Day Four

There are a lot of people in our world who agree with what Mason Jennings sings in this song – there is more than one way to understand God, despite what those with the loudest voices, biggest institutions, or most fervent followers might say. 

Jennings sings: 

Why do some people say
That there is just one way
To love You, God, and come to You?
We are all a part of You

The evidence is right before our eyes: people DO understand God in thousands and thousands of different ways. We can be grateful for the fact that ultimately, our experience of God, the divine, or the presence of spirit can only be our own – and that we can choose to gather together in community with people whose experience holds some things in common with ours.

Our Unitarian Universalist tradition carries a long history of encouraging personal relationship and response to the divine. Our spiritual ancestor Ralph Waldo Emerson, who served as a Unitarian minister, encouraged his fellow clergy to acquaint congregations “at first hand with Deity,” and to “dare to love God without mediator or veil.” 

Today, write or say a prayer to your source of spiritual power. Call it whatever you wish – address your prayer to whatever power speaks most closely to your heart. Try to offer gratitude not just for good things in your life, but also for the presence of that spiritual power itself, and for the ways in which it has sustained you.

- Lee