“I cannot say whether things will get better if we change; what I can say is that they must change if they are to get better.” – Georg C. Lichtenberg Research shows that civility, if embraced by one person, and then another, and then a few more, can suddenly and profoundly impact the community in […]
Rev. Phil Sweet & Friends (Angela Lensch, Bob Bultman, Keith Koch, David Smirz) While traveling in India, Joseph Campbell met with Sri Krishna Menon, a renowned Hindu teacher. Menon asked him if he had a question. Indeed Campbell did. “Since in Hindu thinking all is Brahman, all is a product of divine energy, no matter how […]
Shame can often mold and shape us. If can make us believe things that are not true about ourselves. If we keep our shame hidden and in the dark it will always have power over us. But what if we dragged our shame out into the light? What if we chose not to let it […]
Upon seeing this title some of you may be thinking, “Are you putting us on? This is 2015 and we are a UU Fellowship, not a monastery or convent. You can’t be serious…are you?” I am serious. Maybe, just maybe, we might be both surprised and reminded of a few worthwhile thoughts and practices. Dick […]
Some describe paradise as being idyllic and someplace else – whether left behind in the myths of our origins or awaiting us in stories of an afterlife. Inspired by Henry David Thoreau’s death bed words — “One world at a time!” — we will look for the glimpses of paradise to be found in the […]
There are five primary responses to conflict. All of us use all five of them in different contexts and for different reasons. Our politicians, however, use a particular response to conflict as their dominant response to disagreements, in political campaigns, and during legislative debates. It is this response, which they use so ubiquitously and so […]
Twenty plus years ago Thomas Cahill began a series of seven volumes on the history of western civilization. First came How the Irish Saved Civilization, followed by The Gifts of the Jews, Desire of the Everlasting Hills (Christianity), Sailing the Wine-Dark Sea (ancient Greece), Mysteries of the Middle Ages, and Heretics and Heroes (Renaissance and […]
This is a message of experience as I recently drove from Jacksonport in Door County to Mystic in Connecticut to move some of my personal belongings. During this four day trip I drove through seven states, all with varying views of our society, and all with various experiences ranging from climate change understanding, a history […]
Max Planck, the German physicist, said: “Nobody comes into this life or this world with any kind of guarantee of life itself or happiness or good fortune or success. Therefore for every hour of happiness that you enjoy and for every good thing that comes to you, you owe an obligation, you contribute back to […]
A message rooted in Victor Frankl’s understanding of life as a “search for meaning,” which he defines through three sources of that meaning. Longer life expectancy is forcing us to rethink what gives live meaning and purpose in “the third age” of life (post-retirement), challenging prevailing cultural assumptions that this stage of life should be defined […]