Bright Spots

Due to a minor and temporary injury to my arm, I’m trying to lay off the heavy typing for a day. It is surprisingly hard to stay away from the computer, but as a friend recently said to me, there’s value in learning to slow down (especially when one has to).

So for today, here are a few brief recommendations of blog posts that bring a little joy and spiritual reflection:

Jess at Best of UU shares poem 419 from Emily Dickinson (the first line is “We grow accustomed to the Dark”), and explains Dickinson’s connection to Unitarian Universalism.

Amanda Jones’s “The Cure of Nowhere,” is featured on “Can I Sit With You?,” a blog that collects stories from adults about their childhoods. Jones describes how her family reached out to one of her elementary school classmates who had recently experienced tragedy. While I didn’t like every part of this story (the description of the poverty the family encounters while on vacation was a little too romantic), the story as a whole is definitely worth a read.

NDM at Root and Source offers a Unitarian prayer for the solstice.

12/19/2007 Update:

Shannon Des Roches Rosa and Jen Byde Myers, the organizers of “Can I Sit With You?”, are Unitarian Universalists! What a small UU world!

Shannon comments:

Thanks for citing our site. You might be interested to know that I am a UU, that Can I Sit With You? includes a recently published book with several UU authors, and that all proceeds from the book’s sales go directly to a local non-profit: our city’s Special Ed PTA. Come visit our congregation if you’re ever in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Here are some of the links Shannon recommends for more information:

Can I Sit With You? (the book)

Shannon and Jen’s congregation (Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Redwood City)

The Special Education Parent Teacher Association for Redwood City