Standing on the Side of Love: UUs Are Lovers

I am a big supporter of my denomination's (The Unitarian Universalist Association’s) current campaign Standing on the Side of Love.  Although it began with two hot button social issues, same sex marriage and immigration reform, and was instigated by a hate crime shooting spree at a Tennessee UU congregation, it is a boundless campaign.  

We UUs own a big chunk of the "love franchise."  Our Universalist tradition bends us toward Love.  “God is Love” was the Universalist motto—an essential theological doctrine that compels loving God in return, as well as loving God’s creation, especially our sisters and brothers.

In my estimation Unitarian Universalists are lovers.  We love the human condition in all its manifestations: female and male, young and old, straight and gay, every race and culture.  We love the Earth and its Nature in its many aspects.  We love the many world religions.  We love the senses.  We love the times and tides of our bodies.  We love the free mind and will to meaning we can bring to bear in every circumstance of life.  We love the richness of poetry and myth. We love the preciseness and clarity of science.  We love tradition and we love innovation.  We love contemplation and we love discussion.  We love the arts:  music, the spoken and written word, photographic image and painting, theater and cinema—all the creative forms through which human imagination seeks expression.  We love our own life and we love our larger Life, despite the reality that living means dying.

I often cite Rupert Brooke’s poem “The Great Lover” that begins: 

"I have been so great a lover: filled my days

So proudly with the splendour of Love's praise."

And continues:

"Love is a flame;—we have beaconed the world's night.

A city:—and we have built it, these and I.

An emperor:—we have taught the world to die".