Sunny Notes: 03.04.26 - Love at the Center
At last Sunday's service on March 1, we explored the history behind the recent revisions to Article II of the Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA) Bylaws—revisions that were several years in the making and the subject of much research, discernment, and debate among UUs nationwide before being put to a final vote at the UUA General Assembly in 2024. Over 2,500 delegates voted. With 80.2 percent of them voting in favor of the revisions, our faith tradition made a transition from a list of seven Principles to a set of six Shared Values (Justice, Equity, Transformation, Pluralism, Interdependence, and Generosity) with Love at the center.
The section of Article II describing our "Values and Covenant" now reads: "Love is the power that holds us together and is at the center of our shared values. We are accountable to one another for doing the work of living our shared values through the spiritual discipline of Love." But what does putting Love at the center mean for our faith tradition?
Various UUs, from ministers to religious educators to lay folks, have offered their thoughts and reflections on the subject. Rev. Susan Frederick-Gray, who was the first woman president of the UUA and who served from 2017 to 2023, said that love at the heart of our UU faith:
“Calls us to courage to continually grow and learn and adapt in ways that foster love and justice. It is not a weak or sentimental love. It burns like the fire at the center of our chalice. It’s fierce in a way that compels us to demand justice in our world, but also fierce in how it calls us to courageous conversations, to radical practices of welcome, compassion, forgiveness, and belonging.”
Our current UUA president, Rev. Sofía Betancourt, also has offered her own perspective in a book published in 2025 entitled “Love at the Center.” In the Preface to the book, Betancourt writes:
“We hold a love greater than we know between and among us, born from all that we hold holy. It takes many of us, in community, to insist that a better future is possible, to keep us faithful to our commitments when we err or falter, and to remind us that we are constantly connected to a hope-filled belief in human goodness and capacity for love, even when we feel furthest from that which is larger than our own knowing.”
Inspired by this book, in which Betancourt collected reflections from over two dozen leaders in our UU movement on what Love at the center means to them, our Sunday service on March 8 will offer similar reflections from various BUFsters of all ages. As we move through this two-service arc on putting Love at the heart of our UU faith, I wonder: What does Love at the center mean to you?
— Sunny, minister