Submission 150
Howard Tolley
UU Church of Tucson (Tucson, AZ) 2021
What is your suggestion or idea?
Love is the power that holds us together and is central to our shared values. To dwell together in peace, to seek the truth in love, and to help one another, this is our covenant.
Section C-2.2. Values and Covenant. Love
Love is the power that holds us together and is at the center of central to our shared values.We are accountable to one another for doing the work of living our shared values through the spiritual discipline of Love. To dwell together in peace, to seek the truth in love, and to help one another, this is our covenant.
What is the reason for your amendment idea?
The proposed text first articulated in 1894 has been adopted by numerous UU Congregations and offers a poetic expression of our core principle that should have broad appeal to those undecided about whether to support the A2SC proposals because love has so many different meanings in popular culture, commercial advertising, romantic literature and religious usage. The Board’s charge to the Article II commission that Love“should be centered in any revision of Article II” would appear to disqualify from consideration any proposed Amendment that preserved the existing seven principles, whose supporters could then vote no on the entire proposal.
Others undecided about whether to replace the seven principles with an affirmation of a new priority value Love at the core of our covenant, might be more inclined to vote yes by including the proposed affirmation that dates back 130 years.
Have you discussed this idea with your congregation or other UUs?
I have shared this idea and supporting rationale with fifteen UUs, including Ministers and GA delegates from five UU congregations in Ohio and Arizona. In response to one Minister’s positive feedback I modified the proposal by restoring a critical phrase on the power of love text that I had deleted.