Month: January 2019

Blessed by Science and a Capacity for Awareness and Awe

by Jim Cunningham

Through science I have come to realize that I have been blessed for 13.8 billion years… now that is a lot of blessings. If any one of multi-trillions of events did not happen just so… I would not be here today. All of it gift, miracle, and blessing!.

Through science, a research geneticist taught me that it is likely that 78% of human egg/sperm unions do not result in a live birth. Most fail in the first days to six weeks. So when I was conceived my chances of being born alive was 22%. I call that a miracle, a blessing, a gift!

Science has taught me that I began as one cell and after a multitude of cell divisions and specializations, I am born with 1-5 trillion cells and as an adult have some 25 to 100 trillion cells. Wow. Miracle! Blessing! Gift!

Each day also a gift and blessing. Each breath and heartbeat a gift and blessing! If I were to go to bed and count all my blessings… well, I would never get any sleep.

I remember hearing a story where a student asks his Rabbi, “What is the key to a spiritually healthy life?” It happened to be the Rabbi’s day of silence but not wanting to disappoint the student, the Rabbi wrote on a piece of paper one word… “Awareness.” The student looked puzzled and asked, “What do you mean by ‘awareness.?’” The Rabbi again wrote one word on a paper, “Awareness!” The student said, “I do not understand? Please, I really need to know what you mean by ‘awareness.’ !” Finally, the frustrated Rabbi breaks silence, “When I say ‘awareness’ I mean awareness, awareness, awareness!!!”

I pray that I may never lose my awareness of 13.8 billion years of gift and blessing and miracles!… that I may never lose my awareness of the gift and blessing and miracle I am… that I may be keenly aware of the vast number of gifts and blessings and miracles I am privileged to enjoy every day of my life. I awake, aware that just waking to another day is a gift and blessing and miracle followed by millions more before I lie down to sleep… each breath, every heartbeat, seeing, hearing, tasting, touching, speaking, ability to use my hands, to walk, to think, to learn, to read, to eat, clothes, food, water, a roof over my head, heat, air conditioning, medicine, a bed, pets, rocks, trees, gardens, air, diverse humans who share the journey… even pain and suffering, and oh so much more!

Awareness. Awareness. Awareness.

Thank you to the source of it all… a source I experience and call GOD.

When You Wish Upon a Star

by Sandra Chapin

Stars. Fascinating things. How many – beginning with our evolutionary ancestors – have looked up in wonder and awe at the night sky? Maybe more than the number of visible stars above (around) the earth. The capacity to wonder is one of the gems of our evolved minds.

“When you wish upon a star…” Familiar with that Disney tune, sung sweetly by Jiminy Cricket, faithful companion of Pinocchio? The 1940 animated film is itself a gem, and the song is a part of our culture. My faithful companion Wikipedia tells me that the American Film Institute ranked “When You Wish Upon a Star” seventh in their 100 Greatest Songs in Film History, one of only four Disney animated film songs to appear on the list…

Are you wondering about the other three?

  • at 19, “Someday My Prince Will Come” from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937)
  • at 62, “Beauty and the Beast” from Beauty and the Beast (1991)
  • at 99, “Hakuna Matata” from The Lion King (1994)

So easy to get lost in the details, isn’t it?

When you wish upon a star
Makes no difference who you are
Anything your heart desires will come to you

I know there is power in positive thinking but I take these lyrics as poetry, not as a formula. A cricket’s poetry, but I mean no disrespect. I prefer Dianne’s supporting statement: “Make it come true where you are.” Some human involvement (that means you) is usually needed to see the desires of your heart come to pass.

One of 12 calligraphy designs drawn by Dianne Müller

“At First Congregational UCC in Longmont, Colorado, I was asked to make some plaques with my own versions of upbeat sayings to display in different rooms of their Christmas Homes Tour. When that was done, I put them on a wall for the Talent Show, arranged like a clock with 12 plaques around the center Title page: Attitude Platitudes.”

Copyright ©2018 by Dianne Phelan Müller

Wishes. Desires. Leads me to New Year resolutions. I got into what Jocelyn wrote in her “Minister’s Meditations” for this issue of the View. Rather than put my focus on specific goals that I must achieve for a happier life (goals that meet their doom over and over again), I will turn my attention to the “qualities” that I can associate with my heart’s desires.

Example: Instead of chaining myself to my laptop to write the novel that will become a screenplay that will be awarded an Oscar and end up listed with the American Film Institute as a movie of worth (whew), I will give myself over to my creative impulses wherever it leads me, creative being the quality of choice.

On New Year’s Day three young women on Good Morning America were discussing a similar approach to the year ahead, each having selected an inspirational word for personal direction:
Impact.
Pause.
Pivot.
Intriguing words, yes?

Let’s consider these words attributed to the Hebrew prophet Joel.

“In the last days it will be, God declares, that I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams. Even upon my slaves, both men and women, in those days I will pour out my Spirit; and they shall prophesy. And I will show portents in the heaven above and signs on the earth below, blood, and fire, and smoky mist.”


Acts 2:17-19

I read this more as poetry than prophesy, carried for many years in the memories of an ancient people. Poetry deemed sacred over 2,500 years ago.
I mean no disrespect.

Visions. Dreams. What the long lineage of humans have been experiencing over and over again. And seeing signs and wonders above and below.

Don’t get lost in the details. Follow your own trail of wonders. Your own pathway to the stars.