May We Become What Love Requires—An Opening Prayer by Wayne Martin Mellinger, Ph.D.

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 May We Become What Love Requires


WAYNE MARTIN MELLINGER, PH.D.



Dear friends,

This Thursday evening, November 5, I will offer the opening prayer at the City and Faith Community Summit on Homelessness. Councilmember Oscar Gutierrez asked CLUE’s Housing Justice Work Group to help organize this gathering of faith leaders. CLUE brings a long history of interfaith work for social justice and strong relationships with congregations and clergy throughout our community.

I wanted to share my prayer with you. It speaks to the hardships our unhoused neighbors face, gives thanks for the compassion already at work among us, and asks how our faith communities can take a more active role in making shelter, housing, and belonging possible. These questions touch our Unitarian Universalist commitments deeply: How do we recognize the worth and dignity of each neighbor, and what does love require of us now?

May We Become What Love Requires
Wayne Martin Mellinger, Ph.D.

Spirit of Life,
Source of Mystery and Wonder,
Presence beyond all names and forms—

Gather us in this evening,
people of many faiths and public responsibilities,
neighbors sharing this place
between the mountains and the sea.

Beyond these walls, evening settles over Santa Barbara.
The last light touches the foothills.
Along East Beach, the wind comes off the water.
Someone folds a blanket around their shoulders
and wonders where they will sleep.

Help us pause.
Help us see.
Help us make room.

Across our county, nearly a thousand neighbors
make their sleeping places in vehicles.
A seat reclines. A window clouds with breath.
Morning comes, and someone must get ready for work.

Others search for a shelter bed,
a place they can enter,
a place where they can safely stay.

Our warming centers offer refuge
when forecasts meet the threshold for cold or rain.
Yet bodies grow cold on other nights, too.

And a name on a housing list
may wait for years
while the person bearing that name
must find a way through tonight.

Help us pause.
Help us see.
Help us make room.

May we no longer mistake our fear
for knowledge of a stranger.

May we no longer stare as though a person were a spectacle,
or look through them as though they were absent.

When another’s laughter unsettles our certainty,
when a friend says, “Come, meet my neighbor,”
when we catch ourselves turning away—
keep that small opening open.

For when we learn each other’s names,
we begin to recognize our neighbors.
When we hear each other’s stories,
our easy explanations falter.
When we become friends,
we discover songs we can sing together.
When we share our gifts,
we discover how much we have received.

And where our lives remain different,
may our respect endure.

Spirit of Life,
there is beauty already among us.

We give thanks for Showers of Blessing:
hot water, clean towels, fresh socks,
and the welcome accompanying them.

For New Beginnings’ Safe Parking,
for congregations opening their lots,
and a local practice that has helped communities across the country.

For shelter workers and warming-center teams,
for volunteers preparing meals,
for donors, outreach workers, and neighbors
who return when the work is tiring.

For unhoused people caring for one another—
sharing food, keeping watch,
offering gifts too often unseen.

May gratitude strengthen our commitment.

We must also name what wounds this community:
the insult, the threat, the violence,
the repeated turning away.

We remember those who have died while unhoused.
Each name spoken on the Longest Night
belongs to a life no list can contain.

Let our remembrance change our decisions.

Tonight, help us ask what more we can offer.

Where our congregations hold land,
give us courage to explore its possibilities:
partnerships that could turn ground into homes,
homes people can afford,
homes where someone can close a door
and sleep without fear.

Help our city leaders, faith communities,
housing partners, and unhoused neighbors
plan together—and carry the work beyond this gathering.

Help us stay with the long work
while answering the need before us now.

Step by step,
meeting by meeting,
promise by promise kept—

may our attention become recognition,
our recognition become commitment,
and our commitment become shelter and home.

Help us pause.
Help us see.
Help us make room.

May we bring people inside, out of the cold.
May we become what love requires.

May it be so.
Blessed be, and Amen.


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