As I Have Loved You
At the congregation where I was just before I came to you, I was in the choir with a remarkable director of music. Not only did she possess in abundance the skills needed to rehearse projects and develop talent in the congregation, she had a profound understanding of music and art as spiritual practice. I had sung in choirs my whole life, with excellent directors, but had never understood music as a spiritual practice until I worked with Elizabeth. Of all the remarkable experiences I had in working with her over the years, the one that really stays with me is this: when preparing the choir to get up from their seats to go to the risers, she would say: “What would it look like to the congregation if your trip to the front of the room conveyed not anxiety or urgency, but love for one another? As you approach the chancel, try to show your love for each other – let the congregation see what it looks like to care for one another.” Wise woman. She was not asking us to perform love – she was asking us to enact love, to make love visible.
I believe that our UU congregations generally – and yes, UCE specifically – deeply need to learn to become more loving. Likely this is true in every denomination. I don’t know, having only ever served this one denomination my whole life. But for UUs, I think this need manifests itself in a way peculiar to us. We have such good ideas. Our principles are truly wise and magnificent. So much so that we could spend a lifetime contemplating them, thinking them over, considering their nuances. This we must not do – that is to say, we mustn’t get stuck there. For our principles are only as wise as they help us to become more loving with one another, and to bring that love to the world.
In the not quite two years I have spent with this congregation, I have come to love it, and I have seen that you love one another. While admitting, though, that expressions of love are complex and layered – that it’s possible to convey love through a financial contribution, or food preparation, which expressions of love I see in abundance at UCE, for example – I wonder what would happen if suddenly each congregant here took it upon themselves to show the congregation what love looks like – not to perform love, but to enact it. At choir rehearsals, Elizabeth would say as we learned a particularly challenging piece of music: “our goal here is simply to become more loving,” and everything would suddenly shift, become easier and more beautiful.
Last night at the Meadville-Lombard 175th anniversary, a wise UCEvian asked me what advice I would have for the congregation, and the question brought me up short. I had been sharing some very pragmatic advice with some folks as I broke news of my pending departure to them, but it sounded a clang in my ears in the context of the wisdom we’d just heard from Rev. Jacqui Lewis, our keynote. She, an African-American Presbyterian minister, had sung the praises of our principles, and had said the world is truly desperate for them – so she had asked us 1) to get messy – to get down in the dirt of the need; 2) to risk – being foolish, learning something, being uncomfortable; and 3) to turn up the volume on our love, because that is what the world needs most of all.
I managed to answer the question put to me last night as we were seated there, but the question wasn’t finished with me, followed me home, kept me awake, was waiting for me as I awoke this morning.
My heartfelt answer boils down to this: love one another as I have loved you. Better yet, love one another as Eileen has loved you. 😊 Truly, Rev. Eileen is the named face of love for so many of us – I have heard on many disparate occasions, when congregants talk about what brought them here, what keeps them here, they say “the way Eileen greeted me in love.” Or picture our teachers, who are so often this face of love for our learners of every age. Whoever it is that represents love to you here at UCE, or anywhere, try to picture in your mind’s eye quite specifically what that abundant, extravagant love looks like. Then go and do likewise. All our wonderful lifespan religious education curricula will be enriched by this love, and smart as they are, they are nowhere without it.
I have loved this congregation, loved getting to know you, loved serving you. Please know that I will miss you, and think of you often and warmly – and that I will take your love with me as I go, and leave mine behind for you here. Thank you for who you will always be to me. Blessed be.