Tuesday, February 20, 2018

The right decision in the end

Unitarian Universalists covenant together to affirm and promote a free and responsible search for truth and meaning. UU encourages the search but offers little guidance, other than its naming six sources for its "living tradition", in where to look. Like Moses and the Israelites, UUs have wound up wandering in the wilderness for 57 years since its merger in 1961. If UU is to thrive it must clarify its spiritual mission and provide more useful guidance for the spiritual journey.

When I was a child, about the age of 10, it dawned on me that "It's not a bad life if you know how to live it." Where this aphorism came from, I have no idea. I don't remember anybody telling me this. I just seemed to understand this from my intuitive mind. The aphorism arose from my "inner well." It seemed a right understanding then and it still does at age 72 all these years later.

Now, after all these years, I have a better understanding of what this aphorism means. According to A Course In Miracles, I can live my life on the path of the ego or the path of the spirit. I have tried, since age 14, to live according to the path of the spirit, and have learned how to do this reflecting on my experience.

Experience has been a great teacher. Socrates said, "An unexamined life is not worth living." I have tried to live an examined life. To live an examined life, the person has to admit that (s)he doesn't know. Knowing that you don't know is the first step on the path of the spirit. Knowing that you don't know, and that other people don't either, leads one to no longer trust the path of the ego to provide the satisfaction and fulfillment of the good life.

Throughout my life I have been well aware that bull shit abounds. Bull shit is abundant and we live our lives sinking deeper and deeper into it until we, sometimes desperately, become aware that there must be a better way. With this awareness, what I call, "the dawning," we initiate a search. We become a seeker for what that better way might be. I call this initiation of the search, "the turning." "The turning" is the turn from the path of the ego to the path of the spirit.

"The turning" is easier and ultimately must involve our asking our "Higher Power" for guidance. There are many formula's human beings have created for this requesting. One of my favorites is "What would Love have me do?" or more simply, "What is the loving thing?"

In the Christian prayer, the Our Father, we say in part, "...Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven." Bringing my will into alignment with what I think is God's will brings peace and joy and the "good life" which I have been seeking.

Sometimes my ego objects to my doing God's will. Doing God's will can fill me with fear sometimes and yet I have found that to move ahead in faith, in spite of the ego's objections, has always been the right decision in the end.

1 comment:

  1. As usual I find great insight and comfort and validation in the articles here. The fact that UU has been wandering around in the desert of confusion and ambiguity has lead to a dwindling of the member for decades. Many things have been tried to "market" UU but these efforts have not achieved positive results. Perhaps UU needs to focus more not on how it is marketing its living tradition, but what that living tradition actually consists of that is valuable to a person's spiritual journey.

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