“The chance to love and be loved exists no matter where you are.”
—Oprah Winfrey
I come from a multifaith family: I inherited Christianity from my grandmother and Islam from my mother. In both of those traditions, which inform my practice of Unitarian Universalism, there was always talk about God's will and plan for your life.
As a UU, I do believe in an idea of God—but if there’s a “will,” I don’t think it’s like a record album and the needle drops when you're born. I don't believe in predestination in that way.
To me, if God has a plan for my life, it’s that I would choose to do things that are loving and generative. If there is such a thing as “God’s will,” it’s to always be asking, “What is the most loving, life-affirming choice I can make in response to life’s circumstances?”—and then to make that choice.
Recently I’ve been confronted with myriad changes, from health concerns to relationship shifts. Assessing and re-asserting my boundaries has brought me grief, frustration, and sometimes despair. Doing the loving thing doesn’t always feel good or bring instant gratification. There have been no parades in my honor for making difficult choices.
My elders would say: You’ve got to test the spirit. To me, that means examining our actions through a love lens: Does this decision hold up care, justice, equity, and compassion? Does it orient me toward joy and wholeness? If so, then it might be God. It might be love. Does it orient me to pain or shame? That’s probably not God’s will in action.
This perspective also makes me think differently about power. The Christian Nationalist version of power, arising from white supremacy culture, is a muscular power. It’s militaristic. It’s “I'm going to hurt you if you don't do it the way I think you should”—as opposed to a power that invites. A power that whispers. A power that persuades. A power that says, What would love do? A little voice that tugs at you and asks, Is there a more loving option?
If we can embrace the power of love—of God’s will and plan for us—as an invitation to love more fully and deeply, and to conceive of each other as worthy, I think we’d be a whole lot closer to living lives of wholeness and usefulness that reflect our deepest aspirations.
Prayer
God, help us to quiet the noisiness of life so that we can know you, persuading us to love in action. Give us the courage and fortitude to make loving, life-affirming choices in the face of death-dealing empires, quick fixes, and selfishness.