Tonight, I went to potluck and class again at the church. For this session, we looked at a few of the readings in the back of the hymnal. Again, we got to borrow the hymnals to study at home.

Just now, I was looking over a few more of the readings, and finding some of them quite resonant. I'm going to copy a few of them here, both for the benefit of readers, and for my own future reference.

434 (section: Opening Words)

May we be reminded here of our
    highest aspirations,
and inspired to bring our gifts of
    love and service to the altar of
    humanity.

May we know once again that we
    are not isolated beings
but connected, in mystery and
    miracle, to the universe,
to this community and to each
    other.

--Anonymous

...

482 (section: Meditations and Prayers)

If it is language that makes us human, one half of language is to listen.

Silence cannot exist without speech, but speech cannot live without silence.

Listen to the speech of others. Listen even more to their silence.

To pray is to listen to the revelations of nature, to the meaning of events.

To listen to music is to listen also to silence, and to find the stillness deepened and enriched.

--Jacob Trapp

(Bold mine.)

483 (Meditations and Prayers)

When despair for the world grows in me and I wake in the night at the least sound in fear of what my life and my children's lives may be, I go and lie down where the wood drake rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.

I come into the peace of wild things who do not tax their lives with forethought of grief. I come into the presence of still water. And I feel above me the day-blind stars waiting with their light. For a time I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

--Wendell Berry

...

484 (Meditations and Prayers)

To live content with small means;

To seek elegance rather than luxury, and refinement rather than fashion;

To be worthy, not respectable, and wealthy, not rich;

To study hard, think quietly, talk gently, act frankly;

To listen to stars and birds, to babes and sages, with open heart;

To bear all cheerfully, do all bravely, await occassions, hurry never.

To let the spiritual, unbidden, and unconscious, grow up through the common.

This is to be my symphony.

--William Henry Channing

...

586 - The Idea of Democrary (Peace, Justice, and Equity)

As labor is the common burden of our race, so the effort of some to shift their share of the burden onto the shoulders of others is the great, durable, curse of the race.

As I would not be a slave, so I would not be a master.

This expresses my idea of democrary. Whatever differs from this, to the extent of the difference, is no democracy.

Our reliance is in our love for liberty; our defense is in the spirit which prizes liberty as the heritage of all people in all lands everywhere.

Destroy this spirit, and we have planted the seeds of despotism at our own doors.

Those who deny freedom to others deserve it not for themselves, and cannot long retain it.

Why should there not be a patient confidence in the ultimate justice of the people? Is there any better or equal hope in the world?

Let us have faith that right makes might, and in that faith, let us, to the end, dare to do our duty as we understand it.

--Abraham Lincoln

I learned an interesting thing tonight. According to the person leading our class, a far higher percentage of Unitarians are introverts than the general population. Why is this? There must be something about this religion that attracts this sort of people.

Earlier this week, I took the Myers-Briggs test again. (Annoyingly enough, they no longer let you take the test on the official website, but instead redirect you to an annoying career site that wants to get your email address before you start, but even after you give them your address, they still won't give you the full results unless you buy some other expensive crap. So I took it here instead.)

My result this time was the same thing I got when I took it several years ago, back when they had it on the Keirsey site. I'm an INFP (introverted, intuitive, feeling, perceiving). "Healer Idealist." Verified by multiple independent sources. No doubt about it, I suppose. The 1% of the population? That's me.

More interesting stuff about it here. I'd say the analysis is spot-on.

Anyway, that's all for now.