January 2010
- Resolved: to speak or write one note of appreciation to someone each week.
- Resolved: to sign each Super Card of Care that is set out on Sundays in the atrium in front of the office windows.
- Resolved: to consider each month’s theological theme. This month’s theme is grace. What are your personal experiences of unexpected moments of sweetness, beauty, acceptance, love, clarity?
- Resolved: to hear members share their experiences of grace in the Sunday services on January 10. Hearing members’ stories is a great way to know people and to support and learn from them. It’s a good Sunday to come to both services. Speaking at 9:00 are Sarah Pichler, Valerie McFarlane Smyth, Gerrit van Roekel, and Joe Butler. Speaking at 11:00 are Josh Clark, Betsy Graham, Sandy Portillo-Robins, and Dave Rockwell. If you don’t know some of these members, please come and get to know them!
A Joyous New Year to You!
Spiritual Practices of Grace
Notice what you are receiving. Surrender to being receptive and accepted.
Write and/or share a time when you felt accepted and that made all the difference.
Ask others to share with you times of their feeling accepted.
Notice and name the moments you experience in Sunday services where you feel surprised and deeply touched.
What are your personal experiences of unexpected moments of sweetness, beauty, acceptance, love, clarity?
Books on Grace
Children: Butterflies Under Our Hats, by Sandy Eisenberg Sasso, based on a Jewish folktale and available through the UUA Bookstore.
Adults: Saint Maybe, a novel by Anne Tyler
On the Divinity of Second Chances, a novel by Kaya McLaren
Wrestling With Grace, Robert Corin Morris draws from Christian, Buddhist, and Jewish traditions for concrete spiritual practices that can be done in the midst of everyday pressures and routines. He emphasizes the importance of being receptive to the grace which can infuse all of our experiences with meaning—even negative ones.
Films on Grace
Here If You Need Me, A True Story by Unitarian Universalist chaplain Kate Braestrup, available through the UUA Bookstore.
Avatar, directed by James Cameron. In this new release sci-fi/fantasy movie an ordinary man Jake Sully (Sam Worthington), a former Marine who is confined to a wheelchair, is transformed by his encounters with the ancestral teachings and ecological activities of an alien race. He meets a trained botanist (Sigourney Weaver) named Grace.
Good Will Hunting, directed by Gus Van Sant. Friendship saves and transforms lives.
Tender Mercies, directed by Bruce Beresford. A country western singer, a widow and her son heal one another’s broken places.
Ram Dass - Fierce Grace, directed by Mickey Lemle. Spritiual teacher Ram Dass views his stroke as fierce grace.
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