“Joy is the gift of love. Grief is the price of love. Anger is the force that protects that which is loved.”
“And sometimes when I move at the edge of a greatness- a lake or sea or a mountainside… comes a love so enormous I can love anyone, anyone, even myself.”
What does “liberating love” look like? That’s a question some of us are musing over this month. Our answers will depend, in part, on what we’re being liberated from. Fear? Isolation? Self-doubt? Mental anguish or physical pain, selfishness or self-criticism, hunger or poverty? Mass incarceration or threats of violence? Belief in hell, an extractive economy or a sense of powerlessness? There can be many emotional, spiritual, economic or political forces that can bind, hobble and constrain us. Perhaps “liberating love” is creative enough to challenge them all.
A few weeks ago, we shared some of the January “Soul Matters” reflection questions in the Enews, but as a pre-service meditation I’d like to share a few of them again:
Who has loved you the longest, and what has that taught you about love?
Whom have you loved the longest, and what has that taught you about love?
Whose love has encouraged you to be and express your true, full self?
How is love showing up in your life this year?
Are there any religious figures whose love has inspired and shaped you?
There is a nationwide proposal to change the purpose of the wider Association of Unitarian Universalist congregations, in part, to this: “The Unitarian Universalist Association will actively engage its members in the transformation of the world through liberating love… Love is the power that holds us together and is at the center of our shared values.”
What do you think?
Curiously yours,
Rev. Lee