Unitarian Universalist Church of Palo Alto

Rev. K’s Kwerys

March 7, 2008
Rev. Kurt Kuhwald

In November I quoted Martin Luther King Jr.: “I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word.” Through his quote I explored our work in the Weaving the Fabric of Diversity classes, which were just beginning — and which we have now successfully completed.

That quote is still with me as we enter the beginning of the Welcoming Congregation series (Wednesday, March 5). In this case the unarmed truth means true availability to the facts and to the circumstances of our existence. For instance, it is simply the case that some people are born into this life whose sexual preference is fully … heterosexual. Naturally and without artifice, but certainly with enormous cultural encouragement (and pressure), they respond to their own inner affectional and sexual attractions and pair with persons of the opposite sex.

The spiritual/ethical journey calls us to live the examined life and by doing so to discover the essential truths to which our hearts and minds respond most fully. We offer the Welcoming Congregation curriculum so that we can focus our examination on the issue of the essential truths about the human condition concerning sexual and affectional orientation and attraction. Modern Unitarian Universalism has put a firm stake in the ground that asserts there is a continuum of sexual preference. Which means, in one true sense, that there is no “normal.” That is, each person’s orientation and preference is normal for them and the percentage of others who are differently oriented than them, no matter whether it is greater, does not matter … in terms of the rightness of that individual’s own needs.

The fear that some people have that their own sexuality, and their heterosexual marriages, will somehow be threatened if non-heterosexual bonding is accepted as one expression of affectional normality is, if openly examined, simply groundless. If we hold fast to the values that respect the worth of all persons, then affirmation of a broad range of affectional attraction in no way poses any threat to others.

Unconditional love, continuing with King’s quote, enters here because the examined life is about more than discovering essential values and asserting them; it means honoring and celebrating them. That is the genius of the world’s religions and deep ethical practices; they have discovered that love for one another abides at the center of life. The liberal religious path, further, declares that love is made manifest by our openly honoring and celebrating humankind and human life as indigenous expressions of the natural, that is, of the planet itself.

So … our Welcoming Congregation work is a journey of deep self, cultural and institutional examination, as well as a journey into the true blessing of honoring and celebrating, out of love, the others surrounding us.

Blessings, Rev. Kurt