Cup of Joe, February 14, 2025

Love + Liberation

I was reading a prayer, and it ended with the words “Love Will Guide Us.” And that was enough for the hymn in our Singing the Living Tradition hymnal to get stuck in my ear.  (You can hear members of the congregation and I singing it here.)  

I suppose if anything goes round and round in your ear for long enough, it could get a little maddening, but a persistent reminder that Love will guide us? That feels reassuring to me.

This past Wednesday morning, a small group of us gathered to contemplate and respond to the week’s Braver/Wiser entry.  (This happens every Wednesday morning at 8:30am, and you can join in person or on Zoom!)  

In it, a UU minister was contemplating a word that might help them remember what, in the end, they were committed to and hoping for.  A word to guide their living.  For them, that word is “liberation.”  They found themselves discovering and exploring different kinds of liberation in powerful ways in their own life. 

Perhaps it’s because today is Valentine’s Day, but I’m finding myself reflecting on these two words put together: liberating love.

I’ve talked a lot over the last many months about the new language that delegates from UU congregations approved at last summer’s general assembly.  We’ve talked about the silly mnemonic of JET PIG as a way of remembering those values: Justice, Equity, Transformation, Pluralism, Interdependence, and Generosity.

But what gets left out of that mnemonic is Love.  When I have mentioned how “love” appears in the new statement, the part that I’ve shared the most is this:

Love is the power that holds us together and is at the center of our shared values. We are accountable to one another for doing the work of living our shared values through the spiritual discipline of Love.

There are really important ideas to contemplate in that passage: power, centering, sharing, discipline, spirit, accountability.  All of those ideas become more revelatory when we’re looking at them in the context of Love.

But the statement that I’ve perhaps neglected is one that describes the purpose of the UUA, and by association, describes the work of Unitarian Universalists like us:

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

We are about not just love, but liberating Love.

On this Valentine’s Day, my hope for you is that you can recall experiences of love in your life that have helped you experience liberation.  My hope for us all is that we continue to hold one another in love in a way that we all experience as freeing, as liberating.  We need that now, as ever, in a world of tit-for-tat, of winner-takes-all, of power-over rather than power-with.

May we put together, in and with our lives, Liberation and Love.

yours in liberating Love,

Rev. Joe 

P.S. Just for some Valentine’s Day fun, check out these UU Valentines.