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.”

A meditation on the music of Christmas, especially when words may have lost their meaning, but music still touches our souls.

Offered on the morning of Christmas Eve 2017 at the Unitarian Univeralist Church of Spartanburg, SC.

The sermon may be hear here:

From the sermon:

“That’s Christmas: 
to go to the heart, where trouble and hard realities persist,
and to sing to them a song that is itself 
joy, and peace, and the stillness of the night.

“In your sadness and in your joy,
in the fullness of who you are,
and what this world is
without compromise or capitulation
just you as you are,

“listen for the music, 
hear the carolers through time and around the globe,
and create this night
full of magic
for you
and for a world
that longs for peace.”

“I see light / in your eyes. See it in mine.”

You are the Divine Child.

Among the many ways to reflect on the winter season–historical, theological, personal–a meditation on the mythic meaning of the Divine Child, expressed deep within even the most orthodox religious traditions. Offered at the beginning of winter celebrations, in observance of World AIDS Day, at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Spartanburg, SC on December 3, 2017.

The meditation may be heard here: 

An excerpt of the transcript may be found here:

+++

“Not aggrandizing, not ego-inflating

but at once both humbling & empowering,

an echo within us,

a summons

 

to that which is Deepest & Best in us,

whatever that is.

 

You are the divine child.

The impossibility of these stories

is a sign

 

of the possible

in our own lives,

 

of just how transformative

& beautiful our lives might actually be.

 

That is how myth works–

from beyond us,

something totally implausible

echoes within us

what we most are.

 

You are the divine child.

 

Even Christian orthodoxy teaches this,

although it often does not know it.

The names and images are everywhere in the tradition:

 

theosis, deification, union with the divine;

which is a return to our very nature,

imago Dei.

 

There can be significant variations in our belief and understanding,

and there will always be authorities to tell us we are wrong.

 

But at core, the teaching is clear:

the divine is in You.

 

And the terror of this is,

that we are capable of working

transformation in the world

 

which no one expects.

That is the story of the Divine Child:

 

Each of us full of divinity—

 

which simply means

fully able

to summon the world

 

to the beauty, to the justice, to the compassion, to the freedom

 

that we know is possible,

that we know can be.

 

And no one expects it

of you—perhaps not even you yourself.

 

But I do.

I see it in you.

That is why I would choose to work with you.

 

I think this may be why

this mythic element of our traditions

is disregarded or underplayed

and so often considered blasphemous

even though it is everywhere so evident:

 

because it asks everything of us.

 

The stories are clear:

It is in our very vulnerabilities,

in the apparent smallness and limitations of our lives

that we work the greatest transformations.

 

The image of the child

is of one without power,

naïve and weak

 

who overturns the world.

 

And so with us all—

whatever our apparent weakness,

 

our very vulnerabilities

summon us

 

to turn the world, to change it

into a place

more liveable, more just, more caring,

 

more our home, more a home for everyone,

more full of light.

 

…

 

I see this in you.

 

In the symbols and songs and stories this season,

we hear an echo of who we ourselves are,

summoning us,

 

whatever anyone else says:

 

you are the Divine Child.

 

In you

everything is possible.

In me,

everything is possible.

In us,

everything is possible.

 

I see light

in your eyes.

 

See it in mine.

 

Let us fill the eyes of the world

with the light

of this season.”