A lot of times, this translates to the suggestion that we should be able to pay for all the help we might need. If I can’t repair drywall myself, I should at least be independent enough to pay another person to do that for me. Care becomes transactional. And we’re conditioned to feel good about that transaction. I was able to pay for that meal someone cooked for me, therefore I’m a competent individual!

Many of our Unitarian Universalist values suggest that we might embrace a different model of competence and success. We say that our value of justice means that we work to be diverse multicultural Beloved Communities where all feel welcome and can thrive. People don’t need to worry about whether they can afford the illusion of thriving as a separate isolated individual. People don’t need to put a price tag on the welcoming they receive. 

I’ve been in those places, though. I’ve walked into a room and recognized that people were being treated a certain way because they were perceived as being wealthy, important, more valuable than other people in some way. That illusion is incompatible with our values. No one is more important or valuable than anyone else. We might have different needs, and we look to our communal capacity to address those needs rather than insisting that every person should be personally responsible for transactionally getting what they need. If we honor our value of justice, we welcome everyone and learn what every person needs from our collective in order to experience thriving.   

This points toward our value of pluralism. We are all sacred beings, and we are responsible to one another for treating everyone as a sacred being. All of the gifts and needs that we bring into community are sacred. And our value of equity says that every person is inherently worthy and has the right to flourish with dignity, love, and compassion. This is more than just a lofty ideal. This is a prescription for how we care for one another. We don’t say “Everyone has the right to flourish to the extent they can afford it.” We say every person is inherently worthy of our love and compassion. That’s not an easy ask. It’s spiritual work.

We can embrace this challenging work fully because we don’t hold it as solitary individuals. We value the reality of our interdependence. We are inextricably bound up in relationships of mutuality. None of us does anything alone. Our culture of transactional care might veil this reality. And yet—if we are true to our values—we give and receive care in spiritual community as part of being in mutual relationship. 

And that is, in a sense, what it is to be mothering and what it is to be mothered. To be mutually held and cared for in a way that honors our inherent worthiness and doesn’t imply that we should be able to meet life’s challenges as isolated beings. To experience genuinely interwoven lives that don’t reinforce the illusion that we should be able to do any of it all by ourselves.  Some of us are used to being treated like we’re more valuable than other people. 

Some of us are used to being treated like we’re more valuable than other people. 

Some of us are used to being treated like we’re less valuable than others. 

Some of us are more accustomed to mothering and pretend that we don’t need to be mothered. Some of us are used to receiving care and pretend that we don’t have anything to offer. 

All of us can work together to find the spiritual center of love that our values call us toward,

to dismantle the illusion of transactional care and earned worthiness.

I deeply believe that this is how the world is transformed.