This page is curated by Steven Mead, Program Ministry staff and our Lifespan Religious Educator. We come in all "religious flavors," and regardless of your perspective, use the wide-ranging sources on this page to inspire, challenge and create a life of meaning for yourself and enrich the lives of those around you. [To reveal more of the content on this web page―open the accordion files below.]
On Your Own Time | Adult Lifelong Learning Resources
Imagination
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What does it mean to be a People of Imagination?
Maybe our most important work is to re-imagine imagination. Imagination’s great gift is improvement. At least that is what we’re usually taught. The deep magic lies in the way it can reshape our reality. We are urged to imagine the world we dream of. A world with more justice. More peace. More love. From that, a mysterious magnetism arises, a magnetism that pulls our imperfect present into an improved future. Imagination moves us forward. It makes us better. And illuminates it too. That’s right. Imagination isn’t just a force that drives us forward toward a more perfect future, it also pulls the sacred into our impoverished present. Imagination is what transforms trees from potential firewood into wise friends. Imagination is what moves us from lording over the natural word to seeing ourselves as part of it. It gives the world a soul. And not just the natural world, but the ordinary world too. Through the lens of imagination, we perceive the common as precious, even miraculous. The laughter of our children becomes the sound of angels. Sunshine on our face becomes a greater treasure than gold. Our “everyday” lives are understood as amazing adventures and inexplicably lucky gifts. So friends, this month, do everything you can to soak in the many messages of imagination. It’s not just shouting, “Improve the world!” It’s also pleading, “Let the world come alive!” Content attribution: Soul Matters Sharing Circle Fairy Tales are more than true; not because they tell us that dragons exist, but because they tell us dragons can be beaten.―G. K. Chesterton |
More Wisdom Resources | The Accordion File of Good Stuff
Open the accordion file (+) below to reveal (lots of!) additional content.
Wisdom Resources: Reading | Websites | Blog Sites
Wisdom Resources: Elder Spirituality | Spiritual Practice | Multimedia
The most important thing is to find out the most important thing.―Zen master, Suzuki Roshi
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Elder Spirituality
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Spiritual Practice
"And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer."―Rainer Maria Rilke
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Multimedia | Film | Performance Art
"...contemporary art that roams the ground between faith and mystery. . . calls us into the imaginative life and makes us aware of the rich possibilities of being human."―Image
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Do Shag! |
Wisdom Resources: UUA Common Reads | Study Issues
Unitarian Universalist Common ReadS
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Unitarian Universalist Common Read 2020-2021
The 2020–2021 UUA Common Read is Breathe: A Letter to My Sons by Imani Perry, published by Beacon Press. Emotionally raw and deeply reflective, Imani Perry issues a challenge to society to see Black children as deserving of humanity. She admits fear and frustration for her sons in a society that is increasingly racist and at times seems irredeemable. However, as a mother, feminist, writer, and intellectual, Perry offers an unfettered expression of love—finding beauty and possibility in life—and she exhorts her children and their peers to find the courage to chart their own paths and find steady footing and inspiration in Black tradition. Breathe offers a broader meditation on race, gender, and the meaning of a life well lived and is also an unforgettable lesson in Black resistance and resilience. We are in the midst of a historic national reckoning with what it means to live as a Black or Brown American and systems of institutional racism that have been operating since our country’s founding. As UUA President, Rev. Susan Frederick-Gray, has written, “It matters that we support the uprisings whose goal is the liberation of Black people and communities who for too long have been crushed by white supremacy, militarism, and capitalism. We must find the sources within ourselves to give us courage in this moment. To resist. To risk. To sacrifice for this movement that needs all of us to succeed. To be midwives for a new era in which all of us will be free.” Discussion materials will be available for download in late fall 2020. For more information about the Common Read program visit: www.uua.org/read Unitarian Universalist Common Read 2019-2020. The Common Read Selection Committee is pleased to announce that
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UUA Study Action |
UU Faith and Spirituality Resources
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Jack Jezreel, founder of JustFaith observes, “The world cannot be changed-by-love to become just, unless we are changed by love to become whole, but we cannot be made whole without engaging in the work of making the world whole. Personal transformation and social transformation are one piece.”
Sophia PerennisReligion as participation is a rediscovery of the Perennial Tradition that Plotinus, Gottfried Leibniz, Alan Watts, Aldous Huxley, and so many saints and mystics have spoken of in their own ways. It constantly recognizes that we are a part of something, more than we are observing something or “believing” in something.―Richard Rohr The Perennial Tradition by Richard Rohr |
Sophia Perennis | Perennial Wisdom Tradition
The Perennial Tradition encompasses the recurring themes in all of the world’s religions and philosophies that continue to say:
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Decisions |
Kirsti L. Adkins Original work
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“Inventory: |