Unitarian Universalist Rev. Victoria Safford recently attended a gathering of UU ministers where each participant was asked to share a microscopic sermon, to express in one or two short sentences what they hope their congregants receive at their Sunday services, or what for them is the essence of their faith.

When her turn came, Rev. Safford spoke spontaneously, saying essentially these words: “You are beloved of God.  Our calling on this earth is to remember and remind each other, in everything we do, without ceasing, who we are and what we are, which is beloved.”

She most deeply wants her congregants, whether they “believe in God” or not, to know themselves and each other as beloved, which is to say, worthy, with a place, as the poet says, “in the family of things,” a place “no more and no less exalted than anyone else’s place, or the place of the grasses, the trees, the birds of the air and the fish of the sea, a holy, wholly undisputed, rightful place on this, our common ground.”

Moreover, she wants them to know that “now and here, in this unlikely, un-replicated, gorgeous world, this shimmering, sorrowing world, we exist, together.  We are here now, and we all belong.”

Therefore, Rev. Safford finds that “her work and her joy, however imperfect, is to strive to act accordingly in every person’s presence (whoever they are, wherever on this earth they are) to feel that she is in the presence of the holy.”

April 11, 2025