Around the UUWorld BBL: Primal Reverence

At our Wednesday "Around the UUWorld" Brown Bag Lunch (BBL) for Jun 6, we'll be starting into the new issue of the UUWorld, just out. We'll take two weeks each on each of the issue's 3 feature articles.

For Jun 6: part 1 of our discussion of Kendyl Gibbons, "Primal Reverence." Read the article online: click here.

Gibbons describes three sources/objects of revernce:
1. Nature
2. Heroically compassionate people
3. "The exiled self's return."

1. Nature. Gibbons says, "Somewhere this planet has a show-stopper for you that takes your breath away." For her, it is waterfalls.

"It makes me want to weep, want to dance, want to fall on my knees and be one with whatever that is, in everlasting praise."

Q: What does that for you?

2. Heroically compassionate people. Gibbons mentions "Paul Russesabagina, the Rwandan hotelkeeper who risked his life to shelter his countrymen from genocide at the hands of their neighbors." She mentions Harriet Tubman, Gandhi, Aung San Suu Kyi, Nelson Mandela, Michael Servetus, Jesus, and "every mother who has ever gone hungry so that her children might eat," and "every soldier who has ever died so that his comrades might live," and "every rescue worker who ran up the stairs of the World Trade Center on that awful day." Gibbons then tells us:

"Somewhere there is a hero -- living or dead, close or distant, historical or mythologized -- a hero of conscience or mercy, of generosity or duty, whose story whispers to your secret heart."

Q: Who is the the spiritual hero that whispers to your heart?

3. "The exiled self's return." Gibbons is talking about:

"The realization of the open secret, that there is no goal, no test to take, no one keeping score; that that which is not broken is always present, whether we have a name for it, whether we are paying attention; and the final recognition you are -- that each of us is, that unshakable truth -- and that you have been here all along, waiting for the exiled self's return."

With this realization comes:

"that sense of tender, compassionate self-awareness and rock-bottom peace; that return to a wholeness that cannot be achieved, but is there all along, no matter what."

The question here is the one Gibbons herself asks:

Q: "How do you become that person, the one who rises intuitively to the demands of the good, who lives in the heaven of the present, who is fed by the beauty of creation?"

Spiritual health, then, is the growing ability to access and process these three areas of "primal reverence."

"Just as we grow and mature physically, and keep ourselves healthy with regular exercise; just as we grown and mature mentally, and develop our minds through learning; jsut as we grown and mature emotionally, and deepen our relationships by sharing ourselves with other; just as we grown and mature ethically, and build moral character from the values to which we are loyal; so I am persuaded that we also grow and mature spiritually."

I have also blogged on this idea that spiritual fitness is something we can develop just as we can develop physical fitness, intellectual fitness, and social-emotional fitness. See my blog series: click here for the first entry, and click "next" at the bottom of each post to continue.

Q: What does "grow and mature spiritually" mean to you? Does UUFG facilitate your spiritual growth and maturation? How?

Q: Gibbons sprinkles the article with references to skepticism, and "the skeptic's path." What exactly is it that she's skeptical of?