Unitarian Universalist Meeting of
“The Circle of Love”
Rev. Kathy Duhon
I received a love letter this week. It was brief: “To you Aunt Kathy, I love you. Love, Clara.” In just 9 words, she had written “love” twice, my name, and “you” twice. Clara is five and, bless the children, they actually know how to express love in stunningly beautiful ways, which we tend to lose over the years.
If there is anything we are supposed to be doing together as a religious community, it is to remind each other to love. So simple. I could say “go forth and love mightily” and that would really be sufficient. We could end the service right now. Our Buddhist guest speaker said something similar last week.
We don’t ask each other to be loving all that often. We need the reminder to love – do we ever! Love is simple, but my goodness is it difficult.
Rainer Maria Rilke said, “It is also good to love: because love is difficult. For one human being to love another human being: that is perhaps the most difficult task that has been entrusted to us, the ultimate task, the final test and proof, the work for which all other work is merely the preparation.” Oh dear, Rilke makes love sound awfully hard, but yes, it is a work that we undertake, in expanding circles.
We don’t simply love our families and friends – they sometimes annoy us and disappoint us and make us angry, so even loving the inner circle takes effort. Nor do we easily love those who are acquaintances – no real friction, but also no connection. We certainly don’t quickly love those who are strangers to us – we mostly ignore them. And then there are our enemies – that is a true lifetime of work to love them, but mostly, we don’t even try. Or if we try, we have to keep starting over. And this is only the human side of love. In Paul Naamon’s talk last week about devotion in Buddhism, he spoke of compassion, love, devotion to all sentient beings, and he was including the wood! We heard from Wendell Berry, who wrote of the larger circle of all creatures in this dance of love. Albert Einstein pushed it even further, that physicist extraordinaire of the universe – he wanted us to widen our circle of compassion, of love, to include all living creatures, yes, … and the whole of nature. That’s right – we should really be trying to love the universe, in all its myriad parts. It’s a gigantic circle, this circle of love.
Rev. Dr. Carter Heyward has her own way to address the challenge of love: “Love is a choice – not simply, or necessarily, a rational choice, but rather a willingness to be present to others without pretense or guile. Love is a conversion to humanity – a willingness to participate with others in the healing of a broken world and broken lives. Love is a choice to experience life as a member of the human family, a partner in the dance of life.”
So love is hard work, includes the whole universe, and is something we have to choose. That means we don’t just “fall in love” and love doesn’t just happen to us because we are good people. Love is something that involves our willpower. We have to be open and willing to choose to love.
And more than that, love is something we must have. It might be a choice, but life is pretty pitiful if we don’t keep choosing it. As Chief Dan George said, love is food for our Spirits, keeps us creative, and able to be there for others. We need love.
Love is basic and ingrained. The amazing minister and theologian, William Sloane Coffin, wrote recently, “In my old age I’ve become a professor, so maybe I’m free as I wasn’t before, to suggest that “cogito, ergo sum” – I think, therefore I am – is a bit of surpassing nonsense. “Amo, ergo sum” – I love, therefore I am – is so much truer.”
Love is so necessary that it is the basis of who we are. “I love, therefore I am” – I would not be a person of any worth at all if I did not love. When the Apostle Paul suggested that faith, hope and love abide at the center of our lives, and that the greatest of these is love, (where the Bible quote is usually ended) he then went on to advise, “Pursue love; make love your aim.”
Love – it’s difficult, should be expanded to the whole universe, must be chosen and pursued, is necessary for our spirits, and is ingrained in our nature. The final thought I want to add on love came from our reading by Mechthild of Magdeburg – love is power that suffuses the body and the soul and more – this miraculous power rises up to the mystery of God, the mystery of the Spirit. I don’t believe we only choose love – sometimes the power of love chooses us, so necessary is it for us, so much a part of our nature. We have to be open, but love can seem to sweep into our lives in the guise of a baby’s giggle, or a grandma’s kiss, a stirring sunset, or a transporting melody.
Now that we’ve heard what some famous folks say about love, what do you think about love? If you had to complete the sentence, “Love is…”, what would you say?
[Connection Sacrifice Enjoying life with others Caring about it all
Joyful Hopeful The basis of ethical behavior Our salvation]
Love is so important, so central, but do we pay enough attention to choosing love, nurturing love, sharing the power of love with others? As we go about our lives, we ask many questions about how to proceed, what to do, how to make decisions, but the most important question we can form our lives with is, “What is the most loving?”
Instead, we ask, “What’s the least expensive? What makes the most sense? What’s the wisest? What is the most beautiful? The most practical? How can I best protect myself? What’s the most enjoyable? Educational? What helps me, my family, my community?”
These are not “bad” questions with which to frame our lives, and we should ask them, but what would it be like to also begin and end any decision with the question, “what is the most loving?”
Let’s try it. You’re the opening mail – postal or email – what does it mean to consider what is the most loving while opening the mail?
[Might not open it at all if you are too busy to bring a loving, open heart to it.
Open to being moved by some of the mail to do something good for the world – a donation, a correspondence.
To paraphrase Jesus, you realize that even the tax collector and the bill collector are persons worthy of your love.
You love the earth by recycling.]
We come here into this loving community and remind ourselves to extend the circle of our love to the decisions of our everyday lives, to the people we know and those we do not, and those we wish we didn’t know, to the animals and the plants, the stones and the sky. We expand the circle of love until we can claim our true nature as loving people, and feel the miracle and power of our love. So may we be blessed. Amen.