Outstretched Wings of the Spirit, Day Two

The Second Day
(Thursday, March 7, 2019)

All the Glory

“The greatest conceivable value would be the organization of this cosmos into that sort of system where every activity in it would be sustained by every other, and each activity would have all the meaning, hence all the value, all the glory, of the total system. Such an organization would not be stagnant, . . . for existence is always changing and the maintenance of such a cosmos would require constant interplay of ever-changing activities. . . . All would be changing constantly, yet the complete and perfect mutuality of all with each, and each with all, would never change. Throughout the extreme and never ceasing changes, there would be the changeless perfection of mutual support, mutual enhancement and mutual meaning.

“Supreme value is not a mere concept. Neither is it a mere figment of the imagination. Supreme value is the greatest actual and possible connection between activities which makes them mutually sustaining, mutually enhancing and mutually meaningful. Value . . . is always a combination of what is and what may be. It is always a combination of actuality and possibility. When these two are combined we have what is called growth. Growth is not merely what is, not merely what might be, but it is that kind of change which increases what is, so as to approximate what might be . . .

“The complete and perfect mutuality of all with each, and each with all. The changeless perfection of mutual support, mutual enhancement and mutual meaning. Growth in thisis what makes life good and worth living.”  (Wieman & Wieman)

Here is an ideal worth living and dying for. It is also a command of nature and nature’s God, the bent of the universe. It is a judgment upon all our partial loyalties and selfish indulgences. It is a beckoning joyousness, an appealing hope. It is worthy of our tireless endeavor and supreme devotion. (Donald Szantho Harrington)

Prayer

Divine Life, help us to be more sensitive to the call of Your universe to mutuality, to the sharing of all we have all we are with others. Grant that our response may be a self-chosen reverence for all life. Let “live and help live” be our rule. Amen.

Hymn

Sov’reign and transforming Grace!
We invoke thy quick’ning pow’r;
Reign the spirit of this place.
Bless the purpose of this hour.

Holy and creative Light!
We invoke thy kindling ray;
Dawn upon our spirits’ night.
Turn our darkness into day..

Work in all; in all renew,
Day by day, the life divine;
All our wills to thee subdue,
All our hearts to thee incline.

—Frederic Henry Hedge (Hymns of the Spirit, no. 25)
(Hymns for the Celebration of Life, no. 127)

Donald Szantho Harrington wrote the Lenten meditation manual Outstretched Wings of the Spirit: On Being Intelligently and Devotedly Religiousbased on the theology of Henry Nelson Wieman and Regina Westcott Wieman. It was published by the Unitarian Universalist Association in 1980.