Read the full issue of this week’s newsletter here.

What is the bedrock of your life? When grief surrounds you, or the world seems to teeter on the brink of madness, what is the foundation that holds the house of your life?

A few years ago, a beloved colleague gave me a refrigerator magnet that said, “The answer is still, and again, love.” Sometimes I look at it, and think, “That’s corny.” But then I think about my own life, and my brushes with despair, hopelessness, anger, and grief. And I think about what it is that has saved me, what it is that has brought me back to life. It’s the love of my family, of dear friends, and of colleagues who know and care about me.

So in those moments when a beloved church member dies, or when our gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender friends and family feel threatened and under attack, and I wonder how to respond, or I feel a paralyzing fear entering my body, I return to the bedrock of my faith as a Unitarian Universalist.

And that bedrock is still, and again, love. It’s a patient love that calls me to engage in the world as wholeheartedly as I can, with humility and courage. It’s a love that calls me to work for justice, to stand with our Muslim neighbors, as they face religious bigotry and hatred; it’s a love that calls me to proclaim that Black Lives Matter, in the face of white supremacy; and it’s a rainbow colored love that calls me to be in solidarity with our gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender friends and neighbors.

In short, it’s a love that asks me to put aside what I think I know, and calls me to listen deeply to those I encounter. It’s a love that calls me to practice welcoming, affirming, and protecting the light in each human heart, because my faith teaches me that my own wholeness and salvation is wrapped up in the wholeness and salvation of all of those around me.

Love is a holy gift, and our work, while we are alive, is to love and be loved as deeply as possible, and to create a world where love can flourish. As Cornel West says, “Justice is what love looks like in public.”

May we all work toward the day when we can be so bold and public with our love, declaring that hate, racism, and homophobia go against the very grain of the God we know as love.

I’ll see you in church,
Justin

P.S. Join us this Sunday, June 19; our worship service will provide a container to hold our grief, our pain, and our resolve to build a more loving and just world.