Each of us goes through life self-contained and alone, within a space of soul from which we look out of the world, which no other may fully enter. Yet our soul-space becomes healthier, happier, wiser, and more fulfilled when we loosen our grip on it, look at others, listen to others, share with others, love and laugh and weep with others.
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Balance is not a place in the center of things. Rather, balance is a practice. Balance is like being a mountain goat, leaping lightly between pinnacle and precipice, making our way despite windstorm and crevasse, nimbly and fearlessly, all the while understanding that we are doing nothing special.
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We travel through our lives as on a long highway, with many stops and starts and turns on the way. Our road leads through bright meadows and dark forests, across wide vistas and over rough and rocky passes. Always, we travel best when we travel together.
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(Posted each Valentine’s Day) Valentine’s day is a public holiday devoted to a private feeling. In this it is our most personal holiday, celebrated in a variety of ways both public and private. Likewise, a Congregation is a blending of public and private love, where we may reflect on the full spectrum of public and private relationships. Let this valentine’s day be a celebration of that private love which is intimacy–but also that public love which is justice.
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Each person’s life is made up, moment by moment, of countless heartbeats, countless breathings-in and breathings-out. We share meals and reflect on our alone-ness. We experience victory and disappointment. This is life. But in our humanity, when we listen and are listened to, when we share and receive, these mundane moments become what we can sincerely call divine.
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Around the world religious traditions use ritual to express connection, with one another and with the transcendence which surrounds us. These rituals have names: holy communion, seder, samadhi, tea service, and so on. Within our religious community, let us speak and listen and partake of one another’s journeys, our trials and triumphs, as a doorway to broader vistas of love and understanding.
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