Last week, we read a passage from Rev. Jabez T. Sunderland’s 1902 book, The Spark in the Clod: A Study in Evolution, in which he approached the scientific theory of evolution from a religious standpoint. Today, an opposite approach, where religious ideals are found from a more scientific point of view, in the writings of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (1881-1955).

Teilhard was a Jesuit priest, but also a scientist, and his ideas were unsuccessfully quashed by the Roman Catholic Church. His primary work, The Human Phenomenon, was written in the 1930s but published after his death in 1955. While he was not himself officially a Unitarian or Universalist, it can be argued that his theology was very much in line with both forms of liberal religion, and informs liberal theology today. A rather comprehensive chapter on Teilhard from the book God and Science, by Charles P. Henderson, can be found here for further reading.

What I find fascinating in this excerpt, on the nature of matter, is Teilhard’s conclusion of the interdependence of all things, from our very atoms.

from The Human Phenomenon

by Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (1881-1955)

Moving an object back into the past is equivalent to reducing it to its simplest elements. Followed as far as possible in the direction of their origins, the last fibers of the human composite are going to merge in our sight with the very stuff of the universe.

The stuff of the universe–that ultimate residue of the more and more advanced analyses of science. To know how to describe it properly, I have never developed the kind of direct and familiar contact with it that makes all the difference between someone who has read about it and someone who has experimented with it. I also know how dangerous it is to take as material for durable construction hypotheses conceived of as only meant to last a day, even in the minds of those who originate them.

(Read on … )

One of the struggles in Unitarian Universalism is to balance the needs of the individual with the needs of the community, to go beyond the individualism that a free search for truth and meaning can sometimes foster, and to see our place as part of a greater Whole.

The Rev. Tom Owen-Towle, currently serving as the interim minister at the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of San Dieguito, California, spoke beautifully on these concepts to his congregation this September, urging and challenging members to build Beloved Community (pdf) right where they are planted.

For consideration: how does membership in your community challenge you to become more than you are by yourself?

Growing the Beloved Community!

by Rev. Tom Owen-Towle

I wrote a book recently on what I consider the 12 hallmarks of healthy congregations. Now, there’s been a lot written on theology, from every conceivable angle, but precious little on ecclesiology, especially the art of being and doing church the liberal religious way, our Unitarian Universalist Fellowship way.

I will be conducting a Saturday morning workshop, November 17th, here at our Fellowship, on this very topic. I hope you will plan to participate.

As San Dieguitans you pride yourselves on being individual questers: pursuing the good, the true, and the beautiful in your own fashion. And so you should, and so do I. But, I dare say, there’s more to this strange, wondrous business of progressive religion. Being a solitary traveler is but a 100% half-truth. For Unitarian Universalism, at its finest and fullest, demands far more of its adherents than rugged independence. It requires that we become builders and sustainers of the interdependent web wherever we’re planted.

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This morning, a sermon about Buddhist practice in a Unitarian Universalist context, from the Rev. Wayne Arnason. There has been a recent buzz around UUs exploring Buddhism, including much of the Summer 2007 issue of the UUWorld Magazine, and the much respected work of Rev. James Ishmael Ford, who blogs at Monkey Mind.

What strikes me about this sermon is how Rev. Arnason describes his everyday practice in very real terms, in such an accessible manner as to demystify this very spiritual mindset, while at the same time deepening my understanding of it. Rev. Arnason serves as co-minister at West Shore Unitarian Universalist Church in Rocky River, Ohio.

Four Impossible Things Before Breakfast

by The Rev. Wayne B. Arnason

Every morning after I do my Zen meditation practice, I vow to do four impossible things before going on to exercise and breakfast. The four impossible things include saving all beings, extinguishing all desires, mastering all opportunities to realize Buddhist teachings, and attaining enlightenment. The way I make these promises is through chanting the Great Vows, which in different languages and in different translations within different languages are chanted around the world in Buddhist communities and monasteries at least once in every day.

In the version used at my sangha at Zen Mountain Monastery in New York, they are chanted at the end of each day in the monotone style that is part of Japanese Zen liturgy. They sound like this:

“Sentient beings are numberless, I vow to save them,

“Desires are inexhaustible, I vow to put an end to them,

“The dharmas are boundless, I vow to master them,

“The Buddha Way is unattainable, I vow to attain it.”

Now, is this goofy or what??

(Read on … )