Theodora
08-03-2005, 01:44 PM
...may be found at this site...
Emerson: A Born Believer
http://www.firstuunashville.org/news/sermons/2003emerson2.html
Rev. Mary Katherine Morn
August 10, 2003
Quote from this sermon, part of the marking of the anniversary of Emerson's 200th birthday---
Many have attempted this year, as in other years, to capture the man and his ideas. It’s risky business. As Richard Higgins points out in the March/April issue of Unitarian Universalist World, we use Emerson like a mirror—when his intention was not to reflect but to provoke. Alternately we give Emerson too much credit and too much blame. And this even after we’ve read “Self-Reliance.” After Emerson’s own admonition trust thyself.
As for the specific quote about "God building his temple in the heart..."--here is something of the background on that, according to Rev. Morn--
As I told you in my sermon last winter, Emerson had been a Unitarian minister. He resigned his pastorate after only a few years, though, and in his Divinity School Address exhorted the new ministers to bring life back into the church he was abandoning.
With all of his criticism of the church (God builds his temple in the heart on the ruins of churches and religions)—we can see his desperate hope that individuals find spiritual understanding. There was nothing more central to him than this. Or more natural. We are born believing. A man bears beliefs as a tree bears apples. A self-poise belongs to every particle; and a rectitude to every mind...
This contrast between the actual practice of religion and the ideal of it is the heart of Emerson’s strivings. He was steadfastly an Idealist. The transcendentalist movement which he helped to found rejected the mechanical philosophy of the day. It was, to them, a form of materialism, based exclusively on experience. Emerson, and his colleagues, did not deny that experience has value—yet they contrasted experience with consciousness and lifted consciousness above it. Emerson used the word “reason” (oddly enough) to express the means to consciousness. “Understanding,” on the other hand, was the way of knowing through facts and reason.
Interesting--but challenging--things to think about today!
Grace and peace to you all this day.
Theodora
Emerson: A Born Believer
http://www.firstuunashville.org/news/sermons/2003emerson2.html
Rev. Mary Katherine Morn
August 10, 2003
Quote from this sermon, part of the marking of the anniversary of Emerson's 200th birthday---
Many have attempted this year, as in other years, to capture the man and his ideas. It’s risky business. As Richard Higgins points out in the March/April issue of Unitarian Universalist World, we use Emerson like a mirror—when his intention was not to reflect but to provoke. Alternately we give Emerson too much credit and too much blame. And this even after we’ve read “Self-Reliance.” After Emerson’s own admonition trust thyself.
As for the specific quote about "God building his temple in the heart..."--here is something of the background on that, according to Rev. Morn--
As I told you in my sermon last winter, Emerson had been a Unitarian minister. He resigned his pastorate after only a few years, though, and in his Divinity School Address exhorted the new ministers to bring life back into the church he was abandoning.
With all of his criticism of the church (God builds his temple in the heart on the ruins of churches and religions)—we can see his desperate hope that individuals find spiritual understanding. There was nothing more central to him than this. Or more natural. We are born believing. A man bears beliefs as a tree bears apples. A self-poise belongs to every particle; and a rectitude to every mind...
This contrast between the actual practice of religion and the ideal of it is the heart of Emerson’s strivings. He was steadfastly an Idealist. The transcendentalist movement which he helped to found rejected the mechanical philosophy of the day. It was, to them, a form of materialism, based exclusively on experience. Emerson, and his colleagues, did not deny that experience has value—yet they contrasted experience with consciousness and lifted consciousness above it. Emerson used the word “reason” (oddly enough) to express the means to consciousness. “Understanding,” on the other hand, was the way of knowing through facts and reason.
Interesting--but challenging--things to think about today!
Grace and peace to you all this day.
Theodora