Today is Yom Kippur the day of forgiveness

In the Jewish tradition, today is Yom Kippur, the day we ask God for forgiveness for our sins. There is nothing similar to this in the Unitarian Universalist tradition and it is a shame. We all are defective and inadequate in some way because we have separated ourselves from the Divine to create our own ego, our own false self apart from God.

It is this separation at our birth which caused all the problems. Would it have been better if we had never been born? Life is suffering the Buddha teaches and we are here to learn how to become consciously aware of shedding our egos and uplifting our Divine nature.

The popular word these days seems to be "asshole." It appears in the title of many books. It seems to attract people because of the smile of recognition and use of the word seems to sell books. Even if the word "asshole" is vulgar, it seems to sell books and be used on a regular basis to curse people who irritate us and disgust us.

What's the opposite of being an asshole? It is being a mensch, a wise person.

Yom Kippur is the day that we pray to God to assist us in giving up our asshole ways and to move toward the ways of wisdom, which is to say, to become One with the Will of God.