The monthly theme for June is Transcendence. In everyday language, transcendence has the sense of “going beyond,” while self-transcendence means going beyond a prior form or state of oneself. Mystical experiences represent a heightened reality in which the sense of a separate self is abandoned. In theology, the concept of transcendence is related to the idea of God being wholly other and existing beyond the world. Our first Unitarian Universalist source does not use the word “God” as the object of transcendence. Instead, it refers to the “Direct experience of that transcending mystery and wonder, affirmed in all cultures, which moves us to a renewal of the spirit and an openness to the forces which create and uphold life.” This source is agnostic, while pointing to mystery itself.
June 2 “The Transcendent Self” Rev. Donna Renfro
Can there be transcendence without compassion? How does nature inform us?
“Most humans feel the transcendent temptation, the emotional drive to festoon the universe with large-scale meaning.” Paul Kurtz
June 9 “Ground of Being” Rev. Donna Renfro
Religion, Pentecost and transcendence from the understanding of theologians, Gay Pride and a day of the new spirit, a day of a new beginning “Religion is one dimension of culture, a transcendent element of it.” Francis Arinze
June 16 “Father’s Day and Freedom” Rev. Donna Renfro
What we really need from father figures, personally, and in this country “I want to be a man of mountaintops: to scale the heights, achieve a sublime transcendence, and breathe in the thin air. Transcendence requires suffocation.” Benson Bruno
June 23 “Living the Kaleidoscope” Rev. Erin Walter
What spiritual resources can individuals, churches, and communities draw upon as we seek to move from binary thinking to a sparkling, kaleidoscope view of life? Rev. Erin J. Walter will visit from Austin and reflect on Unitarian Universalism's ongoing, imperfect journey to become a fully accessible, welcoming faith.
June 30 “Stranger In a Strange Land” Lee Legault
Psychologist C.G Jung developed a paradigm for psychological growth called individuation and believed it to be humanity’s most important work. From a Jungian perspective, the Exodus account of Moses’s early life becomes a map to freedom through the arduous inner work of individuation. Join UU seminarian, Lee Legault, in reflecting on what we gain when we leave the narrow straights of Egypt and lose our ego identities in the wilderness.
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