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
Deep Listening
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What does it mean to be a People of Deep Listening?
Listening helps us find our way. The listening of therapists allows us to navigate our way through life. We turn to prayer to hear God’s guidance. We listen to experts so we can get ahead. Like a flashlight that leads us through the darkness, listening helps us keep on course. And yet our faith says not quite. There’s so much more to it than that. Listening doesn’t just guide us through the world, it says. It also creates our world. Just think about why you listen to those close to you. Is it really just to gather information? To hear the other clearly? Or is it because you’ve discovered in those rare moments of deep listening that a space suddenly opens up? A space that feels sacred. A space that, once you’ve experienced it, you never want to leave. This is why the flashlight way of understanding listening is so limited and limiting. Listening’s value isn’t just instrumental. It doesn’t just help us collect and expose information. It’s not just a tool. It’s a place. Those voices calling us home are our home. We don’t have conversations; we are our conversations. Listening literally determines the world we live in. And whom we become. Content attribution: Soul Matters Sharing Circle This is your chance to listen carefully. |
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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*NEW* 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: |