BuddhistDruidChristianHumanist

So, here we are at the end of the Lenten Journey. Easter Sunday. When I began this journey 40 days ago, I said that this was a journey of transformation and sanctification, a time to strengthen the sacred part of ourselves. I intend to reflect on that in this post but first I want to talk about Faith. This is an interesting subject for Easter Sunday because, since the Nicene Creed was adopted in 325 CE, the death and resurrection of Jesus has been an article of faith and any deviation from that belief is considered a heresy. But I will admit that I am more of what Marcus Borg called a pre-Easter Christian, one more focused on Jesus' words and his life than on his death. I realize that even giving greater priority to that part of his story is troublesome. As you may recall from a previous post, I noted that Faith is what you give your heart to, something that you trust completely. For me, Faith in the context of Easter weekend is entering into Good Friday in the same spirit th...

This reflection begins with what seems like a simple question: what am I afraid of? What causes me to fear? I wouldn’t say that I fear death. I’m not looking to finish life sooner rather than later. I have dreams and hopes to continue to enjoy life and watch my children grow up. But I’m not afraid of death itself. When I was younger, I would say that I had a fear of being inconsequential but I had a very narrow view of what consequential would be. I was probably too concerned that if my name didn’t have reason to be in a history book, I hadn’t made a mark of significant enough consequence. My view of being consequential has changed over the years. I’m less concerned with being a consequential person and more concerned with being a person of consequence. I want to make a difference. So, I’m afraid that my life won’t have purpose, that I won’t make a difference. Looking at Willcox’ version of the Wheel of Emotion, I see “Scared” as one of the six basic emotions. Connected to Scar...

I’m probably not going to reference the Emotional Wheel or psychology texts or philosophy texts or anything like that in this post. I’m simply going to reflect on Joy. Today is my son’s 13 th birthday. My daughter just turned 11 last month, our March 17 th leprechaun baby. I have a notoriously bad memory but I can tell you many details about the day they were born or in Tyler’s case, days. Tyler started to be born on the 14 th . He was already about two week past his expected birthdate. I had a bag packed for going to the birthing center for both me and Christine, bought some food for both of us depending on the length of the labor and delivery, and made some raw chocolate chip cookie dough for Christine that was in the freezer since she wasn’t allowed to have raw cookie dough until the baby was born. Since the baby still didn’t seem to be in any big hurry, we had been going on walks in our neighborhood and the local park. On this day, we decided to go to the Museum of Nature...

After reflecting on Anger and Grief, I really do want to shift gears and look at Awe. Awe connects with inspiration and inspiration offers us courage. Awe is also connected to mindfulness. I looked on one of the emotional wheels and found Awe connected to Surprise and I get that. But I think Awe is also something you experience because you were open to it, mindful of the possibility of awe, and willing to keep your eyes open to it. So, Mindfulness is an important part of Awe even if there is an element of surprise. I have had the great fortune to have some awe-filled experiences. Nature certainly has provided more than its share. Growing up in Ohio, we don’t have any great mountains but there are other ways to experience Awe in nature. I recall driving back from Athens, Ohio one autumn morning. I had spent the weekend there celebrating Halloween at Ohio University. As I drove the state highway northwest toward Columbus, I looked into my rearview mirror and saw the changing colors o...

After reflecting on Anger last time, I thought I would go light and reflect on Grief. On the one hand, this would should be easier for me since I have worked in Grief for a good part of my professional life and I’ve lectured on the topic. On the other hand, Grief is a unique experience each time you journey through it even if there are familiar patterns. I am familiar with Grief in my personal life. When I was three years old, my dad’s oldest brother died in an airplane crash. Several years later, my cousin died just barely after his first birthday as a result of one of the more lethal aspects of Downs Syndrome. We also moved six times when I was a child, all within about 10 miles of each other but people often forget that grief and loss are not just about death. Any change can provoke a feeling of grief. I attended five different schools by the time I was in 6 th grade and then I went to a middle school that was different from the one where the majority of my 6 th grade friends ...

So, I’m just going to dive into the proverbial “deep end” of the emotional pool – Anger. I have chosen this one to start because it is a complex emotion for everyone and because I had a particularly challenging experience with it that I’m still processing. A few years ago, I was going through a credentialling process with the Association of Clinical Pastoral Educators. I’ll cut to the chase and share that I was not successful in my endeavor which was a great disappointment because I love teaching and I’m called to pastoral care. For the most part, I have made peace with this outcome because time has intervened and I’m appreciative of the choices I have made in the last few years that were somewhat facilitated by that outcome. I also made peace with it because I can truly say that their decision not to credential me didn’t have anything to do with me. In fact, as far as I could tell, I wasn’t even there. That is to say, the committee that I met seemed to have created their own versi...

If you Google “Circle of Emotions,” you will get a plethora of images that offer a perspective on the interconnectedness of emotions. There are so many varieties that range from circles presented in a scientific journal to circles presented as an object of art on Etsy. My own personal favorite was one I found at DrAlbertWong.com/feelings-wheel/. I cannot speak to the quality of Dr. Wong’s education or credentials. I can just tell you that I appreciated a) the construction of this wheel relative to the many others that I saw and b) the acknowledgements Dr. Wong gave to the history of his particular interpretation of the wheel. He writes, “ This is an adaptation of Mike Bostock’s adaptation of Geoffrey Robert’s Emotion Wheel using D3’s partition layout. Robert’s 2015 work appears to be based on a vocabulary wheel by Kaitlin Robbs from 2014, which in turn appears to be based on The Feeling Wheel published by Gloria Willcox in 1982. ” THAT is both a testament to the lineage of his pa...

In the space of a few hours, I had two conversations that prompted the same metaphor in me. I hope that the metaphor was as helpful to the people I was speaking to as it was to me. The topic of the conversation was essentially around the idea of purpose and fulfillment. (This is closely related to what brings you joy, a parallel track perhaps, but not necessarily identical.) I began to imagine three jars. (For a Unitarian, I do see a LOT of things in THREEs.) One jar contains the things that you feel required to do even though they drain you of your energy. The other jar contains those things that you do that are important to do and they sometimes give you energy and sometimes drain you of your energy. The last jar contains the things that you do that give you energy when you do them. Each jar has actions which have purpose. However, one jar is completely fulfilling while one is completely draining and the other is a little of both. The challenge, as I see it, is that we often give...

We have covered all the spokes on the Wheel of Spirituality but one, the Psychological/Emotional spoke. This is essentially how do we cope with life, literally. What coping mechanisms do you have for life’s ups and downs and twists and turns? How do you respond to your emotions? What emotions do you express? Where are your support systems and how do you access them? First, it is important to understand a little bit about the emotional process. When we think about our emotions, we often think that they are primary. They often arise so fast that it is easy to believe that our immediate reaction to everything is an emotional one. But as true as that feels, we are cognitive beings with the ability to express emotions and even our emotional responses that feel completely intuitive and embodied do not bypass our brain. As short as this process may be, 1) we have an experience, 2) we have a thought about that experience (our brain processes the experience), and then 3) we have an emotio...