buckle up!

I am a peace man-a near pacifist. I must admit, however, that I have always liked the armor of God image. Henry Ware Jr. uses it today in relation to living regular daily life. The "Formation of the Christian Character" continued:

V. The Religious Discipline of Life

Thus it is plain, that your chief business, as well as your great trial, in forming a Christian character, lies in the ordinary tenor of life. The World is the theatre on which you are to prove yourself a Christian. It is in the occurrences of every day, in the relations of every hour, in your affairs, in your family, in your conversation with those around you, in your treatment of them, and your reception of their treatment;—it is in these that you are to cultivate and perfect the character of a child of God. It is in these that your passions are exercised, and your government of them proved; in these that your command over that unruly member, the tongue, is made known ; in these that temptations to wrong doing and evil speaking beset you, and that you are to apply your religious principle in resisting them. In these it is, consequently, that you discover whether your principle is real and genuine, or whether it lies only in feeling and in words. In the quiet of your chamber, in the devout solitude of your closet, when the world is shut out, and your solemnized spirit feels itself alone with God, you may be so exalted by communion with Heaven, and by meditation on heavenly truth, that all things earthly shall seem worthless and paltry, and every desire be set upon things above. How often, at such times, does it appear as if the world had no longer any charms, as if its pleasures and pomp could never again entice or delight us! Our souls are above them. We have no more relish for them than have the angels. And if this were all which is required of us, if nothing opposed to this delightful frame of mind were ever to cross our path, the Christian prize would be already won. But, alas! jn the closet, and in the third heaven of contemplation, we can live but a small portion of the time. We must come down from the mount. We must enter the crowd and distractions of common life. We must engage in common and secular affairs. And there, how much do we encounter that is opposed to the calm and serene spirit of our contemplative hours! how much to irritate and disturb our quiet self-possession! how much to drive from our thoughts the subjects on which we have been musing! how much to revive the relish for transient pleasures and worldly enjoyments, and a love for the things which minister gratification to pride and to the senses! In the midst of these things, dangerous, enticing, seductive, you are to live and walk unchanged, unseduced, unde- fiied; your heart true to its Master, your spirit firm in its allegiance to God, and your soul as truly devout and humble as when worshipping at the altar. Is this easy ? I will not ask ; but is it not your great, your paramount, trial? Is it not here, that the very battle of your soul's salvation is to be fought ? Is not this, as I said, the very field of actual and decisive war, the very seat of the fearful and final campaign ? And the prayers and studies, and observances of your more special devotion, are they not the buckling on of the armor, and the refreshing and preparing of the soul for its real combat ?

Buckle up! and Blessings

be always watchful...

I always feel vaguely (and sometimes not so vaguely) unworthy reading and posting the Boston Unitarians and never more so than when Henry Ware Jr. is the subject. His "Formation of the Christian Character" is a foundational book for me and today I continue the process of excerpting it (for all posts Ware see here.)
Ware has taken us thus far through what we are to seek, and the means by which we are to seek it. Today in Chap. 5, "The Religious Discipline of Life" the rubber hits the road:

"CHAPTER V.

THE RELIGIOUS DISCIPLINE OF LIFE.

Next to the means to be employed in the promotion of personal religion, we must attend to the oversight and direction of the character in general. The means of which we have taken notice, consist of a series of special and stated exercises, whose object is to prepare us for the right conduct of actual life; and they may be compared to the daily drill of the soldier, by which he is made ready for the field. Watchfulness and self- discipline belong to all times and occasions, and may be compared to the actual use which the soldier makes of his preparation in the camp and the field...

Why you are to be always watchful over yourself, is easily perceived. In this world of sensible objects and temporal pursuits, you are constantly exposed to have your thoughts absorbed by surrounding things, and withdrawn from the spiritual objects to which they should be primarily attached. You are incited to forget them, to slight them, to counteract them. The engagements, the anxiety, hurry, and pleasures of life, thrust them from your thoughts; and desires, propensities, passions, are excited quite inconsistent with the calm and heavenward affections of Christ. All these tendencies in your situation are to be resisted...

Now, while your mind is warm with its early interest in divine things,—now, while they press upon you in all their freshness,—now, take heed that you do not concentrate that interest, and use all its strength, in the luxury of devout musing or the excitements of study and devotion ; but carry it into your whole life; let it be always present to you in all you do, in all you say; let it form your habitual state of feeling, your customary frame of mind and temper. Make it your constant study that nothing shall be inconsistent with it, but every thing partake of its power. This is the watchfulness in which you must live. This is the purpose for which you must exercise over yourself an unremitting and ever-wakeful discipline; seeing to it, like some magistrate over a city, or some commander over an army, that all your thoughts, dispositions, words and actions be subject to the law of God, and the principles of the Christian faith."

Easiest thing in the world...Blessings

count thy actions...

The Unitarian Miscellany and Christian Moniter was an early propounder of Unitarianism and was edited by FWP Greenwood among others. One of its goals was to:

"...endeavour, in every number of the Miscellany, to introduce one or more essays, entirely free from controversy, which shall have for their sole purpose the excitement and exercise of the pious affections, and the inculcation of the pure and holy morality of the Gospel. And it is our earnest prayer to God, that they may be productive of good"

I found this poem, a fine exposition of the Boston Unitarian position, in v. 4 from 1823:


"Rules for long Life

The following energetic lines are by Thomas Randolph, a poet who wrote with considerable reputation near the beginning of the seventeenth century.

Take thou no care how to defer thy death,
And give more respite to this mortal breath.
"Would'st thou live long? the only means are these,
'Bove Galen's diet, or Hippocrates'.
Strive to live well; tread in the upright ways;
And rather count thy actions than thy days.
Then thou hast lived enough amongst us here,
For every day well spent I count a year.
Live well; and then, how soon soe'er thou die.,
Thou art of age to claim eternity.
But he that outlives Nestor, and appears
T'have past the date of grave Methuselah's years,
If he his life to sloth and sin doth give,
I say he only was, he did not live."


Blessings

Caroline Healey Dall

Today marks the anniversary of the birth of Caroline Dall (see full biography at the Dictionary of Unitarian Universalist Biography here) An advocate for women's rights, writer, Sunday School Superintendent for James Freeman Clark's Church of the Disciples, Dall was a fascinating figure among the Boston Unitarians. Here is an advertisment with contemporary reviews of her, "Women's Right to Work." (Click here to see full size and readable)

Happy Birthday and Blessings

the day indeed be blest...

This morning marks the end of another regular program year at our church (During the summer we hold bi-weekly lay led services.) May the peace and rest of the sabbath be with us and with everyone. This hymn from the 1865 edition of the "Hymns of the Spirit":

"The Day of Prayer and Rest

Earth's busy sounds and ceaseless din

Wake not this morning air!

A holy calm should welcome in

This solemn hour of prayer.

Now peace, be still, unhallowed care,

and hushed within the breast!

A holy joy shall welcome there

This happy day of rest

Each better thought the spirit knows,

This hour, the spirit fill!

And thou, from whom its being flows,

O, teach it all Thy will!

Then shall the day indeed be blest,

And send its hallowing power,

Its sacred calm and inward rest,

Through many a busy hour."

Blessings

let the morning be...

The virtue of a day fully lived is the theme of Ralph Waldo's "Works and Days" from the later collection, "Society and Solitude". Some glosses:

"He only is rich who owns the day...

One of the illusions is that the present hour is not the critical, decisive hour. Write it on your heart that every day is the best day in the year. No man has learned anything rightly until he knows that every day is Doomsday. 'T is the old secret of the gods that they come in low disguises...

The use of history is to give value to the present hour and its duty. ..

Another illusion is that there is not time enough for our work....A poor Indian chief of the Six Nations of New York made a wiser reply than any philosopher, to some one complaining that he had not enough time. “Well,” said Red Jacket, “I suppose you have all there is.”...

He only can enrich me who can recommend to me the space between sun and sun. 'Tis the measure of a man, — his apprehension of a day...

You must treat the days respectfully, you must be a day yourself, and not interrogate it like a college professor. The world is enigmatical, — everything said, and everything known or done, — and must not be taken literally, but genially. We must be at the top of our condition to understand anything rightly. You must hear the bird's song without attempting to render it into nouns and verbs. Cannot we be a little abstemious and obedient? Cannot we let the morning be?...

In stripping time of its illusions, in seeking to find what is the heart of the day, we come to the quality of the moment, and drop the duration altogether. It is the depth at which we live and not at all the surface extension that imports..."

Have a good day and

Blessings

a beautiful day in the neighborhood...

I have, for various reasons, had several conversations lately all in some way related to neighborhood, or home. Growing up in very small towns in South Dakota, my entire life (for better and for worse-though mainly for the better) was neighborhood. This morning I was reading Emerson's "Considerations by the Way" from "Conduct of Life."
One of his most accessible essays, it is full of wisdom and, unfortunately, some of his more negative provincialism. As usual, I focused on the former, including this on living in neighborhoods...

"It makes no difference, in looking back five years, how you have been dieted or dressed; whether you have been lodged on the first floor or the attic; whether you have had gardens and baths, good cattle and horses, have been carried in a neat equipage, or in a ridiculous truck: these things are forgotten so quickly, and leave no effect. But it counts much whether we have had good companions, in that time; -- almost as much as what we have been doing. And see the overpowering importance of neighborhood in all association. As it is marriage, fit or unfit, that makes our home, so it is who lives near us of equal social degree, -- a few people at convenient distance, no matter how bad company, -- these, and these only, shall be your life's companions: and all those who are native, congenial, and by many an oath of the heart, sacramented to you, are gradually and totally lost. You cannot deal systematically with this fine element of society, and one may take a good deal of pains to bring people together, and to organize clubs and debating societies, and yet no result come of it. But it is certain that there is a great deal of good in us that does not know itself, and that a habit of union and competition brings people up and keeps them up to their highest point; that life would be twice or ten times life, if spent with wise and fruitful companions...

The secret of culture is to learn, that a few great points steadily reappear, alike in the poverty of the obscurest farm, and in the miscellany of metropolitan life, and that these few are alone to be regarded, -- the escape from all false ties; courage to be what we are; and love of what is simple and beautiful; independence, and cheerful relation, these are the essentials, -- these, and the wish to serve, -- to add somewhat to the well-being of men."

Blessings