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A few years ago, Unitarian Universalists got a new nickname. In 2010 lots of UUs went to Arizona to protest the way immigrants were being treated. Read more →

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Love is the only magic—
It enriches the giver
as it nourishes the object. Read more →

I could be wrong, but I rather suspect that Valentine’s Day is the most widely despised holiday in the country. Really, unless you’re in the small minority of people who are in the throes of romantic passion, what’s to like? You don’t get a day off of work, there’s no religious ceremony or significance, and for weeks ahead of time the stores are filled with a boatload of pink and red crap that nobody needs, and hardly anybody actually wants. Jewelry store commercials aside, the number of lives that would be improved by the gift of a heart-shaped diamond is, I suspect, shockingly small.

Worse than that, for many people the holiday is an affront. If you are single, it’s a reminder that society expects people to pair up, and a suggestion that you are probably a loser because you’re alone. If you’re in a long-term relationship that has become more centered on helping with homework and making sure that there is milk in the frig than on lust and making googly eyes at one another, it’s a reminder that popular culture is obsessed with passion and falling in love, and no one will ever make a blockbuster movie that looks anything like your life. If you’re gay or lesbian or in any kind of non-traditional relationship you know that there probably isn’t going to be a card in the drugstore that is in any way designed with your kind of love in mind. And if you’ve recently been through a break-up, or your relationship is going through a rocky period from which it may or may not recover, or your spouse has died, well, then Valentine’s Day is pretty much designed for your own personal torture.

So here’s my suggestion: Maybe a better way to celebrate Valentine’s Day than by buying candy and flowers would be to embrace the fact that love is often difficult. Rather than a day about romance, why not a day for concentrating on loving something or someone that makes you uncomfortable?

You might want to start by loving your crooked toe, or your stretch marks, or the flabby skin on the back of your arms. Anoint them with lotion, and a long, loving look, and consider the possibility that they really don’t need to be any different than exactly what they are.

You could try loving your neighbor who plays loud music and leaves his RV parked so that you can hardly get in your driveway. Maybe the music is his only stress reducer after caring for elderly people all day; maybe the RV is the only place his son has to live; maybe he’s so busy trying to hold his life together that he forgot to consider what would be most convenient for you.

You could work on loving your daughter’s crappy fourth-grade teacher who doesn’t appreciate your child’s unique gifts and has failed to teach her the structure of a paragraph. Chances are good that there are too many kids in the classroom to give each their due and the teacher is exhausted simply from trying to maintain some semblance of civilization until the bell rings.

You could try to love the person ahead of you in the line at the grocery store who has 27 items in the express lane, or the punk who cut you off on the freeway, or the customer service representative from the cable company who does not appear to have the slightest idea what “service” might mean. Just for today, since it’s a holiday.

You might even go all out, and work on loving your ex, or the person they left you for. Not necessarily forgiving, and certainly not forgetting, but just a little warmth, a little bit of an open heart for someone who, like everyone else in the world, is trying to find happiness in the best way they know how. Which isn’t necessarily a good way, but there you have it.

Just for this one day you could practice love not so much as a feeling but as a choice, a discipline, a practice. You could start with the conviction that everyone certainly needs love, and the possibility that everyone deserves it. Not because they have earned it, not because they are loveable, but because each of us is capable of being an instrument of grace, which is another name for the love that we don’t have to earn or deserve.

Happy Valentine’s Day. And good luck.

(Today, I preached at the ordination of a new minister in my denomination, Unitarian Universalism. Her name is Rev. Lara Campbell, and I shared the pulpit with Rev. Michael Tino. Here is my half of the sermon.)

“Do not demand immediate results but rejoice that we are worthy to be entrusted with this great message,” wrote Olympia Brown, the first woman to be ordained by a denomination—the Universalists, in 1863. And we know that she did not demand immediate results, she who worked for women’s right to vote from girlhood and finally was able to cast a ballot in 1920 at age 85.

I think of Olympia Brown, loving this faith despite the widespread discouragement she had to face in order to be ordained and the challenges she faced in ministry her whole life. I think of Egbert Ethelred Brown and Lewis McGee and so many other groundbreaking ministers of color who fought, against resistance and sabotage, for the right to lead Unitarian and Universalist congregations, who stood by this faith. And I think of all the people who still struggle to be able to devote their gifts to this faith, for a variety of reasons.

We do not demand immediate results but rejoice that we are worthy to be entrusted with this great message, their lives say. Their ministries say. Their legacies say. Their legacies are very much with me tonight as I preach, for the first time, wearing a stole given to me after the death of one of my mentors, Rev. Gordon McKeeman, who died in December. Gordon, a stalwart Universalist, who devoted his life to this faith, is now here with us, lending strength and companionship, reminding me that he has entrusted me with leadership, reminding us that he entrusted his life to Universalism and ministry.

I think of these people and I think of all the bold, visionary Unitarian Universalist ministers, ordained and not ordained, right now, some of you sitting right here, who have dreams of new applications for our faith, who believe that our faith calls us to stand with those lofty ideals of equity, justice, lovingkindness, in this miraculous yet devastating world. Who imagine ministries with unusual new shapes and contexts and methods, all of which seek to bring more love into the world.

I think of ministries beginning in coffee shops—Beloved Café, envisioned by seminarians at Starr King School for the Ministry—and yoga classes—Create Meaning, out in Denver—and in the streets—Faithful Fools, which has been inventing street ministry for decades now—and AWAKE ministry in Annapolis, and the Sanctuary in Washington DC—all bold, visionary new shapes for our future. And each week, with the Church of the Larger Fellowship, we live into these new shapes as we try new ways to find each other, to care for each other, to care for our word from all across the globe.

And deep within me, I say, yes! I am so grateful that you stand by this faith! All of you! All of us! I am grateful that so many work for it and sacrifice for it! I am grateful that all of us are here today, attesting to its value, when we could be doing so many other things on a Sunday afternoon!

But then, right there with the yes, something in me whispers, but…just a little whisper that says, but.. yes, but… but I wish you, and I, didn’t have to dream our dreams alone so much of the time, wish some of our best and brightest lay and ordained ministers weren’t still fighting for support the way that Olympia Brown and others have had to fight for support. I wish each vision could be surrounded by others who supported vision and faith, that we could find ways to reach out better beyond our individual enterprises and make common cause, collaborate with one another, build something bigger than our congregations.

In this era of union-busting, I am longing for a Spiritual Union. I want spiritual collective bargaining. I love Unitarian Universalism, and I love the way that our congregations are self-determining and unique, but I believe in those old songs that I was raised on, about how “The Union makes us strong.” I take to heart those words in our hymnal from Dr. Martin Luther King, “We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny.” And I say, when do we realize that we are that garment, instead of behaving as if our purpose on the planet is to pull apart the threads?

What might we do if we embodied a place of spiritual union with one another? When I say we, I don’t mean only Unitarian Universalists, I mean all of us who believe that people are worthy to be entrusted with carrying and sharing love so deep it will not let us go? What if that name that’s been assigned to us when we wear bright yellow shirts that say Love on them, The Love People, was really our identity? What if we cast fear aside, if we dared to believe that humanity, collectively, is worthy to be entrusted with the message that there is power of love so big that it can’t be held by any one set of religious metaphors and beliefs?

And who might we entrust with our faith? Who might we trust as prophetic voices in our wider faith, a faith not bound by traditional buildings or denominational stakes in the ground? How might we live into spiritual union with the people whose leadership we need in order to challenge and take down the notion of the saved and the damned, the chosen and the unchosen, the deserving and the undeserving, which dominates the US and so many other countries as much now as it did when John Calvin’s concept of predestination, that some are born saved and some are born damned, was widely believed to be true?

Where might we find union and create more love with other people, of every faith and no faith, who dare to proclaim that all people have inherent worth and dignity? Where are the voices saying, YES, African American youth and other youth of color, you are worthy to be trusted! Youth of color, queer youth, youth in general—you are worthy to be trusted! You are the people we need to have as union stewards in our spiritual union.

Where are the voices insisting, YES, people on public assistance, you are worthy to be trusted! More spiritual union stewards, whose leadership we need. Where are those whose witness proclaims, YES, immigrants without all your legal documents in order, you are worthy to be trusted! We need you as leaders in our spiritual union.

What might we do? Who might we dare to be? We have seen some of this in our work for marriage equality, immigration rights, voting rights, in our anti-racism work, as we join other religions and organizations and people to work together, but what if we had real spiritual union?

Whatever configurations our ministries with one another and the world take, whatever architecture we use for buildings, whatever technologies we employ, our own sense of Unitarian Universalism’s worthiness must be a part of the structure. But the time for clinging to small identities is over. The world is far too small now, we are too closely connected to even imagine that we do not have neighbors on every side who care about what we care about.

It’s scary. It means letting go of so many structures and identities that we have confused with worthiness—structures of privilege, or comfort. It means swimming in the ocean rather than in the small pond which our relational faith can become. But love will save us, again and again, when we are afraid, when we are confused, when we make mistakes, when we can’t get our bearings.

We are worthy to be trusted, not because Unitarian Universalists are the chosen people. Worthy, instead, because we have devoted ourselves to faith in a force–call it truth or God, life or love–a force much bigger than we are ourselves—which will not let us go, and which will not be confined or defined.

We have been entrusted with a great faith, and that faith whispers, shouts and sings, You are worthy! Worthy to wear the mantle of this great faith.

Yesterday closed out August, the first month of marriage equality in Minnesota. Fittingly, I saw it out just as I entered it in: officiating at a lesbian wedding. As I have stood before dozens of couples this month, and as I have sat in the chairs weeping for friends, I have a couple of thoughts about pastoral pieces that I think should be included in same sex weddings, at least where the law has recently changed towards marriage equality.

First, in each case there are people who love the brides, or the grooms, who are not ready yet to embrace this notion of marriage equality, and are thus not present to celebrate. I acknowledge that their love is real, none-the-less, and that we at the ceremony pray for the day when all will celebrate love, and join in witnessing same sex couples’ marriage vows. However, in the meantime, we appreciate the integrity and authenticity of those who chose not to attend, and know that they love the couple none-the-less.

This is important because in many cases there will be many conspicuous absences of key family members. Differences in family views were most evident when I officiated at the wedding of Rep. Michelle Bachmann’s lesbian stepsister, (See http://www.patheos.com/blogs/uucollective/2013/08/forty-seven-weddings-and-a-funeral/) but they have been somewhat present in every same sex wedding I witnessed last month. Family gossip lines being what they are, I am fairly confident that word of this naming and inclusion will reach the absent members at some point.

Second, because we have not yet reached a place of universal agreement about the blessing that these weddings bring to our wider community, I urge all who attend, particularly straight allies, to go back to work or neighborhood barbecues, and describe what they witnessed at the wedding. Describe the years that this couple has been together, the love that was evidenced at the service, how good it felt for people to be there, gay and straight alike. How, in fact, it strengthened participants’ own commitments to their spouses.

This is important because our campaign for marriage equality was story-driven, based on reflections of personal relationships with or on the lived experiences of gay and lesbian couples. Though the campaign for 51% of the vote is over, to reach the 80 or 90 percent of support which will ultimately bring us together, the storytelling must continue. People who voted against marriage equality need to hear about how it is actually impacting the people around them, to balance and ultimately dissolve the horror stories of mayhem and destruction of heterosexual marriage which they have heard.

Finally, I have remarked in each ceremony I’ve officiated (tip o’ the hat to my friend Kate Tucker for this frame) that, when couples have been together for decades faithfully and loyally, we are actually present to witness vows between them and the State of Minnesota as much as or more than vows between the couple. The State of Minnesota, finally, has stepped forward with a commitment to support same-sex couples for richer or poorer, in sickness and in health, till death do us part—by providing social security benefits and tax benefits, access to health care and hospital beds, and all of the ease which heterosexual couples expect in the aftermath of the death of their beloved—beginning with access to the body itself, and extending out to inheritance rights, and decisions about the funeral.

The first month is over, but the struggle for marriage equality continues, even as the IRS declares that married couples anywhere can file joint federal taxes. Until the patchwork of equality and inequality tips into a nation where couples don’t need to fearfully pack marriage certificates in their luggage when they travel across state lines, we have our work to do.

Meanwhile, mazel tov to all of the newly married couples in Minnesota and other states this month. Though some of us older folks might grumble that we feel as if we’re in our late twenties again, with weddings every weekend, the joy in the grumbling is readily evident. Finally, we’re being treated as adults!