The Spiritual Odyssey Collection
August 27, 2017 - Steve Seiberling
Becoming a Follower of the Buddha
I’ve been drawn to spiritual teachings and practice since I was a child. After having an experience of Jesus as a teenager, I tried out the Mormon Church, where I served and explored spiritual practice for about a decade. Investigating the Bible from a scholarly point of view, combined with comparative religious study, led me to leave the Mormon Church and ultimately join a UU congregation. Sermons at ERUUF by former minister, Arvid Straube, rekindled an interest from my teen years in Buddhist teachings and practice, which I began to explore here about 25 years ago. Since then my interest in, and respect for, the teachings of the Buddha has grown deeper. I value the practical benefit that Buddhist ethical training and meditation bring to my life. The Buddha’s penetrating insights into human experience, especially the causes and ending of stress and suffering, seem unsurpassed to me. The wisdom and directness of the teachings in early Buddhist texts especially resonate for me.
August 20, 2017 - Betsy Bickel
What makes you think God is male?
My inherited Presbyterian church seemed to assume this as did all the other churches I was familiar with. As a budding young feminist, I found myself asking this question. It has been one of the themes of my life, from being a religion major at Duke (where God was always male) through being in a women only coven for 20 some years, producing my own Goddess Grace Moving Meditation, teaching and performing goddess bellydance, writing and singing spiritually grounded activist music (is there a word for that?) and spreading priestessing in a culture that doesn’t recognize that concept. (Spell check even rejected it.) My assessment is that what the world needs now is the Return of the Queen - the immanent form of God and the source of our everyday reality. And we need “how to” classes in working with Her. That’s my current project. It’s moving kinda slow.
August 13, 2017 - Amy Rawls
Do you believe that Gandhi is in Hell?
Looking back over my spiritual journey, I discover that questions have often (and surprisingly) guided my way. These questions have come from numerous sources, from my earliest spiritual teacher to my husband to my own heart and mind. I'll offer reflections on the most significant of these questions and how they revealed to me new spiritual understanding or discovery, reminding me of the power of asking and hearing questions.
August 6, 2017 - Barbara Sheline
The poem, "Desiderata", Just about Says It All
I will talk about how leadership training and Buddhist writings helped me accept who I am and trust that I can be okay in this world.
Due to technical difficulties, no podcast is available. However, a hard copy is available for download.
Spiritual_Odyssey_Barb_Sheline.pdf
July 23, 2017 - Jeremy Tarr
No podcast available.
July 30, 2017 - Rachel Murphy-Brown
Reflections on Pain, Privilege, Righteousness, and the Beauty of the Natural World
Through my lens as an adult trans-racial adoptee, I will discuss how the love and loss of my adoption story inspires a struggle between the lure and safety of righteous indignation and the path towards humility and loving kindness.
July 16, 2017 - Nancy Hardy
My Spiritual Oddysey (not a miss-spelling!)
Growing up in a family of atheists, ECKists, Baptists, Buddhists and Jews, I became a cosmological activist, exploring worldviews and how to shift them. I have served as an ordained minister of a non-Christian religion; a leader of workshops for ministers of all faiths; a Roman Catholic nun; a certified permaculture instructor; and a water-pourer in the Woptura Oglala Sioux lineage. I will share how I became an Integral, Inter-religious, Creation-process, Franciscan, Lakota UU and how I balance everything in what may be the original religion, the First Creation, as known by the San Bushmen.
July 9, 2017 - Steve Franklin
So, When Did You Lose Your Catholic Faith?
Born and raised Roman Catholic, with my younger sister, in Brooklyn during the early 1950’s and 60’s, I am the product of a mixed marriage!!! That is, a North Carolina born mother who was raised as a Baptist and a Virginia born father who was the rare southern Black Roman Catholic. I attended Catholic grammar schools and high school, and I attended a Catholic university. I even seriously considered becoming a Roman Catholic priest!!! So, what happened? As my second-grade teacher once asked me as an adult: “When did you lose your faith?” Well, I believe I never lost my faith. I hope I evolved. I have been a formal member of ERUUF since 2011 but I’ve attended ERUUF since 2001 when my family moved to North Carolina. In New York, I attended the Unitarian Universalist Congregation at Shelter Rock in Manhasset Long Island and I became a member in 1993. Yet, my interest in Unitarian Universalism was as early as the 1970’s when I was in college. I still consider myself Catholic, a very non-traditional Catholic. However, I am very much a UU and my journey to Unitarian Universalism took more than 20 years.
