Reclaiming America for Progressive Values

July 3, 2005

Rev. Gretchen Woods

Reading: “The Limits of Tyrants” by Frederick Douglass

Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet deprecate agitation, are people who want crops without plowing up the ground.

They want rain without thunder and lightning; they want the ocean without the awful roar of its waters.

This struggle may be a moral one; or it may be both moral and physical, but it must be a struggle.

Power concedes nothing without a demand; it never did and it never will.

Find out what people will submit to, and you have found out the exact amount of injustice which will be imposed upon them.

The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress.

Sermon: Reclaiming America for Progressive Values

What a trip! Went to General Assembly in Ft. Worth, Texas – the state that thought Unitarian Universalism was not a religion and should pay taxes.

Heard Patrick O’Neill tell us that “Walden is burning” and we had better do something about it, meaning that we may no longer remain recluses in our own country. Then at the Seekers Service on Sunday, Rob Hardies, of the D.C. church, told us we need to be born again . . . and again . . . and again . . ., meaning that we need to keep our religion fresh and open to new understanding.

General Assembly ended, and on Thursday, we noted the first anniversary of the hand-over of Iraq to the Iraqis. 882 U.S. troops died in the 12 months through last Thursday, up from 657 in the preceding year. Most of the suicide bombers are from countries other than Iraq. They are sent in through Syria, suited up and set off. Horrifying! Are liberating Iraq or making it a source of terrorists?

Then, Sandra Day O’Connor retired. More on that another time.

Yesterday we flew home from Texas, including a fly by the Grand Canyon. I was again reminded how beautiful this country is. and now it’s the 4^th of July! A time to celebrate . . . what?

I love this country and will celebrate its values because I know that they are the same as UU values, just twisted over the past 40 years.

At GA, Rebecca Parker, Pres. Of Starr King, told us her family would have a big reunion, with sparklers and hymns, but no Star Spangled Banner” nor “God Bless America” Just hymns that focused upon love of country.

Tomorrow is the BIG Day! Picnics, and fireworks, and patriotic songs. How do we celebrate our country and our love for it in the face a recognition that 1984 has come about 16 years later than expected?

1) First, stop whining! Give up powerlessness. Keep optimistic and keep your sense of humor – as one wag noted, it really annoys those who have other plans for you.

I have to admit that I have been deeply depressed since last November – and that is just what nasty ideologues want us to be: paralyzed and depressed to the point of despair. This is a religious issue. We need to accept moral responsibility for our own mental health.

Don’t blame others. Look to one’s own power.

2) Stop fragmenting our efforts: Be willing to join with others and build coalitions.

Overcome our arrogance and recognize that there are those who share our values. The Methodists are out doing us in the Peace efforts in town. The Roman Catholics are feeding people. I am grateful we have a piece of the South Corvallis Food Bank.

3) Learn your history – and UU history.

Claim Adams, Jefferson, Adlai Stevenson, and Eliot Richardson. The Declaration of Independence was written by a self-described Unitarian and became the basis for the American Creed,as noted by Forrest Church.

4) Don’t be afraid to speak out for Your Moral Values.

Patrick O’Neill:

It is said by some critics that Liberal religion has seemed to lose much of its volume, if not its voice altogether, if not its way altogether, if not its righteous indignation in the face of social and moral causes that once would have lit up our pulpits in moral outrage. The charge has been leveled that Liberal religion has gone all but mute, in far too many places, in behalf of causes that once (at least we like to think) would have pulled our people out of the pews, put their feet in motion, and put their hands to work reclaiming the proper contours of that ancient city on the hill, the one we once imagined, that dreamt-of-society where racism, economic injustice, and warmongering are named for the blights that they are upon the human soul.

Dare we hope to find again . . . (people) who burn with unapologetic indignation in behalf of equal opportunity, equal education, equal health care, decent housing for everyone, the equal right of every person to marry whomever they love, and the right of every woman to be the sole decider of what happens to her body?

. . . Tonight, as we speak, for example, from our privileged place in the midst of an almost obscenely wealthy nation, it is simply shameful, a moral travesty, that upwards of thirty million children under the age of fifteen in America have no medical insurance.

Well, Patrick has given us our marching orders in spades. Are we willing to stand for something or not? Are we willing to not just write to the local newspaper, but put our hands to work and our feet on the pavement? Are we willing to join Martha Clemons, Lee Lawton, Joyce Spain and spend time feeding hungry in Corvallis? Are we willing to work with Chinh Le and Judith Fisher for universal health care? Where does your moral indignation take you?

George Lakoff, the Cognitive scientist and linguist from Berkeley offers us a decent analysis of how the nasty ideologues quite intentionally took over this country by claiming the language and the perspectives of the conversation:

• Show respect for the other side. Don’t act like they are stupid, because they aren’t – or they would not be winning the effort for human hearts that they are.
• Don’t get into a shouting match. You look bad in the process.
• Use control with your righteous indignation.
• Distinguish between ordinary conservatives and nasty ideologues
• Keep your sense of humor
• Be calm
• Don’t whine or go on the defense.
• Conservatives have parodied liberals as weak, angry, weak-minded, softhearted, unpatriotic, uninformed, and elitist. Don’t give them any opportunities to stereotype you.
• Show strength, calmness, and control; an ability to reason; a sense of realism; love of country; a command of the basic facts; and a sense of being an equal, not a superior.
• Know how to frame the issue your way, rather than trying to counter the other’s frames.

What’s a frame: a way of describing what is most important to you that makes your point of view common sense.

E.g., “tax relief” makes assumption that taxes are onerous.

Taxes: what you pay to live in a civilized country, an investment in the future, your dues to be an American citizen.

Repeat the frame over and over for forty years and it becomes common sense. We know this because this is how UU values became the American Creed in the first place. It is also how the nasty ideologues took over our country – not by being stupid, not for lack of thought, but by more than forty years of spending money and effort to reframe the discussion: ergo, “compassionate conservatism,” “No child left behind,” “the Clean Air Act.”

So we cannot answer from their frames. We must reframe with our values.

So always start with values, preferably values all Americans share like security, prosperity, opportunity, freedom.

Our Unitarian Universalist Purposes and Principles are nothing if not a statement of values:

the inherent worth and dignity of every person

Justice, equity and compassion

Acceptance

Spiritual growth

Truth and meaning

Conscience and the democratic process

Peace, liberty, and justice for all

Respect for the web of life

What are we willing to do to spread these values in this country we love?

Have we noticed that these values have been corrupted by counter speak that pretends to say what things are while creating the opposite?

Are we willing to shine the light of truth on the lies and to respectfully repeatedly voice a new, optimistic hope for the future of this country where the old values are returned to their proper place?

Each of us must choose. Together we must choose. It is up to us. We have covenanted together to affirm and promote these values. What are we doing to Promote these values?

That is the call of reclaiming this country for beauty, truth, freedom, and above all, justice.

It is hard and steady work, just like spiritual practice. For some of us, it IS spiritual practice.

As Marge Piercy describes in her poem, “To Be of Use.”

I want to be with people who submerge in the task,

Who go into the fields to harvest and work in a row and pass the bags along,

Who stand in the line and haul in their places, who are not parlor generals and field deserters, but move in a common rhythm when the food must come in or the fire be put out.

The work of the world is common as mud. Botched, it smears the hands, crumbles to dust.

But the thing worth doing well done has a shape that satisfies, clean and evident.

Greek amphoras for wine or oil, Hopi vases that held corn, are put in museums but you know they were made to be used.

The pitcher cries for water to carry and a person for work that is real.

We don’t have to do it alone. We can’t. We do have to work together, with all our intelligence and intention. WE can do it, if we choose to.

Remember, Walden is burning. We have no right not to do it.

Blessed be!