The UU Blessing Path • Steven Mead

Steven Mead

Steven provides Program Ministry services to UU Santa Fe―learning, small group ministry, connecting, and justice-making support. He has served congregations large and small in the East, Midwest, and now here at UU Santa Fe.

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“We are not human beings having a spiritual experience. We are spiritual beings having a human experience.”―Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

While serving a former church, I was touring newcomers around our campus. Overlooking an elaborate labyrinth, there was a lull in the conversation. Finally, I filled it with "You know, you picked one of the most difficult religions in the world to experience--Unitarian Universalism." Met with puzzled stares, I explained, "Because no one here tells you what to think. It's all up to you. Now, we are here to help you and to journey with you but all the work is on you." No dogmatic formulas.

You may all have heard the uninformed say that "Unitarianism is that religion you can believe anything you want to." Were it only that simple. Most people leave off the last bit, "As long as it's true." And what is truth? Well, that search is one that lasts a lifetime and that process is different for each of us. The UU Blessing Path is that search. I invite you to journey with fellow seekers along a path toward spiritual maturity.  It's not for the faint of heart.  The UU Blessing Path is a deep dive curriculum into creating a spiritually mature Unitarian Universalist.

It's an exploration of our unique, communal, interconnected, and universal selves into a wholesome, balanced, integrated self. It's an exploration of unitive consciousness/non-dual thinking/Mitákuye Oyás’iŋ. It's a comprehensive exploration of knowing unitive consciousness in our heads, understanding it in our hearts and finally embodying it in right action at the place where “spirit meets the bone.”  It's a challenging, untidy, and iterative process.

The UU Blessing Path is a  two-year curated reading list of 24 ancient, modern, and contemporary works churned in the crucible of Unitarian Universalist perspective and lively small group discussion, that ends, hopefully, in an informed, connected, engaged, wise Unitarian Universalist life—said another way:  with someone comfortable in their own skin, who acts with compassion and justice, and embraces something larger than one’s self. Cognition. Intuition. Embodied praxis. Right relationship with the self, others, the world, and the ultimate. Here we come.

Intrigued? Let me know.  The UU Blessing Path is an emerging 2021 adult lifelong learning offering. 

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