Thomas Jefferson Memorial Church--Unitarian Universalist

The Art of Radical Love

Rev. Leslie Takahashi Morris

September 9, 2007

“We must pursue peaceful means through peaceful means.” These words apply not only to our efforts to engage in the largest issues that touch our lives. They also pertain to the small decisions we make everyday.

In our household, we use a verb not found in the dictionary: to spuff. I spuff. He spuffs. We spuff. It means to carry on to no avail, to generate a lot of hot air, to take a fixed and noisy position about something you have no intention of addressing in any constructive or helpful way. It is the dreaded intersection between knowledge and apathy.

In today’s era of talk radio and endless vacuous “news analysis,” spuffimg is an industry and we’ve begun to believe that to sit and complain is to solve a problem. The kind of radical love Sharon Welch writes about is the opposite of this empty, angry rhetoric. It is about entering into the deepest forms of responsible commitment, about discerning the true value of the lives you encounter and then pledging the right actions to protect and nurture their precious possibilities.

In other words, the practice of radical love is what matters—and it takes practice.

Unfortunately, between theory and practice can lie the Grand Canyon of disconnection. To cross that chasm requires the willingness to be a lifelong devotee to the truth. I think of this as the art of radical love because an art involves success and failure, trial and error, expansive imagination and ultimately, the humility of knowing that what you create is smaller than your best intentions and greater than anything you could aspire to alone.

Try it now. Think of the person who has caused you the most distress, grief or anger over the last week. Take a moment to think about that person and their actions—and then to think of your own. Were they embittered, complaining or were they grounded in love and the possibility of redemption for this person, based on loving kindness? I have been putting myself to this test regularly for several months and I have to say, well, it takes practice.

Radical love is persistent, Greg Mortenson received dozens of death threats after September 11, 2001 for his interest in helping people in Pakistan and Afghanistan--and kept going. And our own Sally Whaley just keeps finding a way, even when official channels say no again and again.

I can think of two times in recent history when this congregation’s efforts to address the needs of our community demonstrate this art—our work with the PACEM low-barrier homeless shelter and with the IMPACT congregationally-based organizing efforts are examples. Our first season of PACEM was both rewarding and unnerving—we learned some things about our temporary guests—and we learned a lot of things about ourselves, including our amazing ability to work together. We had real concerns about the program-- AND we exercised leadership to help make improvements. Last year in IMPACT, we discovered that more people of more religions care about the needs of those with limited resources than we thought –and we discovered that when we come together collectively, surrendering our individual agendas can be uncomfortable. As we enter the second season, I know I faced the question of whether to use the parts I don’t like as an excuse to get this one thing off my plate—or whether to channel my concerns into positive action and help this rare opportunity for interfaith cooperation build true unity in our community.

This sort of radical love is not about accepting without critique. It is about offering it in a spirit of love and understanding.

Radical love is at the heart of our heritage as Unitarian Universalists, the radical love that comes from believing worth and dignity are intrinsic parts of the human experience, that a hope exists that is larger than all of us, that a greater unity bringing peace and justice is possible, that we are connected to one another in an amazing dance of interdependence. Our own radical legacy of love and faith exists. Yet to inherit it and to inhabit it are two different things. Radical love is what makes you pause when you despair at the behavior of someone you love, what makes you roll up your sleeves and try again when your largest efforts to create change with others fall short of your expectations, what makes you stay engaged when systems around you disappoint..

An ethos based on love rather than hate is about how we embrace ourselves and one another. It is a tough love where the toughness is on the part of the giver. It is, perhaps the hardest thing we have to do. And we need that sort of radical love, that sort of reaching out to one another, because our nation and culture has embraced a radical individualism, a survival of the fittest strategy that has left us feeling powerless and estranged—and which we are now exporting to the other nations of the world.

At its best, Unitarian Universalism is a faith that embodies radical love. We might not all agree that “spuff” is a verb, but we know that faith is. Our kind of faith is about doing, the act of seeding hope and weeding out indifference. May we be the ones to make it so.