Minister’s Message

I don’t actually believe that I have a spirit or soul, that I am some sort of triune being, with a spirit, mind, and body. I understand myself as a human being, a unity, with humanness expressing itself in a variety of ways. Spirituality (or physicality or psychologically or materially) is, as I understand it, a mode of beingness, a way to unfold part of my complexness and a way to tap into the complexity of the web. To be engaged spiritually, for me, means thinking and feeling (both, not one or the other) my way to underlying meaning, to the meaning that concerns itself with morality, ethics, and ways of living in harmony with myself, other humans, and the world. I think of the spiritual as a way to ask not “Why?”—why are things as they are—but instead to rest in “How will I live?” and “What will I do?” states of being. Given the realities of the world—full of pain, disease, war, and hatred, as well as beauty, poetry, melancholy, and joy—a focus on spirituality enables me to gain equanimity or balance, to move beyond either/or, us/them to both/and. I pray for myself and for us all that we may seek and find a spiritual way, for you are a precious being of the universe, a life and a life force both ordinary and entirely unique. You deserve, without reservation, to rest, to walk, to chant, to stare into space, to breathe, to work. And remember, today and every day, that you are loved, you are worthy, you are welcome, and you are needed. May you feel it so, and may it be so.
Blessings, Rev. Rita