So, today I checked out the UU congregation that’s not too far from me. <\/p>\n
The sermon was about dreams. And while he talked a little about the dreams that we have when we’re asleep, he spoke more of dreams as desires, goals and wants. He talked about dreams being reflections of what it is we see around us. He talked about dreams reflecting the input of “the multi-trillion dollar advertising industry”. He talked about Martin Luther King’s dream. He talked about good dreams and bad dreams. He suggested a prayer that went in essence “don’t give me a bloody thing, until you’ve changed my dreams to be good dreams.” And good dreams he says are about changing the world. Which he contrasts to consumerist dreams.<\/p>\n
And I thought about my own dreams, my own goals. Whether it be the new job, or a particular sort of social circle that I’m trying to engineer. Are these good goals, good dreams? Maybe it’s a start in the right direction, but not all the way there. False hopes of happiness if I consume more education. Who knows. But we’ll see how it all goes. <\/p>\n
Afterwards, there was a new member orientation session. Simultaneously there was a glbtq session for the congregation. I actually had to resist the glbtq thing as the pull of the familiar to go to the new member thing.<\/p>\n
As a result, I now have a better sense of UU history and what they’re all about. <\/p>\n
Unitarian is a distinction from Trinitarian. It’s the belief in a single God.
\nUniversalist is the belief that everyone has a piece of the truth and no one has a monopoly on it. And there is a theism underlying it as well.
\nThis is all in my words, obviously. <\/p>\n
UU’s come from western, christian tradition. It’s part of what they are. I was a little surprised to hear God mentioned, repeatedly in the sermon. I suppose I shouldn’t have been. It was also surprising to me how many of the new people at the congregation were heterosexual couples with mixed religious backgrounds about which they had been very serious, who were trying to find some common path.<\/p>\n
I was a little agressive and defensive about my agnosticism, I suppose. Afterwards, I walked up to the minister and asked him what he would say to a polytheist, atheist, or agnostic who was interested in their congregation. He bounced it back to me with a very reasonable question, which took it out of the general\/hypothetical and applied it directly to me. Is this something that you want. You’ve seen the serice, that’s what you’re in for, can you live with that, and more importantly, does it help you in your own process of spiritual development? Give it a try for a month or so. If it feels right, stay. The UU church has a big umbrella. There are trinitarians, agnostics, probably even some atheists, and polytheists too. <\/p>\n
I think I will give it the month. The sermon definitely spoke to me. More so than anything I can remember hearing in my Catholic days. So long as it provides good community, “spiritual” growth, or both.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
So, today I checked out the UU congregation that’s not too far from me. The sermon was about dreams. And while he talked a little about the dreams that we have when we’re asleep, he spoke more of dreams as desires, goals and wants. He talked about dreams being reflections of what it is we … Continue reading “Spiritual journeys”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2100","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cheerfulchaotic.crazycrew.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2100","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cheerfulchaotic.crazycrew.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cheerfulchaotic.crazycrew.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cheerfulchaotic.crazycrew.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cheerfulchaotic.crazycrew.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2100"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/cheerfulchaotic.crazycrew.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2100\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cheerfulchaotic.crazycrew.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2100"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cheerfulchaotic.crazycrew.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2100"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cheerfulchaotic.crazycrew.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2100"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}