[UUCP] This week's sermon

[revpauld444 at gmail.com]

Hi everyone,

I hope you're all taking the advice of the experts and practicing the safety
measure to keep yourselves healthy and help prevent the spread of
Coronavirus.

I'll be recording the sermon I would have given today sometime tomorrow and
sending it to Michael to put on our UUCP website for you to listen to. When
it's available, we'll let you know along with step-by-step instructions
about how to listen.

It's difficult, I know, especially for those living alone. That's why we
need to do what we at UUCP do best: practice Beloved Community.

I want to encourage you all to pick up the phone and call each other so the
loneliness that can occur with this serious kind of social distancing won't
be so bad. Please don't visit each other as tempting as that might be. If
you live close to someone, go for a walk together but keep the recommended 6
feet distance form each other and don't shake hands, hug, etc. Maybe just
fold your hands and bow!

Also, remember to e-mail each other. Send jokes, poems, recipes, whatever to
cheer each other up. Keeping a positive outlook and a sense of humor are
really important now!

Below is a poem by my favorite poet Mary Oliver about the Buddha's last
word's to his followers. Good advice for us today, too. Be lamps. Be Light
in the world. Especially now.

Peace and Light,

Paul

***************************


The Buddha's Last Instruction


"Make of yourself a light,"

said the Buddha,

before he died.

I think of this every morning

as the east begins

to tear off its many clouds

of darkness, to send up the first

signal - a white fan

streaked with pink and violet,

even green.

An old man, he lay down

between two sala trees,

and he might have said anything,

knowing it was his final hour.

The light burns upward,

it thickens and settles over the fields.

Around him, the villagers gathered

and stretched forward to listen.

Even before the sun itself

hangs, disattached, in the blue air,

I am touched everywhere

by its ocean of yellow waves.

No doubt he thought of everything

that had happened in his difficult life.

And then I feel the sun itself

as it blazes over the hills,

like a million flowers on fire -

clearly, I'm not needed,

yet I feel myself turning

into something of inexplicable value.

Slowly, beneath the branches,

he raised his head.

He looked into the faces of that frightened crowd.

~~~ Mary Oliver

 

 

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