Spirituality comes with several parts. There are spiritual ideas that may draw our attention, inspire us and energize us. There are countless spiritual books full of these ideas. There are feelings that we may identify as spiritual, love likely being at the top of the list, and, just to mention, at the center of our own Unitarian Universalist values. Speaking of values, spirituality embodies what is important to us, things like Justice, Equity, Transformation, Pluralism, Interdependence and Generosity.
I’m going to make a bold claim here, and if you think it’s faulty, I will welcome your sincere and gentle correction. I think it’s safe to say that genuine spirituality is not found in the ideas, the feelings or the values alone or taken all together until and unless we find ways to practice them. Until we find ways to practice our spiritual ideas, feelings and values, they remain just that: some ideas, some feelings, some values. People have done some pretty awful things to each other, historically, over some ideas, some feelings, and some values. When we find ways to practice those ideas, feelings and values, we begin to find out, fairly quickly, whether any of them are good for us, good for our neighbor, good for our world, or not. When they are found harmful, we have a clear sign to abandon them and move on. When they are found good for the world, we know we have hit on a genuine spiritual practice.
With this post, we launch the 2024-25 year of Words of Wisdom? week day reflections written by members of the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Gwinnett. Each month has a theme which becomes our focus. The common thread across all of the themes this year is practice. September’s theme is The practice of invitation. Hopefully across these days of September, these reflections will help us explore the idea of invitation; how the idea of invitation makes us feel both when we extend it and when it is extended to us; and how much value we place in invitation. The real call, though, is in the practice. How do we already practice invitation in our daily lives, individually, and as a Unitarian Universalist community? What new practices of invitation are waiting for us to take them up?
~Bob Patrick
