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EastroseFellowship Unitarian Universalist
1133NE 181st Avenue, Gresham, Oregon -- 181st Avenue between Glisan andHalsey

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Quotes, Poems, Ideas

Tell the truth, have you ever found Godin a church?  I never did. I just found a bunch of folks hoping for himto show. Any God I ever felt in church I brought in with me. And I thinkall the other folks did too. They come to church to share God, not find God.  --- Alice Walker, from The Color Purple

  • We invite diversity into our community not because it ispolitically correct but because diverse viewpoints are demanded by themanifold mysteries of great things.
  • We embrace ambiguitynot because we are confused or indecisive but because we understand theinadequacy of our concepts to embrace the vastness of great things.
  • Wewelcome creative conflict not because we are angry or hostile butbecause conflict is required to correct our biases and prejudices aboutthe nature of great things.
  • We practice honesty not onlybecause we owe it to one another but because to lie about what we haveseen would be to betray the truth of great things.
  • Weexperience humility not because we have fought and lost but becausehumility is the only lens through which great things can be seen -- andonce we have seen them, humility is the only posture possible.
  • Webecome free men and women through education not because we haveprivileged information but because tyranny in any form can be overcomeonly by invoking the grace of great things.

The Courage to Teach, Parker LP Palmer
We UnitarianUniversalists often wryly note that we don't offer salvation.  Butmaybe we do, in this transformation of life that happens when you and Inavigate that shift from approaching every day asking, "what can I get"into wondering "what can I give?"  You might even deem it true magic.
Rev. Margaret Keip, Skinner House Books:  Evensong, Volune 2
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A Poemfor After Christmas
"Song of theAngels"
byHoward Thurman

When the song of the angelsis stilled,
When the star in the skyis gone,
When the kings and princesare home, and
When the shepherds are backwith their flocks,
The work of Christmas begins:

To find the lost,
To heal the broken,
To feed the hungry,
To release the prisoner,
To rebuild the nations,
To bring peace among people,
To make music in the heart. 
Along with whatever New Year’s resolutions you may have already made,perhaps you can add this one: to keep your eyes and heart open to the arrivalof kings and queens and friends and strangers and children and lovers andstars and rainfalls and sages and colleagues and partners and song andpoetry bearing gifts of deep and telling importance, in the very midstof rich simplicity. So may your lives be blessed in all the days to come.Amen.

     

A Poemfor After Christmas
A ChristmasOratorio"
byW. H. Auden


                    Well, so that's that. Now we must dismantle the tree, 
                    Putting decorations back in their cardboard boxes--
                    some have gotten broken-- and carry them back to the attic. 
                    There are enough leftovers to do, warmed up, for the rest of the week--
                    Not that we have much appetite, having drunk a lot, 
                    Stayed up late, attempted-quite unsuccessfully--
                    To love all our relatives, and in general 
                    Grossly overestimated our powers to do so. 
                    The Christmas feast is already a fading memory.

                    Once again, as in previous years, we have seen the actual vision
                    and failed to do more than entertain it as an agreeable possibility. 

                    But, for the time being, here we all are. 
                    Back in the modern Aristotelian city, 
                    Where Euclid's geometry and Newton's mechanics would account for our experience, 
                    And the kitchen table exists because I scrub it. 

                    To those of have seen the Child, however dimly, however incredulously, 
                    The time being is, in a sense the most trying time of all. 
                    Remembering the stable, where for once in our lives, 
                    Everything became a You, and nothing was an It.

                    In the mean time, 
                    There are bills to be paid, machines to keep in repair,
                    Irregular verbs to learn, the Time Being to redeem from insignificance. 

                    The happy morning is over
                    The night of agony is still to come. The time is noon. 
                    When the spirit must practice his scales of rejoicing
                    Without even a hostile audience.