Boots and Blessings

"Where you invest your love , you invest your life." First thing, let's begin with love. And never let go. Our Universalist forebears believed in a god of love. A god of such overflowing, unconditional love that the love would pursue you even after death, unrelenting . They believed that to know, really know, that love would mean that it would flow out of you and into everyone whom you then loved. What if we decided to truly believe in the power of love? Believed that there is a " sustaining, commanding, transforming reality ...the reign of love, a love that fulfills and goes beyond justice, a love that 'cares' for the fullest personal good of all." Believed in it down to the bones of our bones and acted out of that? I believe that we can be the big tent many have dreamed we could be, a big tent that this world aches for. It will take recommitting to an ethic of personal responsibility. And that ethic of personal responsibility is made more pos...

1n 1961, the Unitarians and Universalists consolidated, and a new religion was born. We're still sorting out that marriage, figuring out the structural issues, cultural issues, and then there's theology. Much of Unitarianism and Universalism was co-mingled long before consolidation, but I think that the area where there's still deep dissent is found in where you place yourself on the spectrum of Free Will vs. Mandatory Universal Salvation. It's a fun thing, because I have noticed that even the UUs who do not believe in a post-death heaven or hell can really get really het up about this. Even the atheists! It is a fun discussion, because either way, you're arguing for something good, you know? On one side, you've got the Free Will thinkers, who tend to align themselves more with the Unitarian side of our theological history. Because God is good, God would not make someone be saved (go to Heaven, be reunited with God, etc.) against their will. On the oth...

I watched Come Sunday with my family this weekend, the story of Bishop Carlton Pearson's epiphany of universal salvation, and the price he paid for being public about it. If you are a UU primarily interested in the story of Pearson's diminished community coming to All Souls Tulsa, that is another story, not covered by the movie. But the story, as it is, is very good, and focuses on the nature of God and grace. There was one aspect of the movie that has stayed with me, probably because I've been wrestling with what this means for humanity for ... oh, about 25 years. And it's not about God, it's about people. And whether there is a dividing line between people that so impacts how we view the world, that it cannot be overcome. In about the middle of the movie, Pearson confronts other Pentecostal leaders at what amounts to a heresy trial. He asks Bishop Ellis to name someone he loved, who is now in Hell. The other man says, "My daddy." He says that he lov...