Walking On Water

A meditation for Mother's Day. Offered on May 13, 2018 at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Spartanburg, SC.

With a reading by Jule Klotter, from the Metta Sutta. Recorded by David Freeman.

From the meditation:

"We are part of a Great Circle,
a Great Circle of traditions
and of icons of those traditions—
nobility, saints, goddesses—
Great Mothers who offer us and teach us
life-giving compassion.
But what matters
is what happens
in the smallness and obscurity
of our little lives....

"These Great Mothers—
those famous & those hidden—
give us life, teach us how to reclaim and sustain life
when it is threatened—
whether biologically, or archetypally, or intellectually, or spiritually, or ecologically—
they show us we have a place in the Great Circle of Life
by choosing us, by touching us
in the smallest moments,
in the obscurity of our lives,
and by allowing us also to choose them.

"Here we are, living our small lives.
And what connects us in the Great Circle,
what creates real greatness,
greatness on any scale,
is the way we choose one another
in kindness and compassion,
a compassion worthy of nobility, and saints, and goddesses,

and of us—

a compassion worthy of us—
in the smallest circles that we inhabit."

Image: Princess Diana; Mother Teresa; Kali.

The Small Circle

"We are the glory."

A meditation on the life and poetry of Maya Angelou, the last in a four-part series on the theme "A Vision for Our Country". Offered on November 24, 2019 at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Spartanburg, SC.

From the meditation:

"We live in a time of great division.
Maybe we always do.

"And we live in a time when many people do things that are wrong. Very wrong.
Maybe we always do.

"But the vision Maya Angelou offers us,
is a vision of glory.
We, a people from every part of the world,
come for many different reasons, come by many different means,
we are that glory.
We are that glory."

Image: The Glory of Maya Angelou (courtesy mayaangelou.com).

A Vision for Our Country: Glory

“The tale he had to tell...could only be the record of what had had to be done, and what assuredly would have to be done again in the never ending fight against terror and its relentless onslaughts, …by all who, while unable to be saints but refusing to bow down to pestilences, strive their utmost to be healers.” (from "The Plague", by Albert Camus)

A meditation on healers. Offered on May 24, 2020 at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Spartanburg, SC.

From the meditation:

"Healers move toward the wound—we do not turn away.
We offer presence, even when we do not have a remedy.
We work with others—with those for whom we care, with families and communities, with teams.
With humility and courage, we call forth the healing power innate in the suffering body,
in the mind, in the spirit, in our relationships, even in our society, even in our history.
And in so doing,
we discover a capacity and a power
in ourselves
we did not know we had.

There is something we can do,
a power in ourselves and in our world
that we can awaken,
something deeper than all our wounds,
a power and a wisdom,
a goodness

innate
and very great.

This is hard work. And we can do it.
We are healers."

Image: A new idea for Social Justice engagement at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Spartanburg, SC (courtesy Anne Garner).

Healers

“With no sacredness of the ballot there can be no sacredness of human life itself. For if the strong can take the weak man’s ballot when it suits his purpose to do so, he will take his life also. Therefore the more complete the disenfranchisement, the more frequent and more horrible have been the hangings, shootings, and burnings.” (Ida B Wells)

A meditation in celebration of the 100th anniversary of the 19th Amendment, and the fight of women like Ida B. Wells to achieve the promise of suffrage for all women, of every racialized identity, over the next 45 years. A meditation on shared power. Offered on August 23, 2020 at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Spartanburg, SC.

From the meditation:

"The heart and meaning of democracy is shared power....
There is power in multi-ethnic, multi-gender, intersectional coalitions,
especially that work for social, economic, and political justice
because they go right to the heart of normativity, exclusion & domination.
Coalitions of shared power are highly effective, and strike fear in the heart of our system of violence and oppression.

"When I say that we must slow down, and listen, and work across our differences
on every level in our lives—
in our families, in this congregation, in this community, in our nation, in our world—
I am not just being nice.
And I am definitely not just being idealistic.
I am being realistic.
This is what changes things.
- We must share power.
- We must strive to see and hear one another.
- We must build teams, slowly and carefully.
- Teamwork works.
- Domination, sidelining, mean-spiritedness, selfishness, greed: 
these things will not change what we want to change.
They do not make the world more livable.
We must work together. We must share power.
Multi-ethnic, multi-gender, intersectional coalitions go to the heart:
- they pierce the heart of domination.
- and they build the heart of democracy.
- They build our hearts, as individuals bound together as people."

Image: A heroine of justice for all: Ida B. Wells (courtesy The Chicago Tribune).

Suffrage

Scott Neely serves as minister of the Unitarian Universalist Church of Spartanburg, SC (www.uucs.org). He is a facilitator and strategist for Speaking Down Barriers (www.speakdownbarriers.org), an organization that uses facilitated dialogue to build our life together across the differences that divide us. In April 2015 he presented a TEDx talk on race and racism entitled “What Will I Teach My Son?” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wczALyxpfiM)

Suffrage

Scott Neely

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