“The Unitarian Universalist Association will actively engage its members in the transformation of the world through liberating Love.” 

This statement right here is a first for us as a faith tradition. In all the years of our existence since Unitarianism and Universalism came together in 1961 to become Unitarian Universalism, none of our official denominational statements about our core values has mentioned love so prominently. And not just love, but love with a capital L. 

And here we are. When this year’s General Assembly meets, in June, our new proposed faith statement (an excerpt of which you heard myself and Donna read a moment ago) will be up for a final vote. It takes two separate General Assembly votes, over a course of two years, to ensure that we aren’t rushing into anything and that there are plenty of opportunities for people to speak up. If the majority vote is to approve, this June, then the change takes place. Our Principles will be replaced by Values, with Love at the center. 

39 years ago, our current Principles were voted in, and it took years before they fully caught on. We should expect the same thing to happen when this newest version is approved. It’s going to take some time before you and I absorb the new changes and wrap our heads around what it all implies. That’s ok. That’s a natural part of the process. 

Today’s sermon is meant to help with this. Specifically, to wrap our heads around what Love at our center might mean. 

But to do that, let’s zoom out first. Let’s get a big picture sense of Love. Let’s do this first and then we’ll zoom back in to the specific language of the proposed Article II, which is what General Assembly delegates will be voting on in less than two months. 

And so, the big picture about Love. The big picture. Love exists in two basic modes. One is Love in the mode of our fundamental Being, and the other is Love in the mode of Doing. 

Love as Being, and Love as Doing. 

Start with Love as Being, and just listen to how one of the songs in our hymnal invokes this sort of Love: 

Return again, Return again,

Return to the home of your soul.

Return to who you are,

Return to what you are,

Return to where you are

born and reborn again.

This lovely, haunting song speaks about people’s fundamental identity. The home of the soul which is who and what and where you and I are born and reborn again. 

It is unabashedly mystical. And the idea of it is nothing unique with us. Religions around the world proclaim that every person has an identity which is ultimate and fundamental, deeper and more real than any of our socially conditioned identities. Deeper and more real that a person’s race, or gender, or sexual orientation, or class, and so on. Christianity calls this deeper identity “being a Child of God”; Buddhists call it “Buddhamind”; Hindus call it “Atman.” 

Above all, note that there is nothing that you or I do to earn this identity or to create it. We’re born with it. We don’t have to first build the home of our soul before we can return to it. It’s already there. Its power is already full, and where our choice and our doing is concerned, it’s limited to returning. Shall we return or not? But separate and apart from that, the home exists. It’s hard-wired in us. Being a child of God; being Buddhamind; being Atman: our fundamental spiritual identity is natural in us. 

And, do you know what proclaims the truth about this–Love as our fundamental being–in a way that is profound and can just knock your socks off? The natural world. The natural world outside of us is one of the most powerful magnets for triggering awareness of our essential sacred self. Nature outside of us helps tune us into our spiritual nature within. 

Listen to Mary Oliver, her beautiful poem “When I Am Among the Trees”: 

When I am among the trees,

especially the willows and the honey locust,

equally the beech, the oaks and the pines,

they give off such hints of gladness.

I would almost say that they save me, and daily.

I am so distant from the hope of myself,

in which I have goodness, and discernment,

and never hurry through the world

but walk slowly, and bow often.

Around me the trees stir in their leaves

and call out, “Stay awhile.”

The light flows from their branches.

And they call again, “It’s simple,” they say,

“and you too have come

into the world to do this, to go easy, to be filled

with light, and to shine.”

That’s the poem. When we are connecting with the Love that is our fundamental Being, like the trees we go easy, like the trees we are filled with light, like the trees we shine. We are, in other words, put in touch with our essential wholeness, and this gives us courage and strength when it is indeed time to act. 

It is Love in the mode of Being. Our Being. 

Go back for a moment to the insight that this sort of Love is ours and there is nothing we’ve done to earn it. It is, in other words, a gift of Grace. A child is born and they inherit one parent’s beautiful green eyes and their other parent’s lovely smile. Both the green eyes and the smile are gifts of Grace. So is that child’s inherent worth and dignity. It is a gift of God or of the Universe–to that child and also to the parents, and to everyone. To you and to me. 

Beyond that, the Love that we fundamentally are is the source of our human potentials. Some of these we share with everyone: potentials for peace, joy, courage, creativity, empathic living, compassion, and so on. Other potentials, however, may be ours alone: like having a certain unique sense of humor, or a certain talent for playing piano, or a particular strength in managing big-picture projects, and so on. These, too, are gifts of Grace. 

And then there is the mysterious but very real pressure in you and in me to grow in the direction of fulfilling our potentials–an impetus, an impatience, a restlessness. Through yoga, I was introduced to the concept of “Shakti energy” which is a spiritual energy that drives you and I towards greater wholeness, and if there’s anything to do about it, it’s to subtract all that blocks it. Just get out of the way. It has its own intelligence. It has its own sense of timing. If there’s anything to do, it’s let it be. Let it happen. 

This is all Love in the mode of Being. Our Being, separate and apart from any Doing. It is the reality of Grace in our lives. 

And, awareness of it changes everything. 

It’s the beautiful thing that the great Italian Renaissance artist Michelangelo said about sculpting. He said, “Every block of stone has a statue inside it and it is the task of the sculptor to discover it. I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free.” One need not try too hard, in other words. The meaning in a piece of marble and the meaning of our lives already exists, and our work is to uncover it. The work of uncovering is hard enough. But we need not make it harder by believing that we and everything else start at 0. 

To believe that we start at 0 where our lives are concerned is not only false, it spurs on despair. It spurs on the sickness of perfectionism and pride and burnout and compassion fatigue. 

“So much undone,” writes my colleague the Rev. Vanessa Southern: 

So much to do.
So much to heal
in us and the world.
So much to acquire:
a meal
a healthy body—
a fit one—
a lover
a job
a better job
proof we have and are enough
just around the corner of now.

And up against it the reality of all that falls short and the limits of today.
We honor the limits:
If your body won’t do what it used to, for right now let it be enough.
If your mind won’t stop racing or can’t think of the word, let it be enough.
If you are here utterly alone and in despair, be all that here with us.
If today you cannot sing because your throat hurts or you don’t have the heart for music, be silent.
When the offering plate goes around if you don’t have money to give or the heart to give, let it pass.

The world won’t stop spinning on her axis if you don’t rise to all occasions today.
Love won’t cease to flow in your direction,
your heart won’t stop beating,
all hope won’t be lost.

You are part of the plan for this world’s salvation,
of that I have no doubt.
The world needs its oceans of people striving to be good
to carry us to the shores of hope and wash fear from the beach heads,
and cleanse all wounds so they can heal.
But oceans are big and I am sure there are parts that don’t feel up to the task of the whole some days.
Rest, if you must, then, like the swimmer lying on her back who floats,
or the hawk carried on cushions of air.
Rest in pews made to hold weary lives in space carved out for the doing of nothing much
but being.

Perhaps then you will feel in your bones,
in your weary heart,
the aching, healing sense that
this is enough—
even this.

That we are enough.
You are enough.
Enough.

That’s the poem. But you are enough only because of Grace. You are enough–you can rest sometimes, you can honor your limits–because we don’t start at ZERO where goodness is concerned. The goodness–the Love as Being–is always already there, and our job is to find healthy ways to support its expression. 

It’s the goodness and Grace that we can sense when you and I are among the trees. 

It’s the Grace that we sing of when we sing 

Return again, Return again,

Return to the home of your soul.

But now it is time we turn to Love in its other mode: Love in the mode of Doing. 

Yes, the angel in the marble already exists. Yes, the Love that we are is a sense of ultimate identity centered in inherent worth and dignity, filled with inspiring potentials, and hardwired to grow by an inner impetus and pressure. 

But every nature needs nurture. Nature is the block of stone. A sculptor is needed to reveal it.  

Therefore we have this second sense of Love, which is Love as something one does. Love in this second sense amounts to actions a person chooses to take–even if it feels scary at the time, or inconvenient–so as to support another person’s highest good and growth, or to support that in oneself. Love as something one does can look like: deep listening and allowing another person to have center stage for a time; an encouraging word to someone who looks down; a gift of time or talent or money in service to lovingkindness; a gentle reminder to someone that they have done something hurtful and this is not who they are to you, this is not who you know them to be; and so on. Love that is a chosen action to support another person’s highest good and growth, or one’s own, can take a multitude of forms. 

And, one could equally not choose these actions; they may or may not happen. Right here is yet another reason for distinguishing between the two forms of Love. The Love that is the substance of who a person is does not depend on any choices. A person’s inherent worth and dignity is a fact and never stops being a fact. The human potentials a person is born with–some more generic and others more specific–can’t be earned. The pressure to fulfill these potentials is hardwired in us. Can’t be chosen either. 

Yet so much depends on how nature is nurtured. Love as Doing serves Love as Being. Every act of Love helps a person uncover the spiritual Star that they already are; but every act of neglect or cruelty covers that inner Star up even more. Trauma creates scar tissue, and that hardened stuff can make it extremely difficult to uncover the Love that is within. A lifetime of scars can imprison many of the potentials anyone is born with and can dam up the inbuilt, hardwired pressure to grow. 

And now we can zoom back in on the specific language of the proposed Article II statement, which puts Love at the center of our faith. Now we can come back to this. 

I have two things to say. 

One is that the proposed Article II statement, when it speaks of Love, speaks only of Love in the mode of Doing. It calls us to express Love through the values of Interdependence, Pluralism, Justice, Transformation, Generosity, and Equity. We shall know we are Loving if

• We covenant to protect Earth and all beings from exploitation. 
• We covenant to learn from one another in our free and responsible search for truth and meaning. 
• We covenant to dismantle racism and all forms of systemic oppression. 
• We covenant to collectively transform and grow spiritually and ethically. 
• We covenant to freely and compassionately share our faith, presence, and resources. 
• We covenant to use our time, wisdom, attention, and money to build and sustain fully accessible and inclusive communities.

We shall know we are Loving to the extent that we are doing these things. 

It’s Love in the mode of Doing. 

And God bless it, let’s go to it. The world needs it. The traumas of life do indeed leave plenty of scars on us, and the results are horrible. Let the Love that is a matter of Doing abound. Let there be more and more Interdependence, Pluralism, Justice, Transformation, Generosity, and Equity!

But now comes my second thing to say, the last thing to say. 

The proposed Article II does not change a problem that has existed for us as a faith community ever since the formation of the UUA: an imbalanced vision of the spiritual life. Ever since 1961, every Article II has envisioned Unitarian Universalism as a faith tradition that’s all about Doing. “Being” is an essential component of the spiritual life, but no Article II statement has ever seriously acknowledged this, including the present and proposed versions. 

Consider how writer E. B. White once said, “I arise in the morning torn between a desire to improve (or save) the world and a desire to enjoy (or savor) the world. This makes it hard to plan the day.” There is nothing in the proposed Article II that’s about savoring. There is nothing there about returning again to the home of your soul, or about being among the trees, or about facing the enormity of the world’s problems and saying enough, saying I need a break, believing that it’s not all up to yourself or it’s bigger than even the actions of us all. 

The underlying theology of the proposed Article II seems to be exclusively “works” oriented. “Liberatory Love” is portrayed as only a thing that people express through their individual efforts. However, religions world-wide warn us that an exclusively “works” orientation tends to encourage both spiritual perfectionism and pride. When Grace is not in the picture, of course spiritual perfectionism and pride rush in to fill the vacuum. 

And it’s destructive. It really is. 

Don’t get me wrong. I will vote yes on the new proposed Article II. But I am also aware that our growth as a spiritual movement is a long arc that will take a long time to fully develop. I believe this is our cutting edge as a movement: honoring and drawing on the Love that is our birthright, the Love that is our fundamental Being, the Love that is separate and apart from any efforts of Doing. 

Again, no faith statement I am aware of in our history since 1961 has ever touched on this. But it’s not alien to the much longer history of our source traditions. From our Universalist heritage, in particular, we find an affirmation of the Love that always already holds the universe, which is above and beyond all individual human efforts to Love. 

This Love which we can’t deserve through any of our actions. 

This Love that shelters us no matter what is happening in the world. 

This Love that sustains us and protects us from burnout and despair. 

This Love, even though it does not find expression through our newest version of our UU Ten Commandments, is still spoken of and shall be spoken of among us, when we sing of returning to the home of our soul, or when we are among the trees and we remember who we really are, or when we must honor our personal limits and trust that we are enough. 

These are threads in the larger fabric of our faith which have yet to be seen (officially) for what they are. 

I hope that it will be so, for future denominational statements of our Unitarian Universalist faith. 

But as for you and me right now: it can’t wait. 

Right now, know that there are two modes of Love. Love as Being, Love as Doing. 

Interdependence, Pluralism, Justice, Transformation, Generosity, and Equity. Of course. These are things to do. Do them! 

But don’t forget about the home of your soul. 

Don’t forget to be among the trees. 

Don’t forget to respect your limits, and rest, and to know that, yes, you are indeed enough. 

There is much more to you than your doing. 

First and foremost, remember to just be. 

Remember that Amazing Grace is real.