this disinterested principle...

I notice that this is my 500th post and it is appropriate that it should be from William Ellery Channing on Self-Culture." I have been recently thinking about how this Midwestern Lutheran ended up a Boston Unitarian and the idea of self-culture is one important reason.  Though I loved (and love) my home state and my "home" religion, I found historical Unitarianism (the Boston Unitarians) resonating with me again and again.  This excerpt continues Channing's discussion of "Self-Culture and talks about disinterestedness-central to Channing and one of those "resonating ideas"...

"First, self-culture is Moral, a branch of singular importance. When a man looks into himself he discovers two distinct orders or kinds of principles, which it behoves him especially to comprehend. He discovers desires, appetites, passions which terminate in himself, which crave and seek his own interest, gratification, distinction; and he discovers another principle, an antagonist to these, which is Impartial, Disinterested, Universal, enjoining on him a regard to the rights and happiness of other beings, and laying on him obligations which must be discharged, cost what they may, or however they may clash with his particular pleasure or gain. No man, however narrowed to his own interest, however hardened by selfishness, can deny, that there springs up within him a great idea in opposition to interest, the idea of Duty, that an inward voice calls him more or less distinctly to revere and exercise Impartial Justice, and Universal Good-will. This disinterested principle in human nature we call sometimes reason, sometimes conscience, sometimes the moral sense or faculty. But, be its name what it may, it is a real principle in each of us, and it is the supreme power within us, to be cultivated above all others, for on its culture the right development of all others depends. The passions indeed may be stronger than the conscience, may lift up a louder voice; but their clamor differs wholly from the lone of command in which the conscience speaks. They are not clothed with its authority, its binding power. In their very triumphs they are rebuked by the moral principle, and often cower before its still, deep, menacing voice. No part of self-knowledge is more important than to discern clearly these two great principles, the self-seeking and the disinterested ; and the most important part of self-culture is to depress the former, and to exalt the latter, or to enthrone the sense of duty within us. There are no limits to the growth of this moral force in man, if he will cherish it faithfully. There have been men, whom no power in the universe could turn from the Right, by whom death in its most dreadful forms has been less dreaded, than transgression of the inward law of universal justice and love."

Blessings

the self-forming power...

After self-examination comes action.  An action we are all capable of though we little know it.  Channing's "Self-Culture" continued...

"But self-culture is possible, not only because we can enter into and search ourselves. We have a still nobler power, that of acting on, determining and forming ourselves. This is a fearful as well as glorious endowment, for it is the ground of human responsibility. We have the power not only of tracing our powers, but of guiding and impelling them, not only of watching our passions, but of controlling them, not only of seeing our faculties grow, but of applying to them means and influences to aid their growth. We can stay or change the current of thought. We can concentrate the intellect on objects which we wish to comprehend. We can fix our eyes on perfection, and make almost everything speed us towards it. This is indeed a noble prerogative of our nature. Possessing this, it matters little what or where we are now, for we can conquer a better lot, and even be happier for starting from the lowest point. Of all the discoveries which men need to make, the most important at the present moment is that of the self-forming power treasured up in themselves...It transcends in importance all our power over outward nature. There is more of divinity in it, than in the force which impels the outward universe ; and yet how little we comprehend it! How it slumbers in most men unsuspected, unused ! This makes self-culture possible, and binds it on us as a solemn duty."

Blessings

the self-searching power...

Self Culture month begins, naturally with William Ellery Channing.  Delivered in Boston in 1838 before a largely "working class" audience, "Self-Culture" has sometimes been accused of condescension. Its message, however, of our ability, and therefore, our duty to develop makes up a vital strain of Unitarianism.  And it all begins with "self searching," what the 12 Steps call a fearless moral inventory:

"Before entering on the discussion, let me offer one remark. Self-culture is something possible. It is not a dream. It has foundations in our nature. Without this conviction, the speaker will but declaim, and the hearer listen without profit. There are two powers of the human soul which make self-culture possible,— the self-searching and the self-forming; power. We have first the faculty of turning the mind on itself: of recalling its past, and watching its present operations; of learning its various capacities and susceptibilities, what it can do and bear, what it can enjoy and suffer; and of thus learning in general what our nature is, and what it was made for. It is worthy of observation, that we are able to discern not only what we already are, but what we may become, to see in ourselves germs and promises of a growth to which no bounds can be set, to dart beyond what we have actually gained to the idea of perfection as the end of our being. It is by this self-comprehending power that we are distinguished from the brutes, which give no signs of looking into themselves. Without this there would be no self-culture, for we should not know the work to be done; and one reason why self-culture is so little proposed is, that so few penetrate into their own nature. To most men, their own spirits are shadowy, unreal, compared with what is outward. When they happen to cast a glance inward, they see there only a dark, vague chaos. They distinguish, perhaps, some violent passion, which has driven them to injurious excess : but their highest powers hardly attract a thought; and thus multitudes live and die as truly strangers to themselves as to countries of which they have heard the name, but which human foot has never trodden.

Blessings

unfold into something...

The idea that first attracted me to Unitarianism was that of "Self-Culture;" of making your life an art.  From William Ellery Channing, through James Freeman Clarke, to Emerson and Thoreau, self culture stands as a central and animating idea.  And spring is the perfect season to revisit, and better live, this idea of constant growth and unfolding.  This blog will devote the rest of May to Self Culture beginning with a (rare) cross post from Wonderful Epoch: Messages of Faith, Hope and Love from James Freeman Clarke that serves as a good introduction:

"IF God finishes everything in nature, if he makes the rhodora beautiful in the wood where no human eye can see it, and paints in exquisite tints the shell at the bottom of the ocean, we may trust that he will not rest till he has made all our souls and all our lives pure, generous, noble, beautiful. We are as yet only the roots of a future beautiful plant. The best man or woman is only a shoot a little way out of the ground. We are God's plants, God's flowers. Be sure that he will help us to unfold into something serenely fair, nobly perfect, if not in this life, then in another. If he teaches us not to be satisfied till we have finished our work, he will not be satisfied till he has finished his.

If we can believe this of God, then we can love him as we love our father, as we love our friend, in whose answering love we have perfect confidence. Such a confidence in God as this is alone the source of genuine piety. Not till we cease thinking of him as justice, as power, not till we are able to trust in him as one who means to save us perfectly, and unfold us into all the strength and beauty for which he has designed us, can we love him with all our heart, or love our brother man like ourselves."

Blessings

stretched in smiling repose...

This in response to the UU Salon May question. Emerson on the soul (from "Spiritual Laws")  This central idea is so compelling to me but requires much faith...

"The soul will not know either deformity or pain. If, in the hours of clear reason, we should speak the severest truth, we should say, that we had never made a sacrifice. In these hours the mind seems so great, that nothing can be taken from us that seems much. All loss, all pain, is particular; the universe remains to the heart unhurt. Neither vexations nor calamities abate our trust. No man ever stated his griefs as lightly as he might. Allow for exaggeration in the most patient and sorely ridden hack that ever was driven. For it is only the finite that has wrought and suffered; the infinite lies stretched in smiling repose."

Blessings

worship in spirit and truth...

Last week marked the anniversary of the founding of James Freeman Clarke's influential "Church of the Disciples."  Following is an excerpt from their "Service Book"-Introductory Sentences and Hymns for Morning Prayer. 

"The hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth; for the Father seeketh such to worship him. God is a spirit, and they who worship him, must worship him in spirit and in truth.

Minister. Lift up your hearts.
Congregation, rising. We lift them up unto the Lord.

Ancient of Days.

Come, thou all-gracious Lord,
By heaven and earth adored,
Our prayer attend;
Come, and thy children bless;
Give thy good word success;
Make thine own holiness
On us descend.

Never from us depart;
Rule thou in every heart,
Hence, evermore.
Thy sovereign majesty
May we in glory see,
And to eternity
 Love and adore."

Have a blessed Sabbath everyone

beauty of holiness...

Yesterday, Andrew Preston Peabody spoke of an unlovely kind of "holiness."  Today its more beautiful side:

"On the other hand, there is a beauty of holiness, in which there are the hardier muscles and sinews that do the heavy lifework, but filled in and rounded out in perfect symmetry and grace. Such are the characters that wear the aureola of a perpetual sainthood, recognized not by this or that sect or party, but by all who love what is good of every type, the Fe'nelons, the Oberlins, the Florence Nightingales, those whose names the heart thrills in hearing, those who cease not to shine on earth when they become stars in heaven. It is beauty that makes their sainthood as precious to man as to God. Without it, they might still be diamonds, yet diamonds in the rough, of which only the expert can know the value; but God, when he "makes up his jewels," polishes the precious stones, cuts facets on them for the multiform reflection of his own ineffable beauty, and sets them in the purest gold."

Blessings