After the election I was stunned, shocked and especially with the part of me that was living in denial. That day I kept myself as grounded as possible very methodically and simply by showing up to be with you. Then I met with about 20 of you in Emerson House and I noticed my shock was beginning to melt away.
During the remainder of the week I found myself struggling with how much or how little to address the results of the election for last Sunday’s service (Nov. 13), and the biggest part of my struggle was when I questioned myself as having any possible message that would assuage the pain and loss and address the fear and uncertainty, that so many were feeling.
I decided at the beginning of the service I would welcome everyone and address the feelings of fear and uncertainty and encourage a sense of renewed resolve for us to speak and live our UU principles in ways we have never been called to do before this time. Certainly the welcoming of new members into this fellowship was a sign of hope. Then came the place in the service where we heard from a few committees, and now, looking back, I would choose differently. While it can be important to move on with life, in that moment it was not satisfying for me and for some of you. We can’t go back, but this week (Nov. 20) I want to address what I think is important for us to recognize as we gather together each Sunday from this day forward.
Our nation has changed and we are changed by it, and it’s a transformation that seemed to take place in an instant and the face of this transformation, this change in our nation and in our lives, is not good … it feels out of control, oppressive, and unsure. I’ve listened to many of you talk about how afraid you are, some of you are afraid for your life — others are afraid of the threat of losing the progressive ground we’ve worked for so hard. I’ve listened to how afraid many of you are for your children and grandchildren and everyone is fearful of the unknown, asking what will tomorrow bring?
The change is not good … yet. From this moment forward you and I are being called to rise up in a way that I have only read about in the history books.
Since the election the most vulnerable people and the people experiencing fear in greater capacity are people of color, women, Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgendered and Queer, Muslims, Mexicans, Latinos, and Asian people. If you identity as any of them or you feel you are exceedingly more vulnerable today than you were before the election would you be willing to rise? As a woman and a lesbian, I stand with you.
Those of you seated will you stand with us in solidarity for peace and justice, compassion and love? If ever there was a time, such a time as this is when we must choose to live our lives in ways that we’ve never been called to do before. Please be seated.
The call is so real and at times so scary and overwhelming, that knowing what to do feels like walking through thick fog unsure of the ground below your feet to be faithful to your every step. I’m not sure, yet, what can be done but I know with your help and our support in solidarity we can figure it out together.
Often, Unitarian Universalists are accused of remaining silent or at least unwilling to look evil in the eye and admit that some human beings, by their choices, have stepped across an invisible but absolute line, forfeiting forgiveness. (V.Safford). The stories of our Unitarian and Universalist ancestors need to rise up and remind us of how to face our nation’s future soon to be led by a human being who offers nothing but the very values we’ve been fighting against all these years. Yes, history can repeat itself if we focus on all the stories that come to mind when we imagine this president-elect in power, stories like the stories of Hitler and stories of the Holocaust. But history has other stories to tell, like the stories of the Buddha, Jesus, Mohammed, Gandhi, and Martin Luther King Jr, and there are many more stories in our history that offer hope and change and power to the people who rose up for good:
the civil rights story
the women’s movement story
the marriage equality story
the story of Unitarians and Universalists
the story of RVUUF
and your story …
The stories we tell ourselves and each other about what is possible are the stories we need to be telling. While there is a place for our fears there is also a place where to ground our fears … and that is in universal love … but if we keeping telling ourselves that love is weak or sentimental, it will only fuel our fears. For such a time as this if we ground our fears in love and remember the stories of possibilities there remains the question that keeps ringing within me and that is the question: where do we find hope …?
If we believe the story that tells us our religious diversity could work against us for such a time as this, especially when each of us believes in God differently or we have no belief or faith in any God or the story that the election has caused us to doubt humanity itself, belief in those stories could separate us from each other and drive us towards feeling helpless and hopeless. I believe in my bones that what empowers our connection to each other in such a time as this are the stories of our search and finding love and hope. The author, historian, playwright and social activist, Howard Zinn, titled his biography, You Can’t be Neutral on a Moving Train. He wrote (paraphrased):
“TO BE HOPEFUL in bad times is not just foolishly romantic. It is based on the fact that human history is a history not only of cruelty, but also of compassion, sacrifice, courage, kindness. What we choose to emphasize in this complex history will determine our lives. If we see only the worst, it destroys our capacity to do something. If we remember those times and places—and there are so many—where people have behaved magnificently, this gives us the energy to act, and at least the possibility of sending this spinning top of a world in a different direction. And if we do act, in however small a way, we don’t have to wait for some grand utopian future. The future is an infinite succession of present moments, and to live now as we think human beings should live, in defiance of all that is bad around us, is itself a marvelous victory.”
Today, almost two weeks after the election results, I have experienced myself coming out of the fog though still not sure of the steps to take but secure in knowing the ground is still beneath my feet. While the question of hope continues to ring within me I have found myself singing a hopeful song that you all know and it’s a song deeply embedded in the Jewish experience. The music was written by Harold Arlen, a cantor’s son who parents were from Lithuania. The lyrics were written by Yip Harburg, born to Russian-Jewish immigrants who lived in New York City.
In 1939 it was a fearful time for Jews in Europe with massacres of Jews and the Holocaust about to happen. These two men reached into their immigrant Jewish consciousness and wrote an unforgettable melody with prophetic lyrics. If you sing or listen to the words with the context of Jewish survival you will no longer think of Oz:
“Somewhere over the rainbow way up high. There’s a land that I heard of once in a lullaby. Somewhere over the rainbow skies are blue, and the dreams that you dare to dream really do come true. Someday I’ll wish upon a star and wake up where the clouds are far behind me. Where troubles melt like lemon drops away above the chimney tops that’s where you’ll find me. Somewhere over the rainbow bluebirds fly. Birds fly over the rainbow. Why then, oh why can’t I? If happy little bluebirds fly, beyond the rainbow, why, oh why can’t I?”
In 2014 the Oscars were celebrating the 75th anniversary of The Wizard of Oz and the planners of the event asked Pink to sing “Somewhere Over the Rainbow.” Pink’s mother is Jewish of Lithuanian background, I’m told, and a Rabbi in New Jersey wrote the following after hearing Pink sing this popular song at that celebration:
“I wasn’t thinking about the movie. I was thinking about Europe’s lost Jews and the immigrants to America. And I’m struck by the irony that for 2,000 years, the land that the Jews heard of “once in a lullaby’ was not America, but Israel. The remarkable thing would be that less that 10 years after the song was published, the exile was over, and the State of Israel was reborn. Perhaps the dreams that you dare to dream really do come true.”
Honoring the founders of RVUUF today and every year at this time can help you remember that dreams really can come true if you dare to dream them. You can also remember that hope is still alive when you tell stories that might not otherwise be heard, or that might otherwise be forgotten.
This fellowship is part of the American society, but as a religious institution we stand apart as well, called to see the world both as it is and as it could be. When we remember and tell the stories whether forgotten or forbidden both terrible and beautiful stories, it is one way that we can hold the brokenness, injustice and suffering, we are experiencing today.
I think we can agree that we human beings require, food, water, shelter, air, music and stories. Something in us needs to speak and to be heard, to sing and hear music, to forgive and be forgiven, to speak our truth and listen for the truths of others. Part of our vocation as religious human beings is to aid and abet the transmission of beauty and truth and to remind each other of the possibility of hope especially when we find ourselves living in fear. When the weight of the world seems to be closing in on you or when you hear another terrible story and it feels like there is no evidence of hope especially when masked with cynicism and apathy, remember the story of the Rainbow Song and how it gave you some hope today as we sang it together. I believe each of us has a story, some are terrible, painful stories but just as many are hopeful stories – if you keep surrounding yourself with people who promote peace and justice, and love and compassion I believe a terrible story can be transformed into a story of hope. You and your stories hold the hope for every person who walks through your life and through our doors at RVUUF, especially at such a time as this.
Rev. Nan L. White
RVUUF Developmental Minister
Rev. Nan L. White delivered this sermon on Sunday, Nov. 20, at Rogue Valley Unitarian Universalist Fellowship. Rev. White will offer another “post-election” gathering on Tuesday, Nov. 29, from 6:30 to 7:30 p.m. in Emerson House. “May you all have a happy Thanksgiving.”