“There is a rewarding, even exhilarating, role for each of us in making democracy real.”

          ~Frances Moore Lappé and Adam Eichen, Daring Democracy

When I think back to Barack Obama’s historic election win on
Nov 4, 2008, and the moving speech he delivered that night, one particular moment stands out to me. He said,

This victory alone is not the change we seek. It is only the chance for us to make that change. And that cannot happen if we go back to the way things were. It can’t happen without you, without a new spirit of service, a new spirit of sacrifice.

I remember that moment with clarity, watching in a friend’s living room in Richmond, Virginia – for though I had been a supporter of Obama’s since his Illinois Senate run, as the camera panned over the beautiful sea of faces in Grant Park, I knew they weren’t hearing him. Every face in that crowd said, “He is our hope.” Even as he warned us that night that he would disappoint us, and that it was up to us to take this chance to fight to reshape our policies and our institutions, and even as I felt our collective joy at the prospect of the more united America he invited us into, I sensed a collective yearning to return to the way things were. I could almost hear it, like a whisper: We have our new president now – all will be well. Not all of us, surely – but enough of us – had fought hard to elect Obama in order to go back to sleep.

Our fifth principle affirms “the right of conscience and the use of the democratic process in our congregations and in society at large.” This is what we hold, together, to be true: that democracy, wedded to conscience, works. As UUs we should, as Susan Frances has recently reminded us, understand our congregational meeting as a holy ritual. For our denomination, General Assembly, where I’m headed this week for the first time, is likewise an annual act of consecration of our covenant. We UUs should also understand democracy as communal, both in the sense that it happens in our community, and in the sense that it’s a form of communion. Democracy is messy – this should be no surprise to us. And even in our UU havens, where there is so much shared sentiment, we cannot count on our ideas to be uniform or consistent. Quite the contrary: we can count on disagreement. So it is not the sameness of our ideas that holds us in covenant, thank goodness! It is our shared principles, which we eternally work out, work through together – one of which is affirmation of the democratic process, messy as it is. This congregational experience serves to inform our participation in democracy at a higher level.

Democracy is sacred, communal, messy — it’s also ongoing. Our shared experience helps us understand that elections are a first step, not a last, in our democratic participation. I am as guilty as anyone of forgetting this, truly. But I am learning my lesson these days. Hannah Arendt, in The Origins of Totalitarianism, argues that totalitarianism rises in cultures where atomized individuals, in the absence of intervening institutions, such as families or unions or philanthropic organizations, are susceptible to regime propaganda. Unable to deal with the messiness of life, in the absence of opportunities to create shared understanding and solidarity with one another, these atomized individuals seek a simplified understanding that the regime supplies, with what Arendt calls a “lying consistency.” As we’ve been learning in our Tuesday night series, this is the status that totalitarianism exploits for its own purposes. If this sounds familiar enough to make you nervous, you’re not alone. But as we have also learned earlier this year in our Tuesday night series, if totalitarianism requires atomization, democracy requires community, and supplies it. As the authors of our UUA common read, Daring Democracy – Frances Moore Lappé and Adam Eichen – so ably document, our participation in democratic organizations and movements not only thwarts anti-democracy forces and helps build democratic policies and institutions, it also “meets deep emotional needs” for community. There is no getting around the fact that democracy is participatory – if it isn’t, it’s not democracy.

As Obama tried to warn us, it can’t happen without us. Democracy doesn’t just allow participation by the people, for the people – it requires it. We don’t get to go back to the way things were. But the good news is that, as we build democracy together, again and again, we find each other in the work. And that, friends, is part of the good news of Unitarian Universalism. As we affirm the democratic process, we find each other in it. In these days so fraught with state terror, I find myself brokenhearted in a daily way. Most recently, in the face of families being separated, and of environmental policies overturned and scientific findings willfully ignored, there are some days when I wonder whether I can bear it. I am a person of immense privilege, and my practice in this world generally is to move through it without permission to falter – after all, those most affected by state terror don’t get to quit fighting, so why should I? Even so, I confess these days, sometimes it is hard to find the strength to stay woke. Where I find my solace and my hope, though, is in people in the struggle. It is a joy and a source of strength to see them at their rallies, on their picket lines, on their news beats. On good days, when I’m feeling sound of body, I join them. And often, dear ones, I find you there, and it gives me heart. Democracy is the sacred work of our denomination, and it is one of the gifts we bring to the larger community, nation, and world. Our children and our earth are calling us to this sacred duty. May it be so. May we make it so. Blessed be.

© June 18, 2018