As Thanksgiving Day approaches we are observing a gratitude service this week titled “Times of Gratitude.” We have live, special music for the occasion featuring Dale Holden on piano, a soloist and an ensemble. In light of the continuing covid-circumstances I thought it might be helpful to return to an appreciation of the mundane. An appreciation of the mundane is a return to that which is most immediate and close at hand, common things that might be taken for granted in better times, but when life is difficult become something of value. The service will be available at 10AM on our YouTube Channel followed by Zoom check-in and coffee hour at 11AM. You’ll find the links listed below. Have a great week-end everyone!
Practice patience and kindness.
In Ministry,
Dave
HERE IS THE SERVICE LINK FOR THIS WEEK’S SERVICE(Please note it won’t be active until 10AM on Sunday morning)
Service LInk: https://youtu.be/kLl7_JJLYBA
HERE IS THE ZOOM LINK FOR SUNDAY: Service LInk:
David Hutchinson is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting.
Topic: UU Check-In and Coffee Hour
Time: Nov 21, 2021 11:00 AM Eastern Time (US and Canada)
Every week on Sun, until Dec 26, 2021, 6 occurrence(s)
Nov 21, 2021 11:00 AM Nov 28, 2021 11:00 AM Dec 5, 2021 11:00 AM Dec 12, 2021 11:00 AM Dec 19, 2021 11:00 AM Dec 26, 2021 11:00 AM
Please download and import the following iCalendar (.ics) files to your calendar system.Weekly: https://us06web.zoom.us/meeting/tZMrf-GoqDktEtKIQGTNUzyPb4d79j8acSqB/ics?icsToken=98tyKuGvqDMiGtKXtxGBRpwEBIqgWfTwpnpaj7d2tS7CNw5meBrGNLZGZet1SNnT
Join Zoom Meetinghttps://us06web.zoom.us/j/87688062786?pwd=SVZTWWowb0pmUkE4VkdEajU3bUhSQT09
Meeting ID: 876 8806 2786 Passcode: 552118
One tap mobile+13017158592,,87688062786#,,,,*552118# US (Washington DC)+13126266799,,87688062786#,,,,*552118# US (Chicago)
Dial by your location +1 301 715 8592 US (Washington DC) +1 312 626 6799 US (Chicago) +1 646 558 8656 US (New York) +1 253 215 8782 US (Tacoma) +1 346 248 7799 US (Houston) +1 720 707 2699 US (Denver)Meeting ID: 876 8806 2786Passcode: 552118Find your local number: https://us06web.zoom.us/u/kj0bxDYo2
Virtual Offering Plate
If you would like to send in your pledge or donation simply drop an envelope in the mail. The address is listed below. Thank you for your generous support!
UU Church of Houlton, 61 Military Stree, tHoulton, ME 04730
From Blame to Love
BY TARA BRACH
We humans are gifted at finding fault. Buddhist teacher Tara Brach teaches us how we can connect to compassion instead.
Evolution has rigged all of us with a negativity bias—a survival-driven habit to scan for what’s wrong and fixate on it. In contemporary society, a pervasive target is our own sense of unworthiness. We habitually fixate on how we’re falling short—in our relationships, work, appearance, mood, and behaviors. And while self-aversion is our primary reflex, we also fixate on the faults of others—how they’re letting us down and how they should be different. Whether we’re focusing inwardly or outwardly, we’re creating an enemy and imprisoning ourselves in the sense of a separate, threatened self.
From the wisest, kindest place in your being, try to offer what’s most needed.
While negativity bias is a key part of our survival apparatus, when it dominates our daily life we lose access to the more recently evolved parts of our brain, which contribute to feelings of connection, empathy, and well-being. What can decondition the negativity bias? How do we shift from limbic reactivity to “attend and befriend”? Here are three ways that help us awaken our full potential for natural presence and caring.
Look for the Vulnerability
First, look toward the vulnerability, starting with ourselves. When we’re blaming ourselves, we can ask, “What’s really going on here? What has driven me to behave this way?” Perhaps you’ll see you were afraid to fall short, and that fear made you act exactly how you didn’t want to act. Or maybe you’ll see you wanted approval because you were feeling insecure, so you ended up betraying yourself and not acting with integrity. When you begin to understand that you’re hurting, you’ll naturally shift out of blame and into self-compassion.
When triggered by others, first bring a kind presence to your own feelings of vulnerability. Once you’re more present and balanced, try to look through the eyes of wisdom at what might be behind their behavior. How might this person be caught in their own sense of inadequacy or confusion? If you can see how this person might be suffering, you’ll reconnect with a natural sense of tenderness.
Actively Express Compassion
When compassion arises, the next step is actively expressing it. This is what brings compassion fully to life. If you’re working on self-compassion, look to the vulnerable part of yourself to sense what it most needs from you. Is it forgiveness? Acceptance? Companionship? Safety? Love? Then from the wisest, kindest place in your being, try to offer what’s most needed. Either mentally or with a whisper, you might say your name and send a message of kindness to yourself. Perhaps place a hand gently on your heart or cheek, or even give yourself a hug as a way of conveying, from your more awake heart, “I’m here with you. I care.”
If you’re working with compassion for others, it’s powerful and healing to communicate your recognition of their suffering and your care. We all know that when we’re with somebody we love, if we actually say the words “I love you” out loud, it brings the love to a new level. If you want to reverse your negativity bias with someone—to reverse your habits of blaming or distancing—look for their vulnerability and then, either through prayer or in person, offer them understanding and kindness.
Include Those Who Seem Different
Part of our negativity bias and the cause of much racial, religious, and other domains of violence, is we assume potential danger—something wrong—associated with those who are different. A practice that evolves us (and our larger society) toward inclusive loving is intentionally deepening our relationships with others of difference. When we communicate on purpose, trying to understand, it opens us to the larger truth of our interconnectedness.
While our brain has a flight/fight/freeze mechanism, it also has a compassion network, which includes mirror neurons that allow us to register what it’s like for another. We can sense that others want to feel loved and loving, safe and happy. When we feel that connection, it enables us to act on behalf of each other, the relationship, or larger community. But unless we purposefully take time to pause and listen to others of difference, we won’t automatically engage that part of our brain. To have these heart-awakening dialogues, we need to intentionally create safe containers.
In the same way we train on the cushion, we can train in conscious communication with each other and gradually widen the circles to connect with those who may be more notably of difference. There are many effective practices, such as insight dialogue, nonviolent communication, and circles of reconciliation, which offer formal structures for communicating. Importantly, we need to practice in our close relationships. A couple of times a week, my husband and I meditate together and have a period of silence where we reflect on inquires such as “What are you grateful for right now?” and “What is difficult for you right now?” We also ask “Is there anything between us that’s getting in the way of an open, loving flow?” The other person listens with a kind, accepting presence, and we each get to name what we’re experiencing.
What about those who aren’t willing to engage in conversation with us? Fortunately, our capacity to feel connection isn’t hitched to their capacity to connect to us. Of course, it’s easier to feel it when there’s mutuality, but we can offer kindness from our hearts regardless. It’s possible to do this in every situation, with every person we meet.
I have a morning prayer that’s really simple: “Teach me about kindness.” When I move through the day with that informing me, the moments become filled with presence, tenderness, and aliveness, even when I encounter challenging people, myself included!
It’s natural that in the face of hurt, injustice, and deception we feel fear, hatred, and anger. But the negativity bias can lock us into being at war with ourselves and others. It’s important that we pause, be with ourselves and each other, and open fully to the feelings that arise. When we honor those feelings, we can get beneath them, down to our human vulnerability and the care that’s really our essence. It then becomes possible to respond to our world aligned with our hearts.
ABOUT TARA BRACH
Tara Brach is the founder of the Insight Meditation Community of Washington, D.C., and the author of Racial Compassion, Radical Acceptance, and True Refuge.
POETRY CORNER
FOR WHAT BINDS US
by Jane Hirshfield
There are names for what binds us:
strong forces, weak forces.
Look around, you can see them:
the skin that forms in a half-empty cup,
nails rusting into the places they join,
joints dovetailed on their own weight.
The way things stay so solidly
wherever they’ve been set down —
and gravity, scientists say, is weak.
And see how the flesh grows back
across a wound, with a great vehemence,
more strong
than the simple, untested surface before.
There’s a name for it on horses,
when it comes back darker and raised: proud flesh,
as all flesh,
is proud of its wounds, wears them
as honors given out after battle,
small triumphs pinned to the chest —
And when two people have loved each other
see how it is like a
scar between their bodies,
stronger, darker, and proud;
how the black cord makes of them a single fabric
that nothing can tear or mend.
Joys & Concerns
When one of us is blessed we are all blessed.
When one of us experiences sorrow we all feel the pain.
My mother, Vera Hutchinson transitioned to Madigan House on Monday Here is a photo of her taken in her backyard in the early sixties.
Our neighbor and good friend Richard Desautel passed away earlier this week at the Houlton Regional Hospital. May peace accompany his soul…
Please send in joys and concerns during the week to dave@backwoodsblog.com and I will post them on the Support Page.
Prayer List
For those recovering from COVID-19 in the state of Maine
Local emergency personnel and hospital staff
For our state and national leaders as they respond to the current coronavirus crisis
For those working for social justice and societal change
Pray for peaceful action and democratic process in our nation
Prayers for the heat wave in the American West and wide spread drought conditions
Prayers for British Columbia and Washington State with the recent heavy rains and landslides
The Four Limitless Ones Prayer
May all sentient beings enjoy happiness and the root of happiness.
May we be free from suffering and the root of suffering.
May we not be separated from the great happiness devoid of suffering.
May we dwell in the great equanimity free from anger, aggression and exclusion.
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