by Rev. Kathleen McTigue, November 7, 2004
It's been a difficult week. I think that's probably safe to say for most of us, and safe even to say of those who count themselves on the side of the winners in the elections we've just lived through. It's been a deeply polarized electoral season, and that's hard on everybody, even when your candidate or your issue wins. There is a lot of dis-ease: there were plenty of people in both political parties who voted with doubt in their hearts and worry on their minds, in addition to those who voted with clear conviction.
But there's no denying that the week has been hardest on those of us who count ourselves on the liberal side of things politically, since conservatism in many forms is on the rise. The conservative religious base that helped sway this election has some very specific social commitments, and their vision is quite different from the liberal vision on issues we all care about. The gulf that separates us ideologically can feel very wide.
Amid all the commentary after the elections, a leader in the French cabinet summed it up by saying that there was now "a great mutual incomprehension" between the two sides of the Atlantic. Many of us within this country feel that same "mutual incomprehension" toward one another, and it's painful. Add to this our general dread about the war in Iraq, the economy and the environment, and a lingering distrust of the election results -- and it's not hard to understand why those of us who consider ourselves political progressives have been suffering this week.
So it seems a good day to rally our energy with one another, to bow to our disappointment and our fears but not let them bind us. Life goes on, the world is still turning, and along with our disappointment there is a lot to celebrate. The energy and solidarity that have been generated, the grassroots connections made, are all still with us and there to be built on. It's a good time to remember that the work of peace-making and justice-making has never been a work that hinges on one election, on one victory or defeat, even on one era. It's the work of a lifetime.
And that isn't just because it takes a long, long time to bring a vision into reality. It's because of its very nature, this is a work that's never done. The institutions we create, just like the people who create them, are never finished. Human beings are not like marvelous gourmet concoctions that we labor over, finally put into the oven and then take out at the right moment and say proudly, "It's done!" We're never "done", as human beings; we keep on growing and changing and deepening ourselves toward wisdom and truth all the days of our lives. That's also true of our nations, our governments and every institution we create. They are never "done", never finished; we will always be pushing and prodding them to live up to the vision we hold.
To me, the heart of that vision is a question that is more religious and moral than it is political, and it is simply this: "How can we live our lives in a way that lessens some of the suffering of the world?"
It's a question based on an outward gaze. It isn't, "how can I get what I want?", or even "how can I become more safe?" But: "How shall we live in order to lessen the suffering of the world and aid in its healing?" It is a question that rises above rancorous politics. It's one we should ask as religious people, even when we're celebrating victory and feeling our strongest. At a time when we're mourning a defeat, it's a question that grounds us in the path that's still there waiting for us to keep on walking, one step at a time.
Bill Sinkford, President of our denomination, posted a pastoral letter on the UUA website this week. In it he reminded us, "Unitarian Universalism is liberal religion, not liberal politics, [and we should] hold fast to our calling. Political sound bites cannot contain it. Party designations do not describe it. … In every age, it is the role of liberal religion to offer a Gospel of openness, of healing and of hope. Our profession of faith is that the arc of the universe is long, but, with our commitment, it bends toward justice."
It's time to ground ourselves again in this liberal religious faith of ours, and I think that means several things.
First, we should rest a little. It's been a tense and stressful time, and even in the most calm and ordinary days, our regular lives have stress enough and to spare. So it would be a good thing for all of us to take the time to do whatever we need to do to rest our spirits, our minds and our bodies. Sleep a little more than usual. Seek out the company of good friends. Come to worship a little more regularly, and feel the solace and support of those who share your faith. Reclaim your sense of humor. Deepen your spiritual practice, and bring your mind into the comfort and deep peace of silence, where the shouting and the sound bites and the accusations of recent weeks begin to lose their power.
This is not meant as therapeutic advice, although I think it is good therapy. It is part of our religious mandate toward healing. We have to turn our attention to healing ourselves first, to renewing our strength, our humor, our hope. Nobody is the ubiquitous "Energizer Bunny" of commercial fame. We need to take care of ourselves if we're going to keep on taking care of the world around us. So take the time - whatever time you need - to do that.
Second, hold onto the broad view. The wide perspective is part of the liberal heritage, both religious and political. As Unitarian Universalists we are a small minority in this country. But remember that the liberal faith is much larger than our own denomination, and it includes people all over the world. Those who see the world as we do are not a tiny and beleaguered minority, no matter how it feels right at this moment. In every culture and nation, including the most repressed and fundamentalist, others who see the world as we do are trying to open up their societies and prod their fellow citizens toward tolerance and respect, toward equality and peace.
A British woman - not a UU as far as I know - wrote in a recent e-mail passed on to me by a friend: "We have our own faith - not the Faith of the Christian Evangelicals - but our ecumenical conviction that we belong to a broad church. We live a sacred commitment to listen and to embrace all humanity. We cherish the values of consideration and tolerance and pragmatic intelligence. These are the tenets of liberalism. There is absolutely nothing in the world today that tells me we should renounce these values."
That's a statement of faith, and it's one that I share. The values of openness and tolerance are fundamentals of our faith. That they are not values shared by everybody is nothing new. Nor is it news that in times of trouble and fear, people become less open-hearted, less willing to stretch themselves. That is all the more reason for us to ground ourselves in nurturing communities of faith in which these values can continue to flourish. And then we keep on carrying them with us out into the world and doing our best to live from them. History has shown us that over the long haul they act like yeast, and slowly permeate and help to raise up the whole society. Believe it. Believe in the power of these ideals, and believe in your own persistence.
Third, remember the music that flows through every ordinary day we live. In our reading this morning, Gordon McKeeman held up the lovely image of the wistful Japanese emperor, whose fondest dream was to live just one day as each of us live our thousands and thousands of days: as an ordinary human being. The extraordinary gifts held inside each of these ordinary days of ours, all the small elements that compose them, are the healing music of our lives. Turning back to that healing music is not a way to deny disappointment or hide from pain. It's the actual moment-by-moment reality of our lives.
This is where we live: in the sweet weight of a child asleep on our laps; in the pull and yield of bread dough beneath our hands; in the beauty of tree branches bare against blue sky; in the sound of the rain at night. This is where we live: in the small gestures of solidarity, affection, kindness, forgiveness and humor we offer each other and receive. This is where we live; it is where we find our deep sustenance, and it schools us in the choices that always belong to us.
In a poem called, "What We Can Do", Rebecca Baggett writes:
Live cleanly, simply:
One chair for each of us, one for a guest;
Beans every shade of earth in clear glass jars;
Our windows turned to face the rising sun.
Treasure the beauty human hands have made:
Worn-spined books piled high on a pine shelf;
A bowl glazed the colors of grass and water;
A child's red-painted rocker at the hearth.
Walk gently on the earth:
A house stained the color of trees, a leaf-green roof;
A fruit tree planted for each child we bear;
A prayer of thanks for every seed.
There is a lot of political analysis flying around this week. There are lots of ways to pick apart and analyze the campaigns and the elections, and analysis is a good thing. It's a good thing to study what happens to us and learn from it, and usually we learn a lot more from what hurts than from what feels good. But there are deeper, quieter lessons that our lives are always teaching us. The music of every day is what shapes us in the most fundamental way. Turn deeply into that music, into the gift. Listen to it. Love it.
The fourth and last reminder that I would hold up for us today is to simply remember the teachings of our liberal faith. It is precisely in times like this -- when our hearts are grieving and fearful - that our faith should give us something to hold to. We don't much need its guidance when the road is bright and straight, but when it's veiled to us, and ominous we need all the help and hope we can get. So what does our faith teach us?
It teaches us that we live in a world of depth and mystery, where no story is a final one - neither one of victory nor one of defeat. No story is a final one, and never do we understand all there is to know about the plot line. Our faith teaches us to hold ourselves open, to stretch ourselves open, to new insight and wisdom. It teaches us that even our most solid truths are partial, small pieces of a large puzzle that we will be studying all of our lives.
Our faith teaches us transformation. One of the great neglected teachings of Jesus is that we cannot hope to remove the mote from our brother's eye until we first take the beam out of our own eye. The point, already crystal clear back then, has not changed much in more than two thousand years: it always looks easier to go after someone else's blindness than to deal with our own, but it won't work. All of the problems we yearn most sincerely to cure in our world are problems we can find in one form or another within our own hearts and minds. We have to do our work in the world with our attention turned outward and simultaneously gazing in, opening ourselves to being shaped and changed even as we try to make change around us.
Our faith teaches us inclusiveness. It pushes us to see, to name, to resist the barriers we raise in order to define who will be "us" and who will be "them". It pushes us to look beyond the tribal lines, the religious or national lines, the political and racial and gender lines, to figure out how we're going to live together on this small and fragile planet. Our faith pushes us to see, even in those who oppose us, even in those who mean us harm, the same human heart beating.
Our faith teaches us persistence. Our UUA President Bill Sinkford reminded us of those words of a large hope we have all heard many times before: "The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice". Many courageous leaders have spoken those words, including Martin Luther King, but they were first attributed to our own prophet of the nineteenth century, Theodore Parker. In his era, the moral struggle was over slavery, and the truth taught by many of the religious fundamentalists was that the God of the universe had decreed that those of light skin should own those of dark skin. It was a long struggle, and its shadow is still with us; but the persistent voice of justice - the liberal voice, I would add - was the one that carried the day.
Mystery, transformation, inclusiveness, persistence: these are some of the elements of our liberal faith, and they will sustain us. We carry them into each blessed, ordinary day, unfolding one by one, filled - as they have always been filled - with gifts, and with challenge. Let's keep our hearts open to all of it. AMEN.