Making Footprints Not Blueprints

By Andrew James Brown/Caute

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Category: Spirituality

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Subscribers: 2
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Episodes: 189

Description

Welcome to the Making Footprints Not Blueprints podcast. My name is Andrew James Brown, and I’m the Minister of the Unitarian Church in Cambridge, UK. Knowing that full scope always eludes our grasp, that there is no finality of vision, that we have perceived nothing completely, and that, therefore, tomorrow a new walk is a new walk, I hope that, on occasion, you’ll find here some helpful expressions of a creative, inquiring, free and liberative spirituality that will help and encourage you to journey through life, making footprints rather than blueprints. 

Episode Date
S09 #05 - Maternalisation is materialisation—A happy, and cosmic, Mothering Sunday to you all! - A thought for the day
Mar 27, 2025
S09 #04 - Two good very things—a spring thought for the day in advance of the Cambridge Unitarian Church's AGM - A thought for the day
Mar 22, 2025
S09 Bonus Episode - Blue Remembered Hills — An elegy for my parents-in-law and the post-war liberal, democratic, rules-based order
Mar 04, 2025
S09 #03 - Swinging the chaotic flows to better ends . . . - A thought for the day
Mar 02, 2025
S09 Bonus Episode - Nascent Integral Liberal Religion - A thought for the day
Feb 22, 2025
S09 #02 - A free-religious community re-reading of the Parable of the Prodigal Son — “the saviour was not the father but the home” - A thought for the day
Feb 16, 2025
S09 #01 - It is human to have compassion for those in distress - A thought for the day
Jan 19, 2025
S08 #14 - An obvious framework of ordinary, everyday existence, or the universal life seen in every newborn child - A thought for the day
Dec 28, 2024
S08 #13 - Norbert Fabián Čapek’s “Ten Principles of Living” - A thought for the day
Nov 30, 2024
S08 #12 - Preparing for a lowercase “c” christmas - A thought for the day
Nov 30, 2024
S08 #11 - How can fascism be opposed in any other way than by force of arms? - A thought for the day
Nov 08, 2024
S08 #10 - Every day is new, a fresh beginning - A thought for the day
Nov 02, 2024
S08 #09 - Living well upon wondrous, mysterious facts . . . - A thought for the day
Oct 26, 2024
S08 #08 - The therapeutic journey towards becoming free-spirits - A thought for the day
Oct 17, 2024
S08 #07 - Full belief in “a newer testament, — the gospel according to this moment” - A thought for the day
Oct 12, 2024
S08 #06 - All hail to the work of the civilised worm! — the creative, inquiring, free and liberative activity of free-religion - A thought for the day
Oct 05, 2024
S08 #05 - A secular spiritual pilgrimage around the Res publica - A thought for the day
Sep 26, 2024
S08 #04 - Are we seeing the return of the Sea of Faith? - A thought for the day
Sep 21, 2024
S08 #03 - It is essential to have a heart like that of the Universe - A thought for the day
Sep 13, 2024
S08 #02 - From sounding line to lamp wick — faith in the body of the universe - A thought for the day
Sep 06, 2024
S08 #01 - Ladies and gentlemen, roll-up, roll-up, get your free, free-religious spectacles here . . . - A thought for the day
Aug 30, 2024
S07 #38 - Trying to encourage the Unitarian Buridan's ass to eat a hearty and sustaining meal and, once again, come into a healthy, liberal religious fullness of being - A thought for the day
Jul 27, 2024
S07 #37 - On the need to dissent from Trump’s new theology - A thought for the day
Jul 20, 2024
S07 Bonus Episode - Short Mindful Mediation (20 Minutes)
Jul 20, 2024
S07 #36 - A genuine, Unitarian mantra recalled - A thought for the day
Jul 12, 2024
S07 #35 - The move beyond all “-isms” — being the fuller meaning and history of the Unitarian tradition - A thought for the day
Jul 06, 2024
S07 #34 - Instructions for living a life: Pay attention. Be astonished. Tell about it. - A thought for the day
Jun 29, 2024
S07 Bonus Episode - A brief address on the occasion of my Kikyoshiki
Jun 22, 2024
S07 #33 - To remind people of the creative, compassionate and cooperative, world-enhancing consequences of true, self-love - A thought for the day
Jun 12, 2024
S07 #32 - To make a leap “from a world of doubting each other to a world of trusting each other” - A thought for the day
May 24, 2024
S07 #31 - The true spirit of Pentecost — freely, creatively and rhizomatically educational, always and everywhere - A thought for the day
May 18, 2024
S07 #30 - In praise of syncretism, the impurity of all religions, and the tumbling down of walls - A thought for the day
May 11, 2024
S07 #29 - We are all manifestations of the Great Spirit, children of God, containing infinite treasures within ourselves - A thought for the day
May 10, 2024
S07 #28 - Nothing belongs to anyone - all things belong to the whole - A thought for the day
Apr 26, 2024
S07 #27 - On wobbly Jenga towers, church governance, yeast, broken bread, communion, metamorphosis and a modern, free and inquiring religion - A thought for the day
Apr 20, 2024
S07 #26 - Deep and again deep - The gateway to all mystery . . . A meditation on the total eclipse of the sun, 2024 - A thought for the day
Apr 13, 2024
S07 #25 - Jjiyū Shūkyō (a creative, free spirituality) as a Silken Tent - A thought for the day
Apr 06, 2024
S07 #24 - To touch again the finely woven, seamless cloth of joy & woe — an Easter Sunday meditation - A thought for the day
Mar 30, 2024
S07 #23 - Bringing into being an ethics of motion — A meditation on John Ford’s 1950 western, “Wagon Master” - A thought for the day
Mar 15, 2024
S07 #22 - It’s always possible to embody truth, even when, technically, we’re not able to tell it - A thought for the day
Mar 02, 2024
S07 #21 - What an apprenticeship in tailoring might tell us about the making of a creative, free spirituality or religion . . . - A thought for the day
Feb 24, 2024
S07 #20 - Will ready-made religions ever really fit us properly? - A thought for the day
Feb 15, 2024
S07 #19 A gentle plea for some basket-weaving and aphanipoiesis - A thought for the day
Feb 10, 2024
S07 #18 - The sustaining sea and the need to take even strokes in these very uneven times - A thought for the day
Feb 03, 2024
S07 #17 - How new are you? - A thought for the day
Jan 27, 2024
S07 #16 - The new parable of “Mr Bates vs. The Post Office” - A thought for the day
Jan 20, 2024
S07 #15 - A mystery is something in which I am myself involved - A thought for the day
Jan 06, 2024
S07 #14 - A Small- Sized Mystery — A New Year’s Eve meditation - A thought for the day
Dec 30, 2023
S07 #12 - The Quantum Manger — A Christmas Eve Meditation - A thought for the day
Dec 21, 2023
S07 #13 - “The Eternal Buddha is no one else but the Eternal Christ” — A Christmas Day Meditation - A thought for the day
Dec 21, 2023
S07 Bonus Episode - The Japanese Yuniterian [sic] tradition . . . or the dove that ventured outside
Dec 15, 2023
S07 #11 - Beyond the binary of supply and demand — bringing citizens, business and industry together through a deep, but simple, creative, free spirituality - A thought for the day
Dec 09, 2023
S07 #10 - Embracing climate adaptation positives in our settings in good company - A thought for the day
Dec 02, 2023
S07 #09 - On freeing ourselves from being held captive by a particular picture of history - A thought for the day
Nov 18, 2023
S07 Bonus Episode - "New Heaven" - Making Footprints Not Blueprints Theme Tune
Nov 11, 2023
S07 #08 - Why “upholding the liberal Christian tradition" need not be the same thing as upholding Liberal Christianity - A thought for the day
Nov 05, 2023
S07 #07 - What a kite can tell us about the making of a modern, creative, free-spirituality or religion (“jiyū shūkyō”) - A thought for the day
Oct 28, 2023
S07 #06 - It is human to have compassion for those in distress - A thought for the day
Oct 21, 2023
S07 #05 - What is still possible to do so that, at some point in the future, there might be a reconciliation and peace? - A thought for the day
Oct 14, 2023
S07 #04 - Faith in one's own spiritual community and a creative, free religion or spirituality - A thought for the day
Sep 23, 2023
S07 #03 - Faith in a universal cooperative society - A thought for the day
Sep 16, 2023
S07 #02 - Faith in ourselves, our neighbours, and ourselves as neighbours - A thought for the day
Sep 09, 2023
S07 #01 - A gentle call to adopt Imaoka Shin’ichirō’s creative, free spirituality found in his “Creed of Life” - A thought for the day
Sep 02, 2023
S06 Bonus Episode - Only Conjugate! That is the whole of my sermon - (Final episode of Series 6)
Jul 29, 2023
S06 #15 - Living completely inside the movement of the event of the search - A thought for the day
Jul 19, 2023
S06 #14 - On the need for liberals to recover their inner Indiana Jones - A thought for the day
Jul 19, 2023
S06 #13 - A reply to an inquiring teenager . . . - A thought for the day
Jul 14, 2023
S06 #12 - Submerging the absurdity of death in gratitude for the wonder and wisdom of life - A thought for the day
Jul 08, 2023
S06 #11 - Religion in the non-religious world - A thought for the day
Jul 01, 2023
S06 #10 - Let us demand our own works and laws and worship - A thought for the day
Jun 24, 2023
S06 #09 - To cultivate a mindful, restorative stillness, to hear beautiful music, and to engage together in a free and open conversation . . . - A thought for the day
Jun 17, 2023
S06 #08 - And a world begins under the map—On the need to make errors - A thought for the day
Jun 10, 2023
S06 #07 - Unplanned obsolescence and how, perhaps, to avoid it . . . - A thought for the day
May 31, 2023
S06 #06 - An interfaith, Buddhisto-Christian, consequence of Pentecost - A thought for the day
May 26, 2023
S06 #05 - Not in the saving, but in the spending well of your precious life will you find your treasure, and there your heart will also be - A thought for the day
May 20, 2023
S06 Bonus Episode - Free Religion is bowing to each other
May 19, 2023
S06 #04 - “Priests of stillness”—on first learning meditation from fenceposts along the Essex coast - A thought for the day
May 13, 2023
S06 #03 - Circuses but no bread—a political-theological meditation offered on the weekend of the Coronation of King Charles III - A thought for the day
May 05, 2023
S06 #02 - God is a DJ - A thought for the day
Apr 29, 2023
S06 #01 - Safer than the known way - A thought for the day
Apr 26, 2023
S05 - Bonus Episode - A community standing, perhaps, on the cusp of becoming “freethinking mystics with hands” - Final Episode of Season 5
Mar 29, 2023
S05 #27 - What happens (to Easter) when we can no longer rely on spring? - A thought for the day
Mar 24, 2023
S05 #26 - There is only mother love all the way down—Mothering Sunday - A thought for the day
Mar 18, 2023
S05 #25 - Spiritual Values and Negative Capability - A thought for the day
Mar 11, 2023
S05 #24 - Pragmatism is true, but doesn’t work—a lesson for liberal, free religion to learn - A thought for the day
Mar 03, 2023
S05 #23 - The End and the Beginning—On the first anniversary of the Russian invasion of Ukraine - A thought for the day
Feb 25, 2023
S05 #22 - Living lovingly in hypernormal times - A thought for the day
Feb 18, 2023
S05 #21 - What Mary Oliver’s black bear can tell us about the earthquake in Turkey and Syria - A thought for the day
Feb 11, 2023
S05 #20 - Where is the life in the place in which others are putting us?—A call confidently to express a Free Religion - A thought for the day
Feb 04, 2023
S05 #19 - Complete spiritual freedom is the great action that follows the clearing of decks - A thought for the day on the meaning and lessons of Unitarian history
Jan 28, 2023
S05 #18 - Liberal, free religion—Catching moving trains or metaphysical hitchhiking? - A thought for the day
Jan 20, 2023
S05 #17 - Recovering the courage to do the “vision thing”—a pressing issue facing all modern, liberal, free religious communities - A thought for the day
Jan 14, 2023
S05 #16 - The epiphany of there being no “Epiphany” - A thought for the day
Jan 09, 2023
S05 #15 - The human solidarity brought by the grace of being cold together—A meditation for New Year’s Day 2023
Dec 31, 2022
S05 #14 - What the doubtful centipede can teach a liberal, free religion - A thought for the day
Dec 30, 2022
S05 #13 - “The Eternal Buddha is no one else but the Eternal Christ.” Imaoka sensei’s “Three Christs”—A Christmas Day meditation
Dec 24, 2022
S05 Bonus Episode - Christianity is basically an epic mistake . . . and the time is right to correct it
Dec 15, 2022
S05 Bonus Episode - A hidden, Hidden Christian, Christmas—An Advent meditation
Dec 15, 2022
S05 #12 - Catching sight of the “world bud”—An Advent meditation - A thought for the day
Dec 10, 2022
S05 #11 - It’s such a surprise because it’s just the beginning—an Advent meditation - A thought for the day
Nov 26, 2022
S05 #10 - Seek simplicity and distrust it - A thought for the day
Nov 18, 2022
S05 #09 - A nascent form of integral, liberal, free religious worship - A thought for the day
Nov 05, 2022
S05 #08 - A free religion radiant with a humanising light that the darkness will never overcome - A thought for the day
Oct 28, 2022
S05 #07 - Creating a liberal, free religion appropriate for the possible incoming sea of faith - A thought for the day
Oct 21, 2022
S05 #06 - Tiny seeds and tiny words of love, freedom and justice. Scatter them. — Resisting the neoliberal onslaught - A thought for the day
Oct 08, 2022
S05 #05 - The reflection worth indulging doesn’t know where it is going—A fantasia on a passage by Henry Bugbee - A thought for the day
Oct 01, 2022
S05 #04 - The work of love, or how to resist in the dark ages - A thought for the day
Sep 22, 2022
S05 #03 - Why Jesus’ commandment that we “love one another” is always already new - A thought for the day
Sep 16, 2022
S05 #02 - Elizabeth Alexandra Mary, Elizabeth Regina, requiescat in pace - A thought for the day
Sep 09, 2022
S05 #01 - A gentle plea for a Buddhisto-Christian process religion - A thought for the day
Sep 02, 2022
S04 #11 (Final episode of Series 4) - Constancy and change are not opposed but inextricably connected - A thought for the day
Jul 30, 2022
S04 #10 - Kicking the can into hell?—A meditation written during the extreme heatwave in the UK - A thought for the day
Jul 22, 2022
S04 #09 - That is why I am fed up; I take pity on ‘dust and ashes!’—speaking truth to power - A thought for the day
Jul 15, 2022
S04 #08 - Look, there! what I mean by God! — God as event - A thought for the day
Jul 08, 2022
S04 #07 - God does not exist . . . but God may happen - A thought for the day
Jun 29, 2022
S04 #06 - Founding a true Commonwealth upon a real common wealth - A thought for the day
Jun 25, 2022
S04 #05 - Not “a cost of living crisis” but a crisis of the neoliberal project - A thought for the day
Jun 17, 2022
S04 #04 - A reasonable but passionate plea for the recovery (or rather, re-story-ation) of apocalyptic language within liberal religion - A thought for the day
Jun 10, 2022
S04 Bonus Episode - Slavoj Žižek on the Holy Spirit
Jun 10, 2022
S04 #03 - Our responsibility in society—two readings for Pentecost - A thought for the day
Jun 04, 2022
S04 Bonus Episode - The fiery rope across generations and geography—a meditation for Pentecost
Jun 04, 2022
S04 #02 - An anarcho-monarchist reflection at the start of the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee celebrations - A thought for the day
May 27, 2022
S04 #01 - Spiritual power beyond the known self—on the grace displayed by an unsecured (or secured) door - A thought for the day
May 21, 2022
S03 #30 - Be ignited, or be gone — becoming freethinking mystics with hands - A thought for the day
Apr 28, 2022
S03 #29 - "I have seen in my solitude very clear things that are not true" — on living the liberal religious life TOGETHER - A thought for the day
Apr 22, 2022
S03 #28 - L’chaim! — to life! A religion without God and an ethics without absolutes—A short Easter Sunday reflection
Apr 16, 2022
S03 #27 - Broken Hosannas—Palm Sunday - A thought for the day
Apr 07, 2022
S03 #26 - Rock or sand, sand or rock? - why the true foundation of the spiritual life might not be what you think it is . . . - A thought for the day
Apr 01, 2022
S03 #25 - A meditation on a Pietà, written for a Mothering Sunday during a time of war - A thought for the day
Mar 25, 2022
S03 #24 - Information is fast and cheap. Knowledge is slow and expensive - A thought for the day
Mar 18, 2022
S03 Bonus Episode - “Only a God can still save us”—a liberal religious confession
Mar 15, 2022
S03 #23 - “Please save my dolly” — on the sharing of experience and a politics of solidarity - A thought for the day
Mar 12, 2022
S03 #22 - “Love the hell out of this world”—a further lesson to be learnt from the Russian invasion of the Ukraine - A thought for the day
Mar 04, 2022
S03 #21 - A political-theological ghost story — a lesson to be learnt from the Russian invasion of the Ukraine - A thought for the day
Feb 26, 2022
S03 #20 - The goat path ahead less travelled by . . . or Liberal religion back at the crossroads - A thought for the day
Feb 19, 2022
S03 #19 - Feeling the double movement of roots and fruits - A thought for the day
Feb 12, 2022
S03 #18 - No one is ever alone if they can see the countless lives supporting them - A thought for the day
Feb 04, 2022
S03 #17 - Faith does not consist in believing something wonderful . . . - A thought for the day
Jan 28, 2022
S03 #16 - The parable of the mischievously wise physics teacher - A thought for the day
Jan 21, 2022
S03 #15 - On baseball gloves and liberal religion - A thought for the day
Jan 14, 2022
S03 #14 - Gold, frankincense and myrrh or a teapot, an empty jam tin, and a cabbage leaf? A short, secular religious thought for Epiphany - A thought for the day
Jan 08, 2022
S03 #13 - John Keat’s ‘negative capability’ and COVID-19 - A thought for the day
Jan 01, 2022
S03 #12 - The New Being — A short, secular religious thought for Christmas Day
Dec 24, 2021
S03 #11 - “The Oxen”—A brief Advent meditation on Thomas Hardy's poem - A thought for the day
Dec 18, 2021
S03 #10 - “Let it flow”—A brief Advent meditation on true-entrusting - A thought for the day
Dec 11, 2021
S03 #09 - That-Which-Is-To-Come — An Advent meditation on Yeats’ poem, “The Second Coming” - A thought for the day
Dec 02, 2021
S03 #08 - Omnia migrant — a short, Advent meditation on the fundamental condition of movement and migration - A thought for the day
Nov 26, 2021
S03 #07 - Beautiful ruins: stronger by weakness, wiser we can become - A thought for the day
Nov 20, 2021
S03 #06 - Love your enemy — a reminder for Remembrance Sunday - A thought for the day
Nov 12, 2021
S03 #05 - Lucifer the light-bringer - A thought for the day
Nov 06, 2021
S03 #04 - A Halloween ghost story for the start of the COP26 climate change meetings in Glasgow - A thought for the day
Oct 29, 2021
S03 #03 - To clear our minds of selfish care - A thought for the day
Oct 23, 2021
S03 #02 - The parable of the chipmunk—letting be, listening and seeing - A thought for the day
Oct 16, 2021
S03 #01 - Levelling up? - A thought for the day
Oct 09, 2021
Bonus Episode - Some personal reflections on the 20th anniversary of the events of September 11th, 2001
Sep 11, 2021
Bonus Episode - On fans, thirteen blackbirds and the ineffable heart of all things
Sep 03, 2021
S02 #04 - The freedom to be tomorrow what we are not today—Part Five - A Short Postscript, June 2021
Jun 02, 2021
S02 #03 - The Freedom to be tomorrow what we are not today - Parts Three & Four - Becoming Archaeologists of Morning & men and women without a position
May 22, 2021
S02 #02 - The Freedom to be tomorrow what we are not today - Part Two - Becoming Free Spirits
May 15, 2021
S02 #01 - The Freedom to be tomorrow what we are not today - Part One - A beginning
May 08, 2021
Bonus Episode - A mischevious spring meditation on Robert Frost’s poem “Mending Wall”
Apr 24, 2021
S01 #27 - Adopting the role of umpire and letting the role of player go (End of Series One)
Apr 17, 2021
S01 #26 - Cancelling my subscription to the Resurrection and truly living the death of God
Apr 03, 2021
S01 #25 - Jesus or Barabbas, Carl Schmitt and Little Red Riding Hood
Mar 27, 2021
S01 #24 - Firm ground is not available ground
Mar 20, 2021
S01 #23 - The mother of matter is the matter of the mother - A poetic, supreme fiction for our age
Mar 13, 2021
S01 #22 - More speed? More strength? More consumption? More Things?
Mar 06, 2021
S01 #21 - What learning to play jazz can tell us about the need for a liberal religious discipline
Feb 27, 2021
S01 #20 - Overcoming Christianity by incorporation and verwindung
Feb 20, 2021
S01 #19 - Sappho’s time-scissored work—A new-materialist meditation for Valentine’s Day
Feb 13, 2021
S01 #18 - By the way
Feb 06, 2021
S01 #17 - The case for an Ecstatic Humanism
Jan 30, 2021
S01 #16 - "Little children, love one another", or how to bore the pants off your audience
Jan 22, 2021
Bonus Episode - A Service of Mindful Meditation
Jan 15, 2021
S01 #15 - On the need to take even strokes
Jan 09, 2021
S01 #14 - An ass eats its hay and a gardener turns their spade in readiness for the New Year (2021)
Jan 02, 2021
S01 #13 - Accepting the problem posed by Christmas Day but without necessarily accepting the Christian solution
Dec 23, 2020
S01 #12 - Steps, not-steps, promises and the art of metaphysical hitchhiking
Dec 12, 2020
S01 #011 - How Nietzsche helps us better prepare to celebrate Advent & Christmas
Dec 05, 2020
S01 #10 - What was, must be tested
Nov 28, 2020
S01 #09 - When is ruination not (quite) ruination?
Nov 21, 2020
S01 #08 - Live the questions now
Nov 14, 2020
S01 #07 - This monument is for the unknown good in our enemies
Nov 08, 2020
S01 #06 - The Subtle Deer meets Jesus & Socrates
Oct 31, 2020
S01 #05 - Athens or Jerusalem or Athens & Jerusalem?
Oct 25, 2020
S01 #04 - The Flight of the Phoenix
Oct 17, 2020
S01 #03 - Short-circuiting the parable of the mustard seed
Oct 10, 2020
S01 #02 - Socrates & Jesus vs the strongmen leaders
Oct 03, 2020
S01 #01 - Cool It
Oct 03, 2020