Tuesday, February 02, 2016

Faith in life's spirit, hope for earth's community

Unitarian Universalist minister Rev. Josh Pawelek shares his sermon "When Seeing isn't Believing" that focuses on the depth of living rather than the strength of believing. He writes:
"I’ve been forming some new ideas about what religious living means. It started when I decided to teach a course on Thomas Moore’s 2014 book A Religion of One’s Own. Thomas Moore is a former Catholic monk, a psychotherapist, and a popular spiritual writer, perhaps most famous for his 1992 book, Care of the Soul. It took me a while to decide to teach this book, mainly because, as a parish minister who wants people to participate in the life of the congregation, promoting the idea that one doesn’t need organized religion to be religious, that one can simply have a religion of and on one’s own, well, that doesn’t seem consistent with growing a congregation. But Moore doesn’t devalue church, synagogue, mosque, temple or sangha."
Pawelek shares examples of soulful living from his own experiences and suggests how the distinctions between spirit and soul may help others.