Atlanta Unitarian

For the past 16 days, I have been the parent in charge at home, every day, all day long, with my two elementary age boys.  We did not go on any vacation, having spent our vacation budget on a trip to Atlanta over November.  We were, in a word, stuck at home.  Stuck.  At.  Home. We did, however, engage in a wide range of activities, both at home and away.  Indoor play spaces, building ginger bread houses, bowling, numerous games of strategy and chance, books, lots of movies.  At the beginning of the holiday I drew up a list of activities for us to do and solicited further suggestions from the boys.  Aside from these excursions, with the cold weather, we were mostly confined inside.  We were lucky enough to score warm-enough weather for two walks. Nonetheless, we were all faced with a substantial amount of boredom and the frustration that comes with boredom.  Being stuck at home, and maybe not being so good at building a nearby social ...

Spiritual Journeys – Some Definitions Back when I was at the University of Georgia, before I had arrived at any particular set of religious beliefs, I had a roommate named James who was spiritual in the most cliché sense of the word.  He lit a lot of incense and candles and owned lots of crystals and pictures of the moon.  I basically thought of James’ view of the world as silly but mostly harmless. James also had a girlfriend whose belief system ran along similar lines.  However there was one particular practice that this girlfriend engaged in that bothered me.  Whenever things went wrong, whenever she was disappointed, she would repeat this mantra to herself, “Everything is perfect, everything is perfect.”   I think I loosely understand the underlying philosophy behind the mantra – that the plans of the universe are too complex for us to fathom as individuals.  But it was apparent to me that the mantra was in fact terribly destructive for this ...

The great thing about being a UU is the freedom; the horrible thing about being a UU is the freedom. Unitarian Universalism has developed satisfactory answers for certain ills. The moral and intellectual oppressiveness of hidebound religious dogma. The need for a continually renewing spiritual awareness and spiritual understanding. The importance of radical inclusiveness and human-centered values. A balance between the life of the intellect and the spirit. And yet I find in the area of religious practice it is lacking in depth and structure. I do not feel a lack of theological grounding, but I do find a void on guidance for how to be a "practicing" UU. Perhaps my keen awareness of this fact comes from my own Jewish background. In Judiasm, there is a prayer for every situation; a holiday for every season; a rich palette of rituals and practices interwoven with meaning. The grounding in literature, community, and spiritual practice is manifold and deep. In Unitarian Univ...