The internet has figured out that I love trees and moss and native plants, along with the usual cats getting into boxes and dogs pushing buttons. Recently a post came up in a “Native Plants” group, with the photo of a plants with tiny purple flowers I see all the time this season. The poster’s question- was this plant friend or enemy? Now I’m a native plant lover from way back, and I understand the harm that invasive plants can do as they push out native plants and all the critters that depend on them. But the post stuck with me- is this the enemy? It's hard for me to think of any plant as my enemy. I’m pretty sure I have that plant, or one of its siblings in the front patch between my sidewalk and street, and based on how fast it grows it probably is invasive.
At the risk of being cancelled, I confess that a couple of years back I took (with permission) several of those plants from my neighbor’s front patch and planted it all over mine. Why? Because another invasive plant, lesser celandine, had so thoroughly taken over my front patch that when it dies back with the first heat of summer, it exposes the bare soil which runs off quickly in the rain. Then in the July droughts nothing grows and there are no plants to hold in the water. I needed something that didn’t mind that challenging soil between sidewalk and street and could fill in quickly when the lesser celandine died back. I think of that plant with the little purple flowers as my friend, because it protects the soil, and helps hold water in the tiny patch. What I love is life- all the beings willing and able to live and grow and fill in the barren places in the community of being where I call home.
Our Universalist faith tradition originates with the radical notion that God’s love is for everyone. The meaning of our lives is not to fight an enemy, but to know and manifest God’s love in the world. I believe there is a great, deep love – greater, wider, deeper than the harm, than the evil acts we see in the world today. In our UU congregations we are humanists, theists and agnostics, so not all of us would choose that language, so in modern times we find common ground by saying our Universalist core belief is that every being has inherent worth and dignity.
A couple of weeks ago, at Discover UU, we had a powerful conversation about what UUs believe about good and evil. The conversation turned to our prison system- as Universalists we would love to see our justice system really focus on rehabilitating people, instead of merely punishing. We agreed that we have a ways to go to support everyone in growing into their best selves. AND, We talked of criminals who harm and harm again when released. We told hard stories that reminded us there are some people, that do real, terrible lasting harm without industrial strength boundaries.
But I don’t need to hate someone to construct a powerful boundary. We UUs believe in firm, clear, effective boundaries to reduce harm, and processes to heal and restore after harm. But I don’t need to think of all those folks as my enemy. I think there’s a psychic cost to my own heart to hold too many enemies in there. Certainly I don’t need to be enemies with a plant. Hosea Ballou was one of the founding parents of our Universalist Faith. He was a circuit riding preacher, at one time preaching at 7 rural congregations, traveling by horse! He famously wrote in his Treatise on Atonement:
“If we agree in love, there is no disagreement that can do us any injury, but if we do not, no other agreement can do us any good. Let us endeavor to keep the unity of the spirit in the bonds of peace.”[i]
I’m thinking of our recent discernment conversations about the future direction of our congregation. We shared a meal, and then gathered here in the sanctuary, where we have shared good times and hard times, witnessed weddings and memorials, where most times we gather we feel connected to that “unity of the spirit.” We paused in silent reflection, and then even though we talked about hard things, even though people had different opinions, we kept that unity of the spirit in the bonds of peace. It was a good meeting, people told me. It felt truthful and realistic. And then we came back a couple of months later and did it again! Friends, I have witnessed church meetings where sides were chosen, voices were raised, where insults were spoken, where people stormed out. I don’t think Ballou said what he said because he was ignorant of church conflict, I think as a universalist preacher serving 7 congregations he said it because he believed in love.
Church conflict is as old as organized religion. In The book of Philippians, letters from Paul to the early church at Philippi, Paul encourages the congregation:“Do all things without grumbling or disputing, … in the midst of a crooked and twisted generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world, holding fast to the word of life.” In this congregation we strive to create a space different from the ordinary grumblings and disputings, we want to be a light that shines in the world."
10 years ago, when 12 year old Tamir Rice was shot by police officers, there started an email argument in our congregation about the UUA response. People chose sides. Hurtful things were said, one family left the congregation because they no longer felt this was a community committed to being truly welcoming to people of color. We were heartbroken. We had work to do. We called a listening circle, not to solve anything, but just to show up in a space where we could speak our truth, in the spirit of love and unity even when we disagreed about the nature of racism and how we were called to respond. This is the seed of that Universalist medicine -- to gather at a time of disagreement in unity of the spirit of love. Over the next few years we had many hard conversations. Sometimes sides were chosen, about whether and how we should speak out publicly, but always there were voices calling us back to that unity of spirit. This space we create together held us, as those hard conversations actually helped us strengthen our commitment to anti-racism. They helped us learn and grow and gave us the courage to enlarge the web of anti racism in the valley.
This year at General Assembly [where UUs from around the country gather to vote on important issues] we will be voting on an important change to our bylaws. These principles here in banners on our wall are part of our bylaws, they are part of our bylaws. When we first merged U and U in 1961, we came up with a list of principles that united us in our diversity. Not these, in 1985, our congregations finished a multi-year process and came up with new principles that were more inclusive of gender, and other diversities among us, those are the ones we have now on our walls and in our hymnal. A few years ago our congregation was proud to be part of a movement to call for a change to the first principle, from “every person” to “every being” at the same time there was a movement for adding of an 8th principle to explicitly remind us of our commitment to anti-racism. We were glad when the UUA board agreed to start a full review of our principles, a process also laid out in our bylaws. Well, that process has been going on since 2021, With many opportunities for input from UUs all over the country, and this year the final proposal is coming to GA for a vote.
Rather than just changing some words in the existing bylaws, as some had imagined, the proposal is something completely new- as different from what we have now as the current principles are form the ones passed at the time of merger. The new article 2 describes “values” instead of “principles”. I encourage everyone to give it a look- here's a link to the final draft.
So as you can imagine, folks have chosen up sides, and said hurtful things to people on the other side, with much talk of winning and losing. But here’s the thing. This graphic was made by a fellow UU to help us remember those 7 values, And you can see at the center is love.
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| Image by Tanya Webster (chalicedays.org) |
The proposed article 2 says: “Love is the power that holds us together and is at the center of our shared values.” Love is at the center.
I’m not campaigning either way with you today, I have some preferences and some opinions, but what I feel most passionate about, what I am willing to speak up for, is Love.
"If we agree in love, there is no disagreement that can do us any injury, but if we do not, no other agreement can do us any good.”
What is Love? The Christian scriptures (in important source for the Universalist tradition) tell us:
AND remember we talked about the importance of boundaries. So many of us have endured harm because we had a definition of love that “endured all things”
The draft article 2 reminds us that real love, the kind of love that makes a difference in the world in good times and bad is a discipline: “We are accountable to one another for doing the work of living our shared values through the spiritual discipline of Love.” The kind of discipline that brings us back into the room, back into the hard conversation, with patience and kindness as we strive together for a kinder more just world.
This, to me, is the most critical part of our mission as Universalists today, when we feel that snarky comeback, that clever meme, how easy to it is to be irritable and resentful, to instead choose love, lest we become as a sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal, (that is to say, just noise without the power of love within it).
It would be possible for us to go through this conversation about changing our bylaws with such a mindset, to use our cleverness to fight and parry with the other side. And what would result? Perhaps a denomination as wounded and fractured as we have seen the battles of neighboring denominations on headline news. It doesn’t matter what article 2 says, whether it changes or stays the same, if we “have not love”
Let our congregation continue to be a community that walks in the way of love. A place of healing and reconciliation. Let us create a space that rejoices with the truth, a non-binary space that can hold disagreement. That patiently, kindly endures as disagreements come and go.
“Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends.”
That last bit is important to me- that the love we are called to is not something we have to manufacture, it is always there, it never ends, and ours is only to tap into it. To remember it, to cultivate it.
Yes, love is that gentle joy of holding a kitten, a loved one, but love is deeper and wider and more powerful too. Deep enough, wide enough to hold our most challenging divisions, strong enough to endure even this moment in history, to hope for a kinder, more just world for everyone.
Beloveds, this is our spiritual discipline, to hold fast to love, to keep love at the center, to be a light in this struggling world. To return, again and again to love, as individuals and as a community, to be the balm, the healing medicine our divided world so needs.
Notes:
[i] Hosea Ballou (1828). “A Treatise on Atonement: In which the Finite Nature of Sin is Argued, Its Cause and Consequences as Such; the Necessity and Nature of Atonement; And, Its Glorious Consequences, in the Final Reconciliation of All Men to Holiness and Happiness”, p.236
[ii] “Final approval of the Article II proposal requires a two-thirds (2/3) vote of the 2024 General Assembly to adopted the revision as the new Article II of the UUA bylaws. If either 2023 or 2024 General Assembly votes fails, the process ends and a similar proposal cannot be considered for two years.”
I’m not campaigning either way with you today, I have some preferences and some opinions, but what I feel most passionate about, what I am willing to speak up for, is Love.
"If we agree in love, there is no disagreement that can do us any injury, but if we do not, no other agreement can do us any good.”
What is Love? The Christian scriptures (in important source for the Universalist tradition) tell us:
[from 1 Corinthians 13] "Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends.”I hear this passage most often at weddings, but recently I was reminded that it was part of a letter about how to be a church together, it follows another famous passage about all the parts of the body,
[from 1 Corinthians 12] “If the whole body were an eye, where would be the sense of hearing? If the whole body were an ear, where would be the sense of smell? … If all were a single member, where would the body be? As it is, there are many parts, yet one body.”Love is how the parts of the body work together, it is “the better way. ”
AND remember we talked about the importance of boundaries. So many of us have endured harm because we had a definition of love that “endured all things”
The draft article 2 reminds us that real love, the kind of love that makes a difference in the world in good times and bad is a discipline: “We are accountable to one another for doing the work of living our shared values through the spiritual discipline of Love.” The kind of discipline that brings us back into the room, back into the hard conversation, with patience and kindness as we strive together for a kinder more just world.
This, to me, is the most critical part of our mission as Universalists today, when we feel that snarky comeback, that clever meme, how easy to it is to be irritable and resentful, to instead choose love, lest we become as a sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal, (that is to say, just noise without the power of love within it).
It would be possible for us to go through this conversation about changing our bylaws with such a mindset, to use our cleverness to fight and parry with the other side. And what would result? Perhaps a denomination as wounded and fractured as we have seen the battles of neighboring denominations on headline news. It doesn’t matter what article 2 says, whether it changes or stays the same, if we “have not love”
Let our congregation continue to be a community that walks in the way of love. A place of healing and reconciliation. Let us create a space that rejoices with the truth, a non-binary space that can hold disagreement. That patiently, kindly endures as disagreements come and go.
“Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends.”
That last bit is important to me- that the love we are called to is not something we have to manufacture, it is always there, it never ends, and ours is only to tap into it. To remember it, to cultivate it.
Yes, love is that gentle joy of holding a kitten, a loved one, but love is deeper and wider and more powerful too. Deep enough, wide enough to hold our most challenging divisions, strong enough to endure even this moment in history, to hope for a kinder, more just world for everyone.
Beloveds, this is our spiritual discipline, to hold fast to love, to keep love at the center, to be a light in this struggling world. To return, again and again to love, as individuals and as a community, to be the balm, the healing medicine our divided world so needs.
Notes:
[i] Hosea Ballou (1828). “A Treatise on Atonement: In which the Finite Nature of Sin is Argued, Its Cause and Consequences as Such; the Necessity and Nature of Atonement; And, Its Glorious Consequences, in the Final Reconciliation of All Men to Holiness and Happiness”, p.236
[ii] “Final approval of the Article II proposal requires a two-thirds (2/3) vote of the 2024 General Assembly to adopted the revision as the new Article II of the UUA bylaws. If either 2023 or 2024 General Assembly votes fails, the process ends and a similar proposal cannot be considered for two years.”
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