November 2015

Theme: Transcendence 

©       Heart Talk-Taking the Time

Heart Talk is a spiritual practice though which we can share our hearts and feelings. It can help connect and enhance communication and relationships amongst our family members. You will find, right here on LOVE UU each month, several themed questions that can get you started.

©      You might print them out and keep them in the car,

©      or at the dinner table

©      or in your living room.

©      You might add more questions and

©      put them in a box or a jar for random drawing.

©      You might place a heart sticker under someone’s glass at dinner and let them draw a question.

©      Or tape a question to the salt shaker for the first person who uses it.

©      Or decorate your table with a question written on paper toweling.

©       Or write one or two words of a question on each persons’ napkin.

Let’s be sure to take every opportunity to open up the hearts of ourselves and our children! Thoughtful questions are a great way to inspire thinking and conversation, investigating and sharing and learning about each other.

Big Blessings,

Laurel

©      Who makes you smile?

©      What do you love about yourself?

©      What are the most important qualities in a friend?

©      Name someone who is special. Why?

©      What will the world be like in 10 years?

What will be the same and what will be different?

November 2015

THEME: Transcendence 

"The Starry Night" by Vincent van Gogh

“Imagine...” - John Lennon

“Now after John was arrested, Jesus came to Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God, and saying, "The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news." - Mark 1:14-15

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It might seem strange to pair a quote from the John Lennon song that invites the listener to image there’s “no religion too.” with a Bible verse calling people to “repent and believe in the good news.”  Yet, if we take a closer look at each, we find their message is more in harmony than is commonly thought.

Lennon’s song asks us to image a world different from the one in which we live today.  It is a song about vision and transformation.  It is about removing the various and divisive lenses through which we normally see and relate to the world and one another that we might recognize our common humanity.  

Most of us have been taught that “repent” means to apologize and seek forgiveness.  But in the context of the verse from Mark’s gospel it means something quite different.  In the Jewish Bible (what Christians call the Old Testament) repentance meant “to return.” In the Christian New Testament, repentance carries an additional meaning, for the roots of the Greek word for repentance means “to go beyond the mind you have.” Thus when Jesus calls would be followers to repent, he is calling people to return to God (or that which is life giving and sustaining), to envision (or imagine) a life that is different from the one in which we live and believe that such a life is here ready to be embodied through us in the way we relate to one another and live our lives.   

John Lennon’s imagine is in many ways then, can be heard as a 20th C. affirmation of Jesus’ call to repentance, inviting us to transcend the self-inflicted limitations of the mind and embody through our lives, another way of being, the kingdom, some might say, of God.

Reflection and Exercise

Write your own version of “Imagine.”  

What kind of world do you envision and seek to embody through your life?