Matt Alspaugh

November 13, 2016

Message I – Grieving

This was not the sermon I had hoped to write, for today. It is most likely not the sermon you hoped to hear. Well, there may be some who are happy with the outcome — and you are welcome here, too! Just please, don’t gloat. Because if you’ve been alive long enough, you know that you will have losses and disappointments to offset the wins, too.

On Tuesday, the American people spoke. Or at least of those who were eligible and registered to vote, and could have voted, approximately half did. And through an arcane 18th century voting system known as the Electoral College — that system designed, rigged — surprise — to protect slavery! — they again selected the number-two candidate, based on votes cast. But I digress. Let me set my sour grapes aside.

If you were like me, if you were like many of us, you were shocked, disappointed by the outcome of this election. I know many friends were in tears, or shouting at the TV, ranting online, laying awake that night, stunned.

We are grieving, my friends. We are grieving for those around us we love.  Our member Molly Toth — she couldn’t be here — told of her grief, as she thought of her people:

I jumped from the people I love who have health insurance only because of the Affordable Care Act … and what would happen to them if it’s rolled back, if the Medicaid expansion is undermined;

to the people I love who are low-income, who rely on SNAP to feed their kids and HEAP to heat their homes, and what would happen to them if either are cut, how they’d survive;

to the people I love who are retired, who have had pensions cut, hospitalization taken from them, who rely on Social Security or Disability to pay rent, buy groceries, and survive;

to the people I love who are black and brown and queer and trans and what message this sends to them, to my Little Sister who is biracial and beautiful and smart and deserves to live in a world that honors her talents and maximizes her potential;

to the people I love who are brown and facing deportation, … and what will happen when “people who’ve overstayed their welcome” are sent back to homes they can’t return to;

to the people I love who have had abortions, will have abortions, and what will happen to them when the last clinics in Ohio close and the slow chipping away at Roe becomes a steady jackhammering;

to the people I love from this blue collar city, who remember or are the genetic inheritors of the trauma of Black Monday, when the steel mills closed and their lives effectively ended. What will they do when they learn they were duped? When they learn that their jobs aren’t coming back, were never coming back, can’t come back?[1]

We are grieving.

We are grieving because a hoped-for world — however imperfect that hoped for world would have been, will not be. We are grieving that many of our values have been rejected by so many around us. Just as we might grieve the death of a dear friend, or a broken relationship, we grieve what the next few years will bring.

With this grieving, as with all grieving, there are other emotions. For many, anger. Beneath the anger, fear. For others, worry. Beneath the worry, despair. However we find our emotions welling up, let’s pay attention to them, identify them, even befriend them as right and appropriate in this moment.

Even if we are able to label the suffering, we will want to avoid rushing too quickly to numb the pain. For in fully living with our suffering, a path to healing ourselves opens up, and in following that path, we can begin the work of healing ourselves, the country and the world.

I believe one of our great Unitarian ministers, the Reverend A Powell Davies puts it more eloquently than I can:

When sorrow comes, let us accept it simply, as a part of life. Let the heart be open to pain; let it be stretched by it. …. An open heart never grows bitter. Or if it does, it cannot remain so. In the desolate hour, there is an outcry; a clenching of the hands upon emptiness; a burning pain of bereavement; a weary ache of loss. But anguish, like ecstasy, is not forever. There comes a gentleness, a returning quietness, a restoring stillness. This, too, is a door to life. Here, also is the deepening of meaning – and it can lead to dedication; a going forward to the triumph of the soul, the conquering of the wilderness. And in the process will come a deepening inward knowledge that in the final reckoning, all is well.[2]

And so, may your anguish lead to an open heart, and to your feet on the path, going forward, conquering the wilderness.

Observation – Kerry Planty

(Kerry Planty is a UUYO member)

I understand. There are a lot of crazy things going on in the world right now and people are scared. We want to feel safe again. We are looking for something new to replace the broken old. We open our ears to shared fears. We are promised security if we give in to hate. The Dark Whispers in our souls clear their throats and start speaking, start yelling. We are told our fears are justified. We are told “don’t think about it, yell louder”, that the details and facts don’t matter. We start tearing each other down. We divide ourselves even more.

But, hate has never built anything that love can’t overcome. Hate burns hot, but it cannot maintain itself. Love will eventually quench what remains.

So, love. Love even if, right now, you don’t want to love. Keep your heart open though it may get bruised. Be the peace we all desire. Be there once the hate fizzles out. It is going to be OK. 

Message II – Understanding

Knowing what we are up against

We’ve seen all the various bits, the memes, the posts, about the extreme Trump voters that advocated murdering or imprisoning Clinton. We’ve heard the racist, sexist, xenophobic, homophobic language from this crowd.

For many of us, it became easy to lump all Trump supporters together as alt-white crazies, rural, uneducated. It is as easy for us to tell a story of our opponents as two-dimensional as the story they told of us.

More complicated stories

But easy is not right, nor is it the truth. Some of the stories are more complicated. Consider a white nationalist interviewed by Evan Osnos in newyorker.com, who sees Trump’s victory as a vindication for his white racism.  But he also says,

“Here in the town I live in now, there’s one factory that employs the majority of the men in the town, close to five hundred jobs, and it was just slated to close in the next six months. And everyone is wondering: what are we going to do?”[3]

So the larger picture was more involved. As the newyorker tells us,

It was never enough to say that the Trump phenomenon rested only on whites without a college degree. They were part of Trump’s surprise but not all of it. The real shocks were the fence-sitters, the late-breakers, the Bush-family types, and the suburban women.

And there were many others who were voting not so much for Trump as against Clinton, desperate for change of any kind.  They — baby boomers especially — wanted to smash the mechanism of a corrupt and uncaring government.

Then, for many of us, maybe most of us, there are the family members, cousins, in-laws and friends, who turn out to be on the other side. We see them across the chasm of a deepening political divide. We struggle to understand what motivates them. We may wonder how, or even if, we will retain relationships with them.

Going into the deeper fear

But we are spiritual progressives, called to do the profound moral work of our faith. We’re asked to have compassion for those who oppose us, to try to understand who they are and what drives them.

We need to avoid listening to The Dark Whispers in our own souls, as Kerry Planty called them. We need to avoid drawing back in fear, or tearing each other down.

We need to approach our opponents with genuine curiosity, have conversations, and listen. We need to avoid trying to convert them, and listen. We need to ask the deeper questions, if they will allow us to, so we can understand their real fears and yearnings.

Meeting after church

We’ll actually have a chance to begin having such conversations, in small groups, downstairs, after this service. We may not be talking with those who disagree with us, but still, we can begin the practice of going deeper. To explore our feelings. To explore what fears and hopes drive our own political points of view.

And from here, we can go out. We begin to have conversations with those with whom we disagree. We can listen, and begin to understand them.

Understanding is not agreement

And yet. — we need to understand our opponents, but we do not have to agree with them.

Whenever their values lean toward marginalization, let us defend the inherent worth and dignity of every person.

Whenever their values are built upon lies and deceit, let us promote truth and meaning.

Whenever their values lean toward authoritarianism, let us defend the right of conscience and the democratic process — and seek to repair it.

Whenever their values lean toward isolationism and war, let us lean toward world community with peace, liberty and justice for all.

Whenever their values ignore the earth, let us defend the web of life, of existence of which we are a part.

Over time, by understanding the deeper emotions, we may change the story, so that those who disagree with us begin to change their views. It is possible.

Consider how American attitudes toward gays, lesbians, bi and trans people have shifted tremendously in a generation. This shift is primarily because of connections and relationships. Three quarters of Americans [4] say they have a friend, relative or co-worker who is openly LGBT. These connections formed the basis for the political will to change laws for LGBT rights, including same-sex marriage.

Indeed, through relationships, we might begin to find common ground with those who oppose us. Perhaps on good jobs for everyone who wants to work. Perhaps on the need of everyone for basic medical care when they need it. Over time, we may be able to craft a new story for America. But the first step is understanding ourselves and those around us.

The first step is knowing the stories.

Reading – From J.R.R. Tolkien, Lord of the Rings – Monica

FRODO: I can’t do this, Sam.

SAM: I know. It’s all wrong. By rights we shouldn’t even be here. But we are. It’s like in the great stories, Mr. Frodo. The ones that really mattered. Full of darkness and danger they were. And sometimes you didn’t want to know the end. Because how could the end be happy. How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad had happened. But in the end, it’s only a passing thing, this shadow. Even darkness must pass. A new day will come. And when the sun shines it will shine out the clearer. Those were the stories that stayed with you. That meant something. Even if you were too small to understand why. But I think, Mr. Frodo, I do understand. I know now. Folk in those stories had lots of chances of turning back only they didn’t. Because they were holding on to something.

FRODO: What are we holding on to, Sam?

SAM: That there’s some good in this world, Mr. Frodo. And it’s worth fighting for.[5]

Message III – Acting in Love

We are not alone.

As spiritual progressives we need to remind ourselves that we are not some minor fringe element, but that our values represent those of most Americans:[6] Consider:

59% of Americans believe immigrants strengthen our country.[7]

58% of Americans favor replacing the Affordable Care Act with a federally funded healthcare program providing insurance for all Americans.[8]

64% of Americans say they are worried … about global warming.[9]

In most of these cases, the momentum is increasing in favor of our values. So our challenge is to act, to work, to partner with others to channel this momentum.

Hard work ahead

Molly Toth wrote:

But now everything will be a lot harder with Republican control of the House and Senate, an unpredictable conservative leader with powerful people surrounding him in the White House, a return to a conservative Supreme Court. We’ll have to fight like hell, fight tooth and nail to preserve what we have that is good so that in the future, when the tides turn and our country is more amenable to progress, we can do more and do it better.

I agree with Molly. It will be harder. But I also remember when Bill Clinton was president, and had a Democratic congress. He should have had an easy time getting legislation passed, but there was plenty of internecine strife, and in two years both House and Senate switched to Republican majorities. I wouldn’t be surprised to see that kind of switch again.

We have work to do, and plenty of it – but let us not despair.

Some of us will need to pause, and catch our breaths, even to hole up for a bit, allow some down time to re-energize our spirits. That’s OK. Better that than to break down or burn out. Take needed rest.

Others of us will need to be doing something, anything, large or small, to remind ourselves that we are still in the fight, not giving up, that we are still somebody. That’s good too. Even small things will give us a sense of purpose while we organize our larger ideas, individually and collectively. 

A small thing – a safety pin

Let me give you an example of a small thing that many of us may want to do in this time of greater hostility toward immigrants, LGBT people, women, and people of color.

After the anti-immigrant Brexit vote in the United Kingdom, progressives began to wear safety pins as a small act of solidarity for immigrants. The safety pin said, “I am a safe person.” “I will do what I can to help you be safe.”

This act of solidarity has spread to the US. Today our greeters will pass out safety pins, which you may take, or not — remember some of you may just need to rest.

But if you take a safety pin, before you wear it, you might want to contemplate what you are saying by wearing it. Would you interrupt a hostile situation involving a person on the margins? Such intervention is rarely about confronting the hostile person. If you encounter someone saying racist or sexist things to a person the best thing is often to ignore the abuser, and to say hello to the person being abused, to ask them how they are. In effect you replace hate with love. You might choose to learn more about this, before wearing your safety pin.

Safety pins are a small thing, a first step on the long road ahead. 

The long view

As Rev. Peter Morales, President of our Unitarian Universalist Association, put it:

This is a time to take a deep breath and a long view. Our role as religious progressives committed to democracy, compassion and human dignity is to help bend our culture toward justice. Think of issues like marriage equality and civil rights. The laws change when attitudes change. Our role is to help change attitudes, to lead by example. [10]

The road before us is long, but let us not despair. My own spirituality is based on Buddhist concepts. Sometimes I use this chant.

Beings are numberless; I vow to save them.
Delusions are inexhaustible; I vow to end them.
Dharma gates are boundless; I vow to enter them.
Buddha’s Way is unsurpassable; I vow to become it.[11]

The essence of this paradoxical Zen chant is that we are willing to undertake impossible tasks. So if we are willing to undertake impossible tasks, then the very hard tasks should be easy, right?

Some time ago, I preached on the various kinds of love. The early Christians had at least four kinds of love: eros, romantic love, philia, brotherly love; storgé, familial love; agape, love of god.

What I realize now is that there is no word for love that moves, that acts in the world. Active love is the love that many of us talk about when we use that word love. So when we speak of loving our country, or loving the earth, we don’t mean merely passive feelings. We mean helping people, doing things to make the country better, acting to save the earth.

It is with active love, that we take to the road, the long road ahead, to seek that far-off destination that we can only dream about.