Message from Our Minister Reverend Mary White
Like the strength of the wind, the Spirit within is fluctuating and at times unpredictable.
When we resist the temptation to make our life, both within and without, a one-piece puzzle, we become students of life. Everything, everyone, and every aspect of our being can teach us lessons of humility and compassion, of patience and openness. If the famous mystic poet Rumi is right, even the fluctuations of our inner life, our emotional ups and downs, “a joy, a depression, a meanness,” can teach us that we must go with the flow of our heart’s vacillations if we are to experience “some new delight.”
It has been said that a happy person is someone who can enjoy the scenery on a detour! If we accept the fact that all the pieces of our life’s puzzle are necessary in order to make us whole and complete, we can experience the “new delight” of beauty, surprise, and insight even when we are re-routed, even when the road we want to travel is closed, even when life both inside and out becomes puzzling. Failure as well as success, pain as well as pleasure, the difficult as well as the effortless, have a place in creating the harmonious whole that our life can be.
With Love,
Rev. Mary White
Poem • The Guest House
In his poem “The Guest House,” Muslim mystic Rumi affirms the importance of being open to disturbing thoughts and feelings.
This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.
A joy, a depression, a meanness, some momentary awareness comes as an unexpected visitor.
Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they’re a crowd of sorrows, who violently sweep your house empty of its furniture, still, treat each guest honourably.
He may be clearing you out for some new delight.
The dark thought, the shame, the malice, meet them at the door laughing, and invite them in.
Be grateful for whoever comes, because each has been sent as a guide from beyond.
Reading • Unwelcome Feelings
Excerpt from Tom Stella “In Sync with the Sacred, Out of Step with the World.”
The wisdom of embracing all aspects of our lives applies not only to interpersonal relationships and external situations; it also includes our emotional life. I would like to always be in a good mood. I would like to be positive, enthusiastic, and to see the proverbial glass half full. I would like my emotional life to be a one-piece puzzle; I want to be only and always upbeat. But my reality is otherwise. Like most people, I am prone to down swings and negativity, and I sometimes see flaws and danger where others observe beauty and possibility.
Although I much prefer positive emotions, I have now come to recognize the importance of dark moods and that it’s okay, perhaps even necessary, for these unwelcome visitors to take up residence within myself.
PRUC Online Worship Service
Please join us this Sunday, June 13th
PRAYER
Creator of all who we are, continue to push us outside both our physical and mental comfort places. Invite us to embrace all that comes our way and, at times, to seek that which stretches us beyond our limits. When we are in harmony with you, we have the power to change every inconvenience into a blessing. If we follow your way, our lives might become a balanced whole. We pray this in the name of the One whose teachings we follow.
Amen
The Navigation Team is meeting this evening to discuss and create a schedule for upcoming PRUC In-person Worship Gatherings.
Details will follow in next week’s Email Newsletter.