Our ballots arrived at the house yesterday. I’ve been looking for them, anxious to actually have them in hand. I have needed this election, which is somehow different, more dangerous and more fraught, to get concrete.
Even those of us, and there are many when we are honest, who have seen self-interest, greed and cavalier disregard for justice and basic human rights fueling virtually every political decision…for so long…
Whether you believe that view is deeply cynical or simply honest, it is clear to me that we have passed, or are in danger of passing into new territory in which even the flawed promise of our “democratic” system is being shown to be bankrupt.
I am not going to dwell on all the images that confirm and support the spiritual stance of cynicism. The mass rallies that are certainly super-spreader events. A Senate entirely focused on performing the farce of judiciary hearings with the outcome already etched in stone. The report after report after report of transparent voter suppression attempts…too often approved by stacked courts…
How can we stay energized about voting in this flawed system? We know it was designed to protect against majority rule, designed to support racism and protect greed and privilege.
These questions are as real for me as they may be for you.
I have three messages to offer today.
First, if you find yourself angry at the specific assaults on hope that are legion…anger, too, can be a spiritual response if that anger grows out of love and compassion.
Second, if you find yourself inspired by the images of long lines at polling places in Texas and Georgia…allow yourself to see hope in those lines of citizens willing to wait and wait so that the voice of the people is so loud it cannot be denied.
And third, the need for our votes to overwhelm the efforts at suppression may seem like political calculus, a response and an accommodation to the deep dysfunction. But an overwhelming turnout is also the process of enacting our vision, of bringing our vision to life.
Our vision of Beloved Community, of multi-generational, multi-racial, multi-gender Beloved Community has places for us all at that table, in the protest, on that voting line. We are embodying the source of our hope.
Even here in Oregon, where the national election results are not in doubt, local decisions most certainly are. Even here in Oregon, where we do not need to wait in line, the need for high vote tallies is just as necessary.
And it is not too late to make a difference. The article that follows this blog in the e-news has specific opportunities that any of us can take, as many of us have been.
Unitarian Universalism has always had a spiritual center but a civic circumference. Our Social Justice leaders are pointing the way.
Some years ago, in the lead up to another election, I wrote the following prayer. I offer it as we prepare for this election in the hope that you may find something in it for your spirit that can help you reclaim hope, even if to answer the call of love you must begin with your anger.
“We are a gentle and a generous people.
But let us not forget our anger.
May it fuel not only our commitment to
Compassion, but also our commitment
To make fundamental changes.
Our vision of the Beloved community
Must stand against a vision that
Would allow the privilege of the few
To be accepted as just and even holy.
Our religious vision must again and
Again ask “Who is my neighbor?”
And strive to always include more
And more of us.
As we intone the words that gave birth
To this nation, “We the people…”
We are, and we should be, both a
Gentle, and an angry people.”
VOTE.
Bill