Sunny Notes: 03.11.26 - The Power of Love
Inspired by the 2025 book “Love at the Center,” in which UUA President Sofía 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 offered similar reflections from various BUFsters of all ages. Below are a few quotes collected from these reflections:
“To me, Love at the center means no matter who you are or how you are, you are centered in Love.”
— Kivrin Howard-Collins
“To me, Love at the center means that we love one another fully; that we accept everyone for who they are, not who they could be.”
— Raya Paci-Green
“Love at the center of the circle means to me, treating all beings, may it be humans, animals, plants, etc. with respect and kindness and empathy and compassion and love.”
— Natasha Paci-Green
“When we stand together, we can move the world. And we do so in this community with Love at the center of everything we do.”
— Jeff Copeland
“What as a [21st century] Universalist do I do with Love at the center? I embrace it with all my heart, because in loving, I am called, I believe, to love my neighbor as I love myself. Love at the center means loving even when you doubt you honestly can. It means doing the work in the world that you have chosen to do as a way to actively live out courageous, healing love.”
— Natalie Johnson
As seen in these reflections, while Love at the center means different things to different people, there are nevertheless common threads. As I shared in my own reflection, putting Love at the center means to me that our faith tradition is signaling that we are a big enough spiritual tent to warmly welcome folks from a wide variety of theologies and philosophies, from our Unitarian and Universalist root to traditions; to the Transcendentalist and Humanist strands of our movement; to practitioners of religions like Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, and more; to lovers of nature and the Goddess; to modern-day mystics and seekers.
In his sermon on Loving Your Enemies, Martin Luther King, Jr. said, "There is a power in love our world has not discovered yet." By putting Love at our center, perhaps Unitarian Universalism will help our world access and embrace that power in Love about which King spoke.
— Sunny, minister