Scott Neely

“We have got to go wherever this happens.”

A meditation on awe, offered at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Spartanburg, SC on October 1, 2017.

The meditation may be heard here:

From the meditation:

“How is it
that this experience of our own lives
in deep alignment
with such beauty & danger,

something right here
and also far beyond us

raises up in us 
a desire
to share it
with others?

I don’t know.
But we should share it…

A full, 
beautiful, 
tragically finite, 
boundlessly infinite
life

full of lightning,
as if embodied,
full of rain & storm,

grabbing us by the hand
to step into
awe

& live
anew

however briefly
or forever.”

Reading of Mary Oliver’s poem “The Humpbacks” by Anne Waters.

Recording and editing by Ron Fowler and David Freeman.

 

A meditation on wonder: as a foundation for the work of community, and compassion, and justice; the wonder of this life; the wonder of you.

With immense gratitude to the Spartanburg Hispanic Alliance and Araceli Hernandez-Laroche for their vital work, and their invitation to join in it.

Offered at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Spartanburg, SC on January 7, 2018.

The meditation may be heard here:

From the meditation:

“What is it that awakens you to your life,
to the knowledge,
the deep knowledge

of who you are,
the more that you are,
on the edge of the possibilities of the world?…

Feel the wonder of who you are,
feel it in yourself,
and say it to one another,

for your own sakes,
because it is true,

and as a foundation on which to build,
a place to begin the work
of community, and compassion, and justice

so vital to our purpose here…

That is where we begin:
ridiculous, beautiful,

the wonder of you.”