Breath

Sometimes we get flooded with thoughts, feelings, or sensations.
We get overwhelmed. Sometimes we are confused, undecided, uncentered and we have lost our clarity and sense of well being.
We feel that life is out of control. That we are out of control.
Sometimes life throws us surprises we feel that we are not prepared for. We are stressed and need to love ourselves back to balance and
Equanimity.

Our breath is a wonderful way back to our experience of
Peace and comfort inside our own skin.
Focusing on our breath listening to it, feeling it move through our bodies, allowing ourselves to relax into our own natural rhythm brings
Us home to our centered self. Attention on the breath allows us to witness our thoughts, feelings and sensations; as we slow ourselves down we have space to collect ourselves, our most evolved self is able to come forth and we can embrace ourselves, each other and our experience. Flooding leads to survival mode, defensive behavior
(fight or flight) and breathing with awareness leads to openness
And a return to love.

Rev. Supriya Hermenze

Is it the End of the World?

So much lately, in world news, has been excellent fuel for those in the global community who believe the end times are near. Disasters of every kind, natural and economic, killing, death, and greed make the headlines, and those who are moved to help can barely keep up with the tragedies. In my own neck of the woods, a woman, who had a FEMA trailer as a result of losing her home in early June in a extreme torrnado, had that same trailer destroyed last week in a freak microburst. People shake their heads and say, "what is the world coming to?" And more seriously, some people, in some places, are scared.

I came across this piece written by Martin Luther King in a response to the Norway tragedy.

I am convinced that love is the most durable power in the world. It is not an expression of impractical idealism, but of practical realism. Far from being the pious injunction of a Utopian dreamer, love is an absolute necessity for the survival of our civilization. To return hate for hate does nothing but intensify the existence of evil in the universe. Someone must have sense enough and religion enough to cut off the chain of hate and evil, and this can only be done through love. ~MLK

I don't think I can add to this, certainly not with any more eloquence, power or truth, save to say, I think we ought not merely to Love, but to FOCUS on love, not simply do GOOD, but LOOK for the good. As a culture we are obsessed with disaster, and we must actively free ourselves from this addiction by retraining our minds to see the Love around us, talk about it, build it up, add to it, the same way we can generate excitement and energy around the dismal news.

Love is a "practical realism." It is a real tool we can use, not some sentimental Hallmark card. It is a force and a power. We ought to train ourselves to know it, use it, and grow it. Rather than being helpless in the face of it's opposite, we can become professional Lovers. We can learn about it, notice it, and swiftly use it, in every situation, every day. If hateful acts begin with a seed of hate to which a person puts lots of time, energy and attention, so do acts of Love. And there are more Lovers among us than haters, so let's begin to take seriously our work keeping in mind: love never fails.  --Rev. Sam Wilde

So the light can get in

Everything has a crack in it so the light can get in. These words are paraphrased from a Leonard Cohen song called Anthem. How futile our ideas of perfection!

When we feel the crack, the pain, the resistance, the automatic defense, alienation, separateness, the self righteousness, the judgement, what do we do?  Do we hide? Do we run? Do we argue? Do we fight? Do we blame? Do we escape into pleasure? Do we eat? Do we drink?

 

Do we numb ourselves watching TV? Do we berate ourselves? Do we compare? Do we sleep? Do we intellectualize and explain the reasons and the causes? Do we go to God to deny our experience

or escape? 

Or do we turn to God to own our experience, to feel, to increase our awareness, to surrender and return to love, to our center and to having compassion for ourselves and humanity?

In gratitude and respect,

Rev. Supriya  Swerdlick Hermenze

Something Worth Celebrating

I remember the moment I walked in on my fiancé having a very intimate conversation with another woman who he was clearly having an affair with.  At once I felt my whole world implode and felt my whole being awaken. It felt electric, the fear, the shock and then the relief that the truth was known. I had come to the point where I stated, “God, THY will be done. Whatever it is. I will stay if that is my path and I will leave all my plans behind, if that is my path.”  I was utterly dependent.

And so my path was known. I left the house without looking back. I stayed with friends until I could sort out a new place to live and a new plan for my life. I felt for the first time, that I was completely trusting God to see me through. I have never felt closer in contact, in heart and mind than I did in those hot and vulnerable days.

 Three days later, a friend I’d just met mentioned that her roommate was moving out and she was seeking a replacement. I moved right in. We became great friends. I started a spiritual study group out of our home and one of the women introduced me to the seminary where I became ordained two years later; and a year after that met the love of my life.  Every blessing I now celebrate in my life unfolded from there.

I was filled with awe in those days, watching a plan unfold for me that was so clearly not my own. Something else came over me at that time as well.  It was a feeling of…maturity. Not because I was truly on my own, but because I was truly depending on and trusting  the love and guidance of my higher power.  I

This July 4^th as we celebrate our freedom and independence as a nation, I celebrate the fact that my personal freedom, the one that is not contingent on anything that exists in the changing world (money, belongings, even legal rights) comes from acknowledging how dependent and vulnerable I am. But with the love, guidance and power of God, I am made strong and capable, and have a freedom in my life truly worth celebrating.

Rev. Katherine Silvan

The thing that succeeds

I have a painted board in my kitchen above the cupboards that reads: "Love is patient, love is kind, love never fails." This is one part of the most oft quoted line in the Bible, a line that seems almost universally known. It shows up in wedding ceremonies from the most religious to the most secular. It comes from a passage in I Corinthians. I spent my high school years staring at a hand carved version of this famous passage--an enormous wooden plaque at the front of the chapel at the boarding school I attended. The chapel did not have any religious images. This passage, apparently, was not deemed religious.

It is interesting that it strikes such an interfaith note, that people from all backgrounds are drawn to it. There is no reference to God or Spirit or Jesus in the passage, simply Love, but this Love that is written about is quite different than your garden variety. You may love gummy bears and warm summer days and bubble baths and chocolate, but this Love distinguishes itself through some incredible qualities. The one I am thinking of tonight is contained in the words: "love never fails."

How amazing! Something that never fails. Something that never fails is something that always succeeds, no matter what. In my own life, there are a number of areas in which I strive and labor and work to succeed. In trying to succeed I often get tired or irritable or irritated or grow helpless. But Love does not fail, nor does it grow weary or bitter or angry.

Sometimes, with my children, I can try every kind of method to calm them down, to repair a crises or squelch a tantrum, without any success. Then, one word of love, genuinely spoken from my heart, changes everything. While we cannot, in our own strength and wisdom, succeed every time we do something, Love can, Love does, and Love will. Try for yourself, the next time you have a challenge or a conflict. Instead of using your head knowledge, your will or your wit, tap into the Love of the Universe. (Imagine the love of every person on the planet put together and combined. Imagine the power of all of that love and we might get a glimpse of this greater Love.) How do you do that? I don't always know. Pausing, breathing and remembering that Love never fails can help. Love can accomplish what needs to be done. Even a moment's meditation on such a powerful thought might be enough to open us up to allow the Love that knows no failure to move through us and work in us.
--Reverend Sam Wilde

Relationships Bring us Toward God

Love never dies and no relationship is a mistake.

Love changes form and all relationships serve us on our journey to learn to love. Before we mature in love, and learn to love without expectations, conditions, and demands on another human being we can come into severe conflicts in relationship. When we learn to have our own needs met in ways that go with the flow instead of against it, we can let other people be who they are and appreciate them for who they are. We take responsibility for our own emotions and perceptions and give others room to be themselves. If we need to remove

ourselves from a situation, we do that calmly without blaming the other person for our discomfort. Relationships help us get closer to God. 

We encounter over and over again that nobody can meet all of our needs. No one can be exactly who we want them to be. God helps us to come into our wholeness. God helps us feel loved and not alone when we are needing to be held in unconditional love. Over time relationships teach us, through rubbing us and scrubbing us clean of our childish demands. We become peaceful and appreciative of all of our relationships once we can see how each relationship has helped us grow, feel and experience what it like to be truly human. 

We love the people in our lives for all of who they are...their quirks and their wondrous qualities. We accept ourselves with our quirks and our wondrous qualities. We are comfortable inside our own skin and our love never dies and we are grateful for each of our unique relationships and how they have made us who we are.

--Reverend Supriya Hermenze

Seeing the Good (Weather)

This past week our area suffered from the effects of several tornadoes. While my town was not touched by the strong winds, many towns close by had immense damage. During the storm, I certainly knew what I wanted to pray for--my own safety, the safety of my children, the safety of all those around me, for, actually, good weather, the sort of beautiful, early summer day we enjoyed today.

Who makes the weather? In the aftermath of a storm, there is so much talk. Some talk about the "wrath of God." Some talk about global warming. Some talk about our crazy weather patterns, how we have changed the world, how we are now victims of a cruel Mother Nature.

I don't know. But in the past few days, I have been wanting to stay close to my original prayer, for the safety of myself, my children, all children and people everywhere that we may collectively SEE the good weather.

A few weeks ago, the world, at least according to one man, was meant to end. I do not find this sort of prophecy laughable, I find it historically intersting. People have thought, for the history of all human time, that the world would end on such a day--a Saturday, a day next week, in ten years, surely in their lifetime. I have also heard people say, on many occasions, that things in the world were getting "worse." And we hear that, of course, about the weather. The weather is getting worse.

Why are we all such doom-sayers? What is the appeal in that? For one thing, we could well be wrong. Yes, it is unusual to have a tornado in Massachusetts, but I learned we had one most recently in 1995--not so incredibly long ago. Is the world really in a worse place than it was ten years ago? Thirty years ago? Three hundred? I happen to think we have more peace now than ever before, more consciousness of kindness, more humanitarians, more hope, more spiritual thoughts and greater spiritual work. But ultimately, what I SEE is only a reflection of myself, my opinions, and my feelings about my own life.

I have had friends reflect to me a sense of doom about the world--while depressed. Those same friends, in a different state of mind, have such a sense of optimism about the globe.

I wonder if this can translate to our sense of the weather. Shall we just talk about the "terrible" state of Mother Nature? Or can we consciously, purposefully, actively and often SEE the good weather, anticipate a greater peace within nature, a harmonious relationship between humans and the earth we walk on? Let's not forget how powerful our thoughts are, how strongly they effect our lives, and let's not exclude even our thinking about weather, any more than we do our thinking about God, and the other great mysteries around us.

My husband said to me: "You could be picked up by a tornado and set down somewhere else without being hurt. It's the stuff--debris, pieces of car, futniture, house--inside the tornado that does the most damage."
What an interesing thought, that even a tornado could hold a sort of gentleness in the absence of our endless life accesories. Perhaps it's a useful metaphor as we go forward, to keep seeing the kindess in Mother Nature, and to keep clearing our own landscape of unnecessary and damaging thoughts so that we may accurately see the Good around us.