Patoral letters
- Letters from Roy
- Letters from Roger
Reflections
Untitarians recognise that there will always be different ways of understanding and interpreting the human condition. We take inspiration from many different sources and our congregation is made of people will many different beliefs.
It matters what we believe by Sophia Lyon Fahs
Some beliefs are like walled gardens. They encourage exclusiveness, and the feeling of being especially privileged.
Other beliefs are expansive and lead the way into wider and deeper sympathies.
Some beliefs are like shadows, clouding children's days with unknown calamities.
Other beliefs are like sunshine, blessing children with warmth of happiness.
Some beliefs are divisive, separating the saved from the un-saved, friends from enemies.
Other beliefs are bonds in a world community, where sincere differences beautify the pattern.
Some believes are like blinders shutting off the power to choose one's own direction.
Other beliefs are like gateways offering wide vistas for exploration.
Some beliefs weaken a person's selfhood. They blight the growth of resourcefulness.
Other beliefs nurture self confidence and enrich the feeling of personal worth.
Some beliefs are rigid, like the body of death, impotent in a changing world.
Other beliefs are pliable, like the young sapling, ever growing with the upward thrust of life.
All Earth's Children
For all the paths which guide our ways
We lift our hearts in joyful praise.
For Akhenaton, by whose hand
New light was brought to Egypt 's land:
For Moses, and Judaic seers,
And every Hebrew psalm which cheers,
For Jesus Christ of lowly birth,
Who sought to found God's reign on earth:
For Hindu's varied paths to God
Which many noble souls have trod:
For Buddha's path, which, like the Jain,
Has shown the way to conquer pain:
For Guru Nanak, Punjab 's son,
And all the noble Sikhs have done:
For Japanese and Chinese lore,
Confucian wisdom, Shinto awe:
For Zarathustra, Parsi sage,
The fount of Persia 's golden age:
For Islam's Prophet, by whose grace
Transformed a wayward desert race:
For Stoic souls of Rome and Greece ,
Whose fame on earth shall never cease,
For all great souls, with common voice,
Let all earth's children now rejoice!
John Andrew Storey 1935 -
'The energy of the world flows from God at the centre, and back to God. The sages see life as a wheel, with each individual going round and round through birth and death. Individuals remain on this wheel so long as they believe themselves to be separate but once they realize their unity with God, then they break free.'
Svetasvatara Upanishad
'The truth of life is only revealed through exchanges between many individuals'
Francois Cheng
'Use your eyes as if tomorrow you would go blind. Do the same with your other senses. Hear the song of a bird as if tomorrow you would go deaf. Touch everything as if tomorrow you would never be able to touch again. Smell the flowers, taste every bit of food as if tomorrow you would never taste again.'
Helen Keller
'It is not difficult to become a Buddha... One single straightforward method: harmony with the cosmic order. Rejecting and destroying our personal consciouness and attaining a state of mindfulness.'
Master Taisen Deshumaru
'Let the soul banish all that disturbs; let the body that envelops it be still, and all the frettings of the body and all that surrounds it, let earth and sea and air be still, and heaven itself - and then let the man think of the Spirit as streaming, pouring, rushing and shining into him from all sides while he stands quiet...'
Plotinus (A.D. 205)
'Do no harmful actions, do not become attached to the cycle of death and rebirth,
show kindness, respect the old and have compassion for the young, do not have a heart that rejects or a heart that covets
and have no worry or sadness in your heart. This is what is called enlighten-ment. Do not seek it elsewhere
Dogen Zenji
'True morality consists not in following the well-beaten track, but in finding out the true path for ourselves and in fearlessly following it.'
Mahatma Gandhi
'He has shown you, O man what is good; And what does the Lord require of you
But to do justly, To love mercy
And to humbly walk with your God?
New King James Bible, Micah 6:8
'When the efforts of men are directed towards a common goal, they will breathe in harmony with each other.'
Han Yu
'If you cannot find truth in yourself, then where do you hope to find it?'
Zenrin Kushu
'Every day we see or read of appalling things happening in the world as a result of violence in man. You may say, "I can't do anything about it," or "How can I influence the world?" I think you can tremendously influence the world if you yourself are not violent, if you lead actually every day a peaceful life - a life which is not competitive, ambitious, envious - a small life which does not create enmity. Small fires can become ablaze.'
Krishnamurti
Prayers act as boomerangs. We get incensed by this or that, and indignantly ask God to do something about it, to take a hand as it were. But God is spirit and has no hands in the human sense. But if He has no hands, how can He intervene? And then the realization comes, we are His hands. Our prayer boomerangs back on us.
Rabbi Lionel Blue
'To laugh often and love much, to win the respect of intelligent persons and the affection of children; to earn the approbation of honest critics and to endure the betrayal of false friends; to appreciate beauty; to find the best in others; to give one's self; to leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch or a redeemed social condition; to have played and laughed with enthusiasm and sung with exultation; to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived, this is to have succeeded.'
Ralph Waldo Emerson