Rev. Michelle's Message June 25, 2026

I am so excited that it is time for our annual Pride Sunday Celebration! This special Sunday service has become such a fun, meaningful, and colorful homage to the vibrant diversity that exists among the human family.

Each year on Pride Sunday, we as a spiritual commUnity proclaim full-heartedly and unapologetically that God’s infinite love is fully inclusive and that all people are loved, honored, respected, seen, and accepted just as they are. What a joy! What a beautiful day it will be!

Just a few short weeks ago, I had the honor to give the Invocation at the Del Rey Oaks Pride Flag Raising Ceremony, and I wanted to use this space to share with you the words I spoke that day:

Good afternoon!

First, I want thank John Uy for asking me to do this Invocation today. While I am not a member myself of the LGBTQ+ community, it is a community that is very close to my heart, and I am so incredibly honored to be considered a safe, trustworthy, and loyal ally. My name is Rev. Michelle Vargas and I am Co-Minister of Unity Church of Monterey Bay, a loving spiritual community that is deeply committed to inclusiveness and social justice.

The theme for this event today is “Love Lives Here,” and this is a perfect theme because it is indeed the love that lives here, in our own human hearts, in our neighborhoods and communities, that will save us. Love for our families and friends, love for the stranger, the immigrant, the outsider, love for those whose lives we don’t necessarily understand or even agree with. We don’t have to like one another or see things the same way for us to do the deep, transformative work of loving one another.

Loving one another means wanting the same good things for all other people that you want for yourself and your family. Loving one another means working to ensure that others have the same protections, rights, freedoms, and opportunities that you enjoy. Loving one another means believing deeply that all people deserve justice, equity, and dignity.

Loving one another means honoring, valuing, and respecting others just as they are. Loving one another means allowing others to be fully and thoroughly and unapologetically themselves and to live their truth out loud without fear.

The hardest thing we can do as human beings is to love someone who doesn’t look like us, who doesn’t act like us, who doesn’t speak like us, who doesn’t pray like us, who doesn’t love like us. But this is, indeed, what we are called to do.

But I believe that when we take the time to look deep inside ourselves, we will find there an infinite well of love from which to draw…because love is the truth of who we really are. Love is the power of the universe that created us and that breathes life into us each and every day. Love is what will empower us, nurture us, strengthen us, and sustain us for the work ahead.

So I invite each of you now to turn for just a moment to that love within your own human heart. Some call this love God. Some call it by other names. Place your hand over your heart and feel your own heart beating. Here, within you, is the source of love. Love Lives Here, right here…the love that has the power to change the world.

And when you are unsure of what to do or how to proceed, you can turn to this love, to this human heart of yours, and ask it, what would love do? What would love do? Let the wisdom of your heart guide you in all things. It will never fail you. Remember that loves lives here, right here.

So today, as we raise the beautiful Pride flag, so full of color and joy, as we prepare to welcome a whole month of joyous Pride Events, of celebrating the beautiful rainbow of human diversity, may you be blessed in this important work you do. May you be safe and protected from all harm. May you be guided always by the God of your own understanding and the infinite love that God has for you and for all of Creation. May you go in peace and bravely set forth to do the work that you are called to do.

And may God bless this Pride flag and the beauty and diversity that it represents; may God bless the beautiful city of Del Rey Oaks and all its inhabitants; and may God bless each and every one of you here today. AMEN.

I hope my words might serve as a sort of “invocation” to prepare you for our own beautiful Pride Sunday Celebration Service this week. I so look forward to celebrating with all of you! Wear your rainbow colors!

Pride Blessings,

Rev. Michelle