Click on each value to read a meditation and/or affirmation about that value. Sometimes one value encompasses several others, and you will find these other values touched upon in the meditations. Should you still find a favorite value missing, feel free to write me and suggest its inclusion. If you wish to share anything that has been written here, be sure to credit the work and check on what rights are reserved by clicking on the Creative Commons link at the bottom of the page.
Acceptance is part of forgiving and embracing our humanity: a first step toward learning compassion.
Awareness has many levels: awareness of ourselves, awareness of why and how we do things, awareness of the world around us, etc. Awareness helps us to act wisely.
Dogmatic cynicism is no better than dogmatic faith or gullibility. We have a right to our existence and it is acceptable to use the resources of this planet, so long as we give back at least as much as we take and take without harm. Learning how to live a life of balance is no simplistic effort, but utterly invaluable to our health and the health of the planet.
Beauty and harmony have many places where they arise naturally. Within our own lives we learn the skill of creating these things from the truth of our actions and the love within our hearts. A place barren of these things, soon becomes barren of life. Beauty and harmony are of real value even though they may not be quantifiable.
All things change. We can embrace change and make it a process of love.
Charity is love expressed through service. We need to go beyond just feeling love, we must also express love, enact love, and embody love.
It is vital to our own happiness as well as others that we learn how to connect with one another around the globe as a community.
Moment by moment we create the nature of our lives individually and as part of the human community. We all need to recognize our creativity.
When we learn to love certain things, we find a desire to care for the welfare of those things, and are happy to take appropriate action. This sort of committment need not be onerous, and flows naturally from our connections.
Having real confidence in our ability to make a difference gives us the power to do so.
When we choose an ethical lifestyle we choose to conduct ourselves daily according to life-affirming values.
About day to day faith.
Forgiveness does not absolve anyone from responsibilities for their actions, but it does free us to learn and move on with our lives.
To grant ourselves freedom as well as granting others their's takes great courage. Yet, it is the only way we will have the space to experiment and to grow.
Gratitude is a quality that helps us to enjoy and be at peace with our lives. Gratitude helps us to form loving connections with one another and all things.
We can learn to flow with the currents of change, and participate in the process of creating a more beautiful and harmonious world.
True humility gives us the strength to learn and to grow.
Joy is the essence of life. It buoys us through our time on earth, leading us down the truest path to ourselves.
All too often vengeance is confused with justice. Justice is only truly just when it is tempered with mercy.
Listening if often one of the most compassionate and useful things we can do.
These are our highest values.
We know ourselves best when we allow ourselves to just be each day in silence. We also open to a wider way of seeing the world when we get quiet enough to consider life. These are two types of meditation, and both are invaluable.
There are things that we do not know and cannot know. This is not about the forbidding of knowledge, just our limits, and allowing for the wonder of unknowingness. There are also things that we know, and do not know how we came by that knowledge. This kind of knowingness needs to be respected.
We advocate finding both peace within, and participating in the process of creating peace in the world.
Questioning is vital to the growth of any spiritual community in wisdom, grace and compassion.
We recognise the importance of giving consideration to ourselves, others, and the world.
To be truly free, to be truly empowered, we must recognise our own participation within our own lives, and be willing to own the consequences as well.
We must know ourselves in order to properly love ourselves. We must love ourselves in order to properly love others and all that is.
We must learn to trust ourselves and become trustworthy in order to make a world where peace is possible.
Truth, Understanding, and Wisdom
There are many personal truths and a few universal truths. We need to seek to understand these truths, so that we can better distinguish between the universal and the personal, better serve the deepest truths, and find wisdom along the way.
