Weblogs: July 2005 Archives

Chutney writes:
I wouldn't necessarily limit the set of stories to liberation stories, which would ... tend to be perceived as "too Christian."  (Or too political, depending on how it was done.)  Going with the "sources of the living tradition" we could also have narratives of transcending wonder, spiritual wisdom, ethics, reason, and harmony with creation.  This diverse set of narratives would make it a distinctly UU set of narratives.
Chutney in the quote above is developing a powerful and compelling point concerning the power of narrative in creating community.  He is extending and deepening a comment that I had made on Thom Belote's post on Emergent Churches on the weblog Philocrites.  I did comment to Chutney on her weblog myirony relative our substantial points of agreement.
Nevertheless his post stimulated my thinking in another direction.  I thought I would devote some of my own "blog space"*  to my understanding of the political in our faith community.
Gandhi once remarked

"To see the universal and all-pervading Spirit of Truth face to face one must be able to love
the meanest of creation as oneself.  And a man who aspires after that cannot afford to keep out of any field of life. 

That is why my devotion to Truth has drawn me  into the  field  of  politics;  and I can say without the slightest hesitation, and yet in all humility, that those who  say that religion has nothing to do with politics do not know what religion means."

*(I'm too old to write jargon like that without quotes and laughing at the inner young man who once wrote like that as a matter of course.)
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I thought that I would provide several reading lists.  But it looks like I will run out of room.  Maybe I will rotate them.  I have three lists up:  Theology for Unitarian Universalists;  Readings in "Whiteness" and "Race." and a list on Native American theology and cultural studies.  Perhaps I will use another method. 

I have been thinking about this public writing, publishing to a web log.

Sometimes one's mission is implicit,  and writing one's mission statement is an attempt to make that mission explicit.  That sound's like a good thing, but what does the statement mean?  This is a essay on mission for this weblog.

This is an interesting web site that is mentioned by Phil's Little Blog On The Prairie. (He did a worship service with the folks from this Web Site.  The site talks about Evolutionary Christianity which is based on "THE GREAT STORY (also known as the Universe Story, Epic of Evolution, or Evolutionary Epic) is humanity's common creation story. It is the 14 billion year science-based sacred story of cosmic genesis, from the formation of the galaxies and the origin of Earth life, to the development of self-reflective consciousness and human technology, to the emergence of comprehensive compassion and tools to assist humanity in being a blessing the larger body of life.

Writing a manuscript for preaching, for oral presentation, is rather different from writing a essay, or a paper for the readers eye.  In the essay that follows, I complain about the difference.

Ecto is a weblog entry client that makes entering logs easy.