Sunday, November 27, 2005

New Logo

The Jesus Fish, the Cross, the Star of David, the Star and Cresent, the Pentagram. what do these have in common? They are religous symbols that you can easily draw in two strokes or less. You can make a recognizable yin-yang in three.
The Old UUA logo was hard to draw, the new one is a monstrosity.
Being able to draw a symbol is important. It personalizes the symbol, as something that the individual created. It also makes it accesible, because wherever you are, you can make and focus on a symbol of your faith. The uua logos are nice, but no one is going to scratch them into the wall of their cell just before they are lead to their death.
But the UUA logo isn't supposed to be the symbol of Unitarian Universalism anyway. The symbol of Unitarian Universalism is the flaming chalice. Not this logo or that logo, the flaming chalice, an abstract visual concept like the cross or the pentagram.

So I'm announcing the new/old official/unoffical logo of Unitarian Universalism.
Take anything you can use to draw, draw an oval that's about three times as wide as it is tall, then draw a teardrop shape with it's point somewhere above the oval, and it's round part somewhere inside.
That's it, the two-stroke chalice.
Here's mine, with some other low-stroke symbols:

It's perfect for Unitarian Universalism, because it's unique, and comes from yourself.
Now, yes, there are fancy looking crosses, and it's fine for an organization to have a fancy chalice logo. But remember that the symbol of the faith is much simpler, and remember how to draw it.

Thursday, November 17, 2005

Robin Edgar, Volume 1

Elsewhere , The Emerson Avenger said...
Actually I never heard any voices or saw any visions at all. The primary spiritual phenomenon that I experienced, other than the profound mystical experience of feeling God's presence in a kind of 'born again' experience, was the extremely unusual 'meaningful coincidences' of synchronicity that individually and collectively communicated the prophetic message that it is not a pure random chance 'coincidence' that a total solar eclipse distinctly resembles an 'Eye In The Sky'. . .

Best Regards,

Robin Edgar

http://revelationisnotsealed.homestead.com
"

Some thoughts on the theology here:
  • Synchronicity is a standard new-ageish concept.
  • I'm not sure he's using 'born again' in the capacity in which I understand it.
  • "feeling God's presence" combined with positioning the earth-sun-moon, indicates a personal-God-creator entity. (though the latter could indicate something else very interesting...)
  • If eclipses are a sign from God, what is she saying? and what can we infer from the message and the medium?
To me, 'born again' has a component of becoming a new being. This is strong in the Christian 'born agains', which is I think very similar to a new-age walk-in experience. I don't get the impression that that's what happened to Robin, it sounds more like a 'peak experience'

Tuesday, November 01, 2005

Do they Know it's Hallloween?

Listen

Ahh, All Saint's Day. The time when the veil between worlds is at it's thinnest, when the spirits find influence in the world. When our thoughts turn to spiritual questions, such as: When is it appropriate to blow out a candle in the middle of someone else's ceremony?

Story:
I was living with Chris, Matt, Faith , and Sabrina. Matt and Sabrina had broken up the year before, shortly after Matt and Faith got together. Things were tense.
It was he night after Holloween. Chris was away getting married.
A friend and I came home after some college adventure, we found Matt and Faith casually lying on the floor of the living room next to an arrangement of candles. As quietly as possible, I asked what was going on.
Now, Matt was a sick man, physically and mentally. Aparently something had 'told him' to lay out these candles in this particular arangement, and since he had done so, he felt that his health had dramatically improved. Sabrina was in her bedroom just off the living room, I gathered that she objected to the state of affairs in te living room. We chatted a bit, as Matt occasionally adjusted the candles.
Suddenly, Sabrina came into the living room in her nightgown, carrying a cordless phone, walked up to the center candle, bent over, blew it out, and walked on into the kitchen.
Shortly after that, Matt passed out, he did that from time to time. It didn't take too long to revive him, but he certainly didn't seem 'alright'.
At some point in all this my other friend left, I assume completely weirded out.

Learned after the fact, from Sabrina's side:
It seems that the arangement and colors Matt was using would produce results that were somehow very bad, according to, someone...

The tricky nit about this is that the candles of infamy were cheap orange and black halloween candles, and were only coated in their colors, over a white core. It seems it is the core color, not any outer color that is magically relevant, so Matt's arrangement was entirely white candles, which is an altogether different thing. Sabrina at the time did not know this.

Discuss!