does work for justice bring joy?
• Visit the Social Justice Table on Sundays and see what joyful action you can take.

Film

Watch Martin Scorsese’s film, The Last Temptation of Christ.  This is a filmmaker’s interpretation of a novel by Nikos Kazantzakis.  What does this story say about our human struggles, separation, reconciliation, salvation, and union?

Books

Read or re-read Traveling Mercies: Some Thoughts on Faith, Anne Lamott, Anchor Books, 1999.  Anne Lamott tells her spiritual journey of healing and salvation with tenderness and humor.