"After the End and Before the Beginning"

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The Rev. Suzelle Lynch
November 7, 2004

My words for you today will be brief, because, in truth, I am much more interested today in what you have to say.

I'm also interested in what some others are saying, for example, Eugene Kane, one of my favorite Journal-Sentinel columnists. In a column published on the day before the election, Kane wrote, (No time for bitter losers, gloating winners Posted: Nov. 1, 2004 Eugene Kane, Journal Sentinel)

“Consider this one voter's pledge. Starting tomorrow,… If my guy wins, there will be no gloating. …I won't gloat because that would just add salt to the wound. And that wouldn't be good for anyone.
If my guy loses, I won't be bitter.
Sure, I'll be disappointed and more than a little disenchanted that the majority of American voters didn't see things my way.
But bitterness just contributes to the corrosive acid that eats the stomach lining of the body politic. It gives everybody indigestion.
If my guy wins, I won't consider the job done. My concerns and complaints about society won't magically disappear.
If my guy loses, it won't mean the other guy will have a clear mandate to do whatever he wants. It's important to remember, we will all still have a say in what happens to us.
If my guy loses, … I will not assume everybody who voted for the other guy is a dupe or an idiot or oblivious to the facts.
I won't refuse to accept the decision on the grounds that it doesn't make sense.
I will face up to the fact that for millions of fellow Americans, it did make sense.
If my guy wins, I will try to reach out to the other side because I know how it feels to be a loser. We all do: in life, in politics, in love. We know the feeling well.
… If my guy wins - or loses - the first thing I want him to do is reach out to the other side, the side that basically hates his guts.
Hopefully, both candidates will do the reaching, almost immediately after the election has been decided.
That's the time when both men should remind us that our differences as Americans during this campaign were never as great as the things we have in common.
If my guy wins, I will demand that become his first priority. If your guy wins, you should demand it, too." (End Eugene Kane)

Let me confess something to you. In this presidential election, I voted for the guy who lost. I know this is not true for all of us here. Some of us, no doubt, voted for the guy who won. That's just the way it is. And it points to the fact that our purpose here today is not to moan or groan, though some of us may feel like it. Our purpose isn't to gloat, either, though some of us may feel like it. Nor is it really our job today to do a lot of "Monday morning quarterbacking", airing our theories about why one guy won, and the other guy lost, though some of us may feel like it.

Those things are not our job today because, as our UUA president, the Rev. Bill Sinkford said in a statement this week, "Unitarian Universalism is liberal religion, not liberal politics." He said, "… while so many celebrate and so many grieve, I hope that Unitarian Universalists will hold fast to our calling. Political sound bites cannot contain it. Party designations do not describe it. Our congregations need to be religious homes where the reality of both joy and grief, certainty and uncertainty, can be present. …, (I)n every age," Bill continued, "it is the role of liberal religion to offer a Gospel of openness, of healing and of hope." That IS our job today.

I do want to tell you, though, that personally I have been feeling pretty low since the election was finalized. (Note – I wrote the following, but cut it from the spoken sermon because we were time-crunched: Not only because my guy lost, but also because lots of other folks I might have preferred lost in other states, and because of the ballot measures against same-sex marriage that passed. I know it is important to honor my feelings and the fears I have about the kinds of decisions that might be made in the next four years.)

But even when I am at my lowest, I also have a feeling of fierce pride. Like so many UUs across the nation, many of us worked so hard in various ways on the election – registering voters, mobilizing voters, campaigning for candidates, watching polls as volunteers or legal counsel, and more; and that makes me feel incredibly good. This election had the highest voter turnout since 1968, and the largest number of new voters in a very long time. Thank you all so much for your good, hard work. We can all feel very, very good about this resurgence of engagement with our American democratic process. Bill Sinkford affirmed this, too, saying "The democratic process is an act of faith: not faith that any one point of view will prevail, but faith that the will of the people will point us toward the Beloved Community." You who worked so hard prove to me that this act of faith is supremely worth while.

And that points to the thread. The thread or net of threads finer than cobweb and as elastic that Denise Levertov feels invisibly, silently pulling at her. The thread of which William Stafford speaks – the thread you follow that goes among things that change, but does not, itself change. The thread – if you are holding it, you cannot get lost.

The thread is not quite as simple as “the things we Americans have in common," though that's part of it. It’s more like the call Rabbi Michael Lerner brings us back to, the call from the prophets and sages of old that our highest task on earth is to bring more love and kindness, generosity and sanctity into the world.

That call invites those of us whose guy lost to give up our scorn, our disbelief, too-easy opinion that the majority of the country was fooled by the Religious Right. As Eugene Kane said, it means we can't "refuse to accept the decision on the grounds that it doesn't make sense – we have to face up to the fact that for millions of fellow Americans, it did make sense."
It asks us to reach out toward those voters with curiosity. The thread says reach out across the aisle, not by giving up or compromising on what we believe is important and right, but by seeking to understand, and by seeking a way to help ourselves be understood.

The hardest thing for me about this election season has been really, finally, getting it, on a deep level, how very polarized our nation has become. George Bush won both the popular and electoral votes, but by a margin that is far more slim than he seems to realize. As Eugene Kane said, this win does not mean he has a clear mandate to do whatever he wants, no matter how dominant his party or ideology is in all three branches of government.

The truth is more like what John Edwards said more than once in his campaign speeches, there are two Americas. Edwards referred to economics – he spoke of the common man's America versus the America of the privileged, wealthy few. But even more than that, I think we have an America which still believes in the principles of the Enlightenment: critical thinking, tolerance, respect for facts and evidence, and a high regard for the secular sciences; and an America which, in our times of increasing cultural pluralism and fragmentation, times in which conspicuous consumerism is the only way many people have of belonging, has rallied around certain received religious truths, and resents the application of reason to these truths. In other words, in our post-modern, fragmented, fear-based culture, reason and science are for many Americans no longer the way toward progress and perfection; no longer the ultimate arbiters of what is true and right and good.

Here's the other half of that truth. If we are to hold on to the thread, and not get lost, we must remember that this other America also seeks to answer the call from the prophets and sages of old: that our highest task on earth is to bring more love and kindness, generosity and sanctity into the world. Our UU Gospel of openness, of healing and of hope means we must understand that both Americas are part of the Beloved Community, and take action based in this understanding.

So how do we go about doing this? I think we have a lot of learning to do. Eileen Gleeson gave me one clue when we chatted briefly at the auction on Friday night. Eileen teaches the French language, you see, and she was telling me about the foreign language teachers' convention she went to. "Language teachers have a passion for what they do," she said, "for they know they are opening up the world for people." Language teachers understand that they are teaching more than words – they are widening the cultural horizons of their students as well. Our UU Gospel of openness, healing and hope calls us to be bi-lingual – to learn to speak and to understand not only our own language, our own culture, but the language and the culture of the other America as well.

I take another clue from my husband's life. As an American who is not of the dominant culture or race, he has learned how to "walk in two worlds" every day. It's sort of like being two-headed – nearly every part of his daily life is lived in a culture where the group he is part of – Korean-Americans or Asian-Americans – have not made the rules and do not hold key privilege or power. He walks in this world while remaining whole and centered in the knowledge of who he is, culturally. Eugene Kane, and Bill Sinkford, as African Americans, come from this understanding as well. It is not easy to explain, and the living of it is not without peril, heartbreak and anger. But because our values -- even though we know them to be the founding values of our nation -- are no longer the values of the dominant majority, we, too, must learn to walk in two worlds. We must live by new rules, yet remain whole, centered, active and focused in who we know ourselves to be. And from that two-headed, bi-lingual place, we must continue to fight to keep our values alive in this nation.

This is what I mean by holding on to the thread. To remember that my work remains the same as it was before the elections – to bring more love and kindness, generosity and sanctity, justice and compassion into the world. I do fear that it will be a lot harder now, and I worry about the world that my daughter will inherit, but in my best moments, those things only inspire me to keep going. I take great hope from the fact that we and so many other religious liberals across the denominations have been so active in the democratic process. I take hope from the fact that we Unitarian Universalists have managed to hold open the space for religious pluralism and diversity in our nation for more than 100 years. And I take hope from you. From your love and commitment, the love and commitment present right now in this very room.

And so it is that I ask you: how will you hold on to the thread?

Amen.
(Minister's Reflection was followed by a time of Congregation Reflections)