RevCyn

The other day in a workshop on environmentalism, we heard about how people feel confronted by the overwhelming amount of what needs to be done, so they push it all away and do nothing. Last night our UUA president was talking about how UUism can become more ethnically and racially diverse. He said that we don't get from here, where we are, to there, the true reflection of the diversity of the world, in one step. What we need to do is take the first step, perhaps the easiest step or perhaps the hardest. Today Thomas Moore is talking about where we start in soul work, and he said something similar. We need to whittle it down to the smallest thing, the smallest change we can make. That's the change we need to make. That's a big challenge. All too often in our lives we avoid doing anything because the task is too large. The truth is we need to take the small step. Letting ourselves be overwhelmed by the big picture gives us the luxury to not act at all. What we need to do is mu...

Thomas Moore began his lecture at the UUMA Convo in Ottawa today with a story about emptiness. Nazruddin went to preach to a group of people, and when he got there he asked, "How many of you have heard me preach before?" The excited group of fans all raised their hands. He said, "Very good. You've heard me before, and so you already know what I would say." And he left. The next day he came back and asked the group, "How many of you have heard me preach before?" They'd learned their lesson, so none raised their hands. Then he said, "Well, if you've never heard me preach before, you won't understand what I was going to say." And he left. The next day he came back and asked, "How many of you have heard me preach before?" This time the confused crowd was split, and half raised their hands and half didn't. Nazruddin said, "Good. Those of you who heard me preach before, explain what I said to those who ha...

So I'm here at the UUMA Convocation, and the keynote speaker this morning was Thomas Moore . What I took from what Thomas Moore shared with us is that there is a divorce in American culture between science and religion, which is the split between mind/intellect and soul. There's nothing surprising in that idea, of course. But Thomas Moore put it simply pointedly, saying (or this is my interpretation of what he said) that most people stop developing their idea of God as children, and the ideas of God put out there the most in our culture are essentially the God we learn at age 6 or 7. Now, reflecting a bit on what he said, imagine if you stopped your understanding of what math is or literature is or science is or medicine is at age 6 or 7. Why do we think that this childhood idea of God is sufficient? My own question is why do even ministers support, uphold, even preach this childish idea of God? One question that was put to Thomas Moore in the question and answer time was ...

Here at the UUMA Convocation in Ottawa, Ontario, a continent-wide gathering of Unitarian Universalist ministers. The last Convo was in 2002 in Birmingham, AL, so it's been seven years since we've had this meeting. Our keynote lecture is from Thomas Moore . Thomas Moore began our lecture today with a Sufi story: Nazruddin asked a couple of men, what do you want people to say about you when you're lying there in the coffin and people are talking about you. The first one said he wanted to remembered as a good man. The second one wanted to be remembered as someone with a big heart. Then they asked Nazruddin what he wanted them to say about him. Nazruddin said, "I'd like them to look at me and say, 'Look! He's moving!'" Great story. Of course, Thomas Moore tells it better.