Hopeful Thinking

The Seventh Principle of Unitarian Universalism:  Respect for the Interdependent Web of All Existence A world begins in fits and starts.  There are many legends of the beginnings of this world, and of every thing, even the beginning of light.  The creation of a world in both the literal and metaphoric sense is fraught with success and failure.  But is failure something that goes wrong, or something that goes differently than expected?  What if words like wrong and failure were actually value-neutral?  What if those words were merely regular old adjectives just like red , or tall , or smooth ?  When you look at the origin and history of the word wrong it doesn’t exactly imply that wrong is bad.  That use of the word didn’t happen until later.  Wrong merely means crooked in the directional sense. 1   Off the expected course.  We love to say that things are right or wrong.  So, if wrong isn’t wrong then how does it ...

There's something new afoot at First Parish Church UU of Fitchburg A lot of changes have occurred in the past year and there’s a lot of new language floating around. Words like “empowered laity,” “lay-led congregation,” “spiritual director,” and a hundred other ideas that are buoyed about in the enthusiasm of change.  So, when I ask myself What is happening here? I’m not sure I get a clear answer either. The truth is, your guess is as good as mine. In many ways we are making it up as we go along. That's not necessarily something to be afraid of, but I know it is unsettling. Ultimately I find that if we follow our "inner directive" at all times when choosing a destination, we may only see the next 200 feet in front of us as we drive down the dark road with our headlights on, but the road continues. And we have chosen to travel it. We have our GPS programmed for a destination and we will be ok. I love the metaphor of the global positioning device.  I love the enti...