Skip to main content

Posts

Showing posts from March, 2017

Want to change the world? Let love be your energy.

Want to change the world? Let love be your energy. A better world is possible when we're powered by love. Find the love within. And let love be your guide. We are Unitarians.

"Never lose a holy curiosity."

"Never lose a holy curiosity." So said Albert Einstein. For us, curiosity is holy. We never stop questioning, never stop seeking. The universe is too big to think we have all the answers. We believe in curiosity. We believe there is more to life than we can know. We believe faith should open your mind, not close it down. We believe we will always have more questions than answers. Ours is the religion of curiosity. We are Unitarians.

We love Jesus. We love Buddha too.

We love Jesus. We love Buddha too. And Muhammad and Krishna and Moses and Guru Nanak and Julian of Norwich. And lots of other folks. We find that when you look for it, you find spiritual wisdom in lots of places. And why should wisdom only come from one place? Why should God only care about one religion? What if God's love is bigger than any one religion? What if God speaks in a thousand different voices? Shouldn't we listen? We believe truth is bigger than any one religion. We believe love is bigger than any one belief. Love beyond belief. We are Unitarians.

Wake up! And smell the God.

Spirituality has one simple purpose: to get us to wake up. We usually live half-asleep, half-blind, half-dead. Wake up! Wake up to the simple truth that there is so much to experience in life. You are surrounded by so much love and so much beauty. You are surrounded by so much God. God is not a man in the sky. God is a way of seeing the world when you're fully awake. So wake up, open your eyes, and take it all in. We are Unitarians.

If God wanted gay marriage she would have created love

And she did. And so we celebrate that love by offering marriages to all couples. We are a religion that believes that love makes a marriage. We are a religion that believes that love makes a church. God is love. When we say that, we really meant it. God doesn't care that much what we believe. She cares that we love. And so we do. We are Unitarians.

Jesus said love one another. Let's stick to that.

Jesus said love one another. Love your neighbour. Love your self. Love your God. What if he actually meant it? What if it's like, that simple? We love. That's it. We love our neighbours. We love Muslims. We love gay people. We love atheists. We love immigrants. We love all sorts of people. And how about we don't make it any more complicated than that? How about we forget about believing impossible things? How about we forget about heaven and hell and rising from the dead and a thousand other things we're supposed to believe? How about we just concentrate on LOVE, and maybe worry about those other things if we have time? We have decided to stick to one commandment: love. And when we get that one right, we'll start worrying about other things. If you want a religion that cares more about love than doctrine, maybe you could join us. If you want a religion that is more interested in getting heaven into people than getting people into heaven maybe yo

Will Unitarians disinvest in fossil fuels?

I was pleasantly surprised last week when my Annual Meetings pack landed through my letter box and I discovered that there are no wordy social justice motions this year. Every year I hope and pray for that, but it's never happened before. Most years we have five wordy motions calling for this and that that we debate, pass and then promptly forget. It's an annual ritual that convinces us we're doing social justice when in fact we're just talking to ourselves. It's an easy social justice that doesn't actually require any work from us. But no, this year we don't have that. Thank God. Perhaps now we have an opportunity not to forget about what we did last year. Last year we passed a resolution calling for us to respond to combat climate change. Of course the resolution did not call us to any concrete action, but perhaps now we can walk towards that concrete action. One concrete thing we can do is disinvest Unitarian shares from fossil fuel companies.

Largest Unitarian congregations by membership 2016

Posted without comment to bookmark for future research and reflection. Membership numbers: 1. London New Unity:  83 (=) 2. London Hampstead: 79 (=) 3. Birmingham Hollywood (Kingswood): 63 (-2) 4. Dean Row: 60 (+8) 4. Edinburgh: 60 (=) 5. Bolton Bank Street: 58 (=) 6. Mansfield: 57 (=) 6. London Kensington: 57 (+7) 7. Kendal: 55 (=) 8. Portsmouth: 53 (=) 9. Norwich: 50 (-5) 9. London Golders Green: 50 (-4) 10. Bury 48 (-6)