Unfettered Love | January 4, 2026 | Rev. Dr. Kathryn Benton

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-T6qmZsX-_k

Nature is both stable and orderly but also plastic and flexible, capable of entering new patterns and diversified combinations, as we see in the variety of structures and organisms of the geographical environment. But even these varied forms and products have not exhausted the possibilities and potentialities…On each level of organization different possibilities appear as constituent parts, by their interaction organize into new configurations in which the constituents behave differently as they participate in a different organization or field.

The opening words were cited by Dr. Howard Thurman in his book, The Search for Common Ground. Written by Lawrence Frank, social scientist and parent educator, these words come from his book, Nature and Human Nature. His words are hopeful words if we feel stuck this New Year…they describe the reality of our humanity…as both stable and orderly but also plastic and flexible. It is further evidence that as Thurman points out in his poem, Life Seems Unaware, there is reason for hope, built into the design of Nature herself…of which we are a part. Speaking of dark days, such as we currently are experiencing, he wrote:

…Of this bleak desolation, Life seems unaware:

Seeds still die and live again in answer to their kind;

Fledgling birds awake to life from the prison house of shell;

Flowers bloom and blossoms fall as harbingers of fruit to come;

The newborn child comes even on the wings of death;

The thoughts of men are blanketed by dreams

Of tranquil days and peaceful years,

When love unfettered will keep the heart and mind

In ways of life that crown our days with light.

Like the world of which we are a part, we are capable of entering new patterns and diversified combinations. Not only have we not exhausted the possibilities and potentialities, but the constituents of each possible configuration are capable of behaving differently. Now Frank was speaking as a scientist, one whose presumably last book was entitled On the Importance of Infancy written in 1966. His interdisciplinary approach to the importance of child development was used in teacher and parent education. He saw what I have seen…an orderliness, but also a flexibility…a profound ability to adapt to each situation thrust upon it, yet also, in many cases, a profound sensitivity to life, one that enables the individual to behave differently depending on the environment in which she lives.

We are always capable of behaving differently…so that we can participate in a new organization or field…one in which love unfettered can play a larger part. It is Thurman’s idea of unfettered love that may have influenced Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

We will be celebrating the Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday the next time we are together…with the Northern California Martin Luther King, Jr. Foundation. But I see this not only as a celebration, but as a possible turning point…one that contains this possibility…this potential for a new way of being in the world. It is a time to examine King’s life, as well as it’s connection to Thurman, as an illustration of this possibility…this potential. In defining this love unfettered, King was careful to differentiate between the sentimental type of love that we will be hearing about in our materialistic culture’s celebration of Valentine’s Day and another kind of love…what he sometimes referred to as agape love. This is the love of all of creation as the reality with which we are confronted each day…it is the love-ethic of Jesus, spoken about by Howard Thurman like this:

The religion of Jesus makes the love-ethic central. This is no ordinary achievement. … With sure artistry and great power [Jesus] depicted what happens when a person responds directly to human need across the barriers of class, race, and condition. Every person is potentially every other person’s neighbor. Neighborliness is nonspatial; it is qualitative.  A person must love her neighbor directly, clearly, permitting no barriers between.

This is indeed no ordinary achievement. To love someone who is attacking you is not easy, but if we believe that God loves us all…that God makes the sun to shine on the evil as well as the good...the rain to fall on the just and the unjust…then it follows that we must love our neighbor as ourself…and that every person is potentially our neighbor. This is an important distinction, for otherwise we might dismiss the love-ethic altogether as idealistic…as unrealistic. King writes further of this love:

I am convinced that love is the most durable power in the world. It is not an expression of impractical idealism, but of practical realism. Far from being the pious injunction of a Utopian dreamer, love is an absolute necessity for the survival of our civilization. To return hate for hate does nothing but intensifies the existence of evil in the universe. Someone must have sense enough and religion enough to cut off the chain of hate and evil, and this can only be done through love.

This is an important reminder in our present moment. The love King is talking about is practical…it is a necessity in our living today, for if we do not love our neighbor, our fellow creatures, the plants, the natural world, the earth herself, we will not protect them from hurtful behaviors…from pollution, destruction…from violence and oppression. The only way to harness the power of love is to recognize our interconnectedness…our evolution from the same source…our part in this unfolding mystery called life. King’s vision was one that include the transformation of our hate and evil when we access the most durable power in the world…indeed Thurman agreed.

My undergraduate advisor at San Francisco State was philosopher Jacob Needleman. In an interview with Michael Lerner, he was asked his view of what love is. Of course, he could not come up with a clear and concise definition, but he certainly would have agreed with both Thurman and King…Love is necessary. He also may have read Lawrence Frank…he may have  known something about his work, for he wrote the following words:

For there is nothing to guarantee that we will be able to remain long enough or deeply enough in front of the unknown, a psychological state which the traditional paths have always recognized as sacred. In that fleeting state between dreams, which is called “despair” in some Western teachings and “self-questioning” in Eastern traditions, a [person] is said to be able to receive the truth, both about nature and her/his own possible role in the universal order.

This is a profoundly difficult task, one that we may indeed see as sacred…as an act of love…truly loving creation. It is my hope today that we may learn to remain long enough and deeply enough in front of the mystery…in view of the possibility and potentiality of new configurations. We proceed with the self-questioning that is a necessary part of our ability to receive truth…and to take up the mantel of our possible role in transforming the universal order.

I am writing this on the day our own president has initiated a military attack (from the Department of War) on the regime of Nicolás Maduro in Venezuela. This is not the transformation of the universal order, as much as the president might say it is. Instead, this is business as usual for a government that could be accused of the same crimes as Maduro’s, such as…Authoritarian Rule, Human Rights Violations, Electoral Fraud, Media Control and Censorship. 

This was the impetus, I believe, for an email I received announcing a protest here in San Francisco. At the end of the email, my friend wrote: Those who are silent give consent. He is right. We cannot be silent. We must decide…decide to cut off the chain of hate and evil and learn to love.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?list=RD5k1rqpFZYl8&v=5k1rqpFZYl8