Soul of a Citizen

Rev. Mark Stringer

First Unitarian Church of Des Moines

11/3/02

 

Meditation for 11/3/02

Spirit of Life

That which is greater than all, but present in each.

This has been an unseasonably cold week

In what has been feeling like an unseasonably cold world.

 

Leaves have been falling in bunches of green, yellow and red,

Then drying into crumpled shapes of brown and

Scraping their backs along our rooftops and roads.

The same leaves which just a few days ago
were still clinging to the trees.

The same leaves to which we had grown accustomed…

The same leaves that for some time now have hidden our view,

Allowing us to forget the intricate mesh of branches

Always underneath.

 

Sunlight, now pours through where the leaves once hung,
illuminating our world in surprising new ways.

How grateful we may be for this light

Now that the days are shorter and the air is chilled.

How grateful we may be for this light

Even as we owe its appearance to the loss of our protection,

To the loss of what has kept us hidden from our neighbors and our neighborhoods.

 

What can we learn from the leaves now departed?

What can we now see that was once hidden?

 

The cycle of seasons spins round once again

Littering our piece of the world
with colorful reminders that our cover…our protection…
no matter how full, and rich with color,
is only temporary,

And that there is always more to see than what we find
when days are warm and rich in abundant growth.

Our advancing autumn reminds us, then,

That even in death,
even in the empty spaces,

life is present and waiting to be seen.

Amen.

 

Reading

“I am the People, the Mob” by Carl Sandburg

 

I am the people—the mob—the crowd—the mass.

Do you know that all the great work of the world is done through me?

I am the workingman, the inventor, the maker of the world’s food and clothes.

I am the audience that witnesses history.  The Napoleons come from me and the Lincolns.  They die.  And then I send forth more Napoleons and Lincolns.

I am the seed ground.  I am a prairie that will stand for much plowing.  Terrible storms pass over me.  I forget.  The best of me is sucked out and wasted.  I forget.  Everything but Death comes to me and makes me work and give up what I have.  And I forget.

Sometimes I growl, shake myself and spatter a few red drops for history to remember.  Then—I forget.

When I, the People, learn to remember, when I, the People, use the lessons of yesterday and no longer forget who robbed me last year, who played me for a fool—then there will be no speaker in all the world say the name: “The People,” with any fleck of a sneer in his voice or any far-off smile of derision.

The mob—the crowd—the mass—will arrive then.

 

Sermon

When I hear the word citizen many thoughts go through my mind:

I think of my childhood when I was encouraged by teachers and boy scout leaders to embrace this country and its ideals. 

I think of my high school government class where the inspiring instructor pleaded with us to engage in the democratic process, to vote and to participate in politics.

And when I hear the word citizen, I think of an event during my senior year of college, when my previous notions of what it meant to be a citizen were turned upside-down.

One of the final stops of George Bush’s 1988 presidential campaign was Ashland University, the Ohio school where I was earning my bachelor degree. It’s not surprising that the Bush campaign would choose Ashland for a last minute photo-op, for during my time there, the campus was visited by several big name right-wingers including President Reagan and Casper Weinburger. In fact, just about the only thing liberal about Ashland was that it was a liberal arts college. The day before the election, Bush held a comfortable lead and was scheduled to appear in the campus gymnasium, a comfortable place to show how comfortable everyone was with the idea that he would be the next president. The morning of his appearance, the gym was filling with college students delighted to have their classes cancelled, high schoolers excited to be bussed away from their schoolwork, and local supporters who had all received individual invitations.  Meanwhile, a handful of my professors (a ragtag bunch of renegades from the theatre, English and philosophy departments) and a few of my fellow students and I gathered outside with signs displaying our support for the Democratic candidate, Michael Dukakis. 

People seemed to pay little attention to our demonstration on the way into the gymnasium.  After all, it was evident that we represented just a tiny drop of dissent in a sea of support.  A few members of our university’s Greek system hurled a couple of choice obscenities at us, but that was it…and that was actually kind of funny.  I took great pride in knowing that I could help evoke such passion from the brothers of Sigma Nu. 

After nearly an hour of waiting in the rain, we could see that Bush’s motorcade was turning up King Street and heading our way. The national television cameras were jostled into position to get the best shot of the Vice President exiting the car. We too straightened our backs and positioned our signs so that they would be clearly in view. My heart was beating fast.  I felt like I was doing something important.  I was embracing my right as a citizen to voice my opinion.  I was letting it be known that there were some voters in that small, mostly conservative town who did not agree that George Bush was the best candidate.  It was all very exciting.

Suddenly, in a blur of activity, much like a gust of wind that strips a tree of all its fall color, a group of campaign workers surrounded us with an enormous Bush banner.  Just as my little group started to protest, but before we could get out anything beyond “Hey” or “whoa”, we were covered with an American flag.  Literally…covered.  Underneath this red, white and blue tent being pulled taught by frenetic Bush supporters, I began to grasp how futile my endeavor that day had truly been.  There I was standing out in a cold rain, supporting a candidate who was sure to lose, trapped under an American flag, symbol of the democracy I thought I was embracing by being present that day.

Then in a flash, as quickly as it had appeared, the giant flag vanished.  It was as though the lights had been turned back on. The gray sky and drizzle reappeared and I tried to get my bearings. I turned and saw the last few stragglers of the Bush entourage being sucked into the open door of the gymnasium in one final rush of movement.  As cheers and music came pouring through the cracks of the old building, my defeated companions and I knew we had little more to do but disband and dry off.  Call it a loss of innocence or just a bad day, but what happened that November morning was a critical moment in my early political life.  Now, I had not been naive enough to believe that simply adding my voice to the election would ensure that things would go my way.  But I suppose I had been naive enough to believe that my voice would not be so easily drowned out. I was angry and frustrated. I wondered why I had bothered. And for years, I looked back at the events of that morning as proof that political action was a colossal waste of energy. 

Though the details of our individual stories probably vary, I imagine that many of us may have experienced similar let downs in our political (or public) lives.  I’m not talking about being unwillingly covered with an American flag.  And I am not talking about supporting losing causes or candidates.  I’m talking about the painful discovery that our voices are often not heard, that our efforts may seem futile in the face of what feels like overwhelming opposition…or ignorance…or insanity.

These sometimes little, sometimes big, defeats take their places in our hearts and minds and lead us to believe that we have no choice but to submit to the way things are, to give in to a learned helplessness that actually becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.  Think about it: when our collective participation in civic affairs is limited to an occasional cringe or shake of the head, we can be certain that little will ever change. Waiting for our elected officials or others who hold power to hear our smirks and do something about them, is akin to waiting for Godot. “Irony,” it has been said, “has only emergency use.  Carried over time, it’s the voice of the trapped who have come to enjoy their cage.” (Lewis Hyde)[1]

Cynicism, then, is like fungus that grows over our hearts, taking up the space that could be devoted to hope.  Once we have convinced ourselves that nothing will change, we have no need to do anything to lead to change.  Our inaction does have its illusory upside, though:  by choosing not to act, by choosing not to risk anything, we are certain to not directly contribute to further disappointment.  And yet, when we ignore our potential power as citizens and to choose to retreat into private life, we conspire in our own defeat.  As community organizer Saul Allinsky used to say, people do not suffer from apathy, which means “a lack of feeling.” They suffer from “massive resignation”…a direct result of a cynicism that leads us to deny our feelings, to deny that our choices in this life matter, to deny the redemptive possibilities inherent in our democracy, to deny the redemptive possibilities inherent in our lives themselves.

To fully understand how destructive this pervasive cynicism is, activist and writer Paul Loeb encourages us to imagine what it would be like if we adopted the same approach toward our children, spouses, lovers and friends that we often do toward public life.  He writes, “Pretend for a moment that instead of placing our trust in them, and forgiving their lapses and flaws, we greeted them with derision, suspicion and indifference.  How long,” he asks, “would hope, love, or joy survive under those conditions?”  Loeb contends this is why we resist cynicism in our personal relationships.  He says that we take chances on people, risking disappointment and heartbreak, so that we might encourage our loved ones to develop their best qualities.  Without the risks, he says, “decent relationships become impossible.”[2]  Without the risks, we would never get the pleasure of knowing that there is more to relationships than disappointment and resignation. And this is why we must resist cynicism in our public lives as well, for if we don’t take chances on people, risking disappointment and heartbreak…if we don’t take these risks, decent democracy becomes impossible.  Without the risks, we would never get the pleasure of knowing there is more to being a citizen than disappointment and resignation.  To embrace our status as citizens then, is to accept the risks inherent in working to improve conditions not only for ourselves and for those we love, but also for those we have yet to meet, those who are equally important.

Incidentally, the ancient Greeks had a word for those who were incapable of involving themselves in public life.  They called those people idiots. 

Our nation, as we are all fond of reminding each other, was founded on democratic principles…with the expectation that its citizens would determine its character and direction.  Put another way, democracy is not a system of government designed to take care of its citizens; democracy is a system of government that demands that its citizens take care of it. It is a system that is built with the faith that at any given time, there will be more citizens in its ranks than idiots. Nothing will happen to further a democracy, then, or to improve the status of freedom and justice in a democratic country, unless the citizens find a means to speak up, to freely voice their dissent when they feel it arise, to recognize that true patriotism is not blind allegiance to elected officials and their schemes, but a willingness to live as though our individual lives and opinions matter.

This is not easy to accomplish in the midst of our consumer-driven culture that would rather see us remain passive and submissive.  Research has shown that we are bombarded by 6-7000 images a day that remind us we are consumers…6-7000 images a day that scream at us to see the world and our lives as commodities to be bought and sold…6-7000 thousand images a day filling us with what psychologist Mary Pipher has labeled “junk values,” toxic offerings from our most prominent storytellers: advertisers and multinational corporations.[3] As long as we cannot see through the blinders foisted on us by our own materialistic society, which relies on us not wanting to see beyond its false claims, why would we think we should participate in our democracy?  Why wouldn’t we retreat into our private lives where our cynicism can have free reign, where questions need not be raised, where any dissent we may feel is merely a temporary diversion from our next big purchase?

I began to reconsider with what it means to be a citizen as a result of joining a Unitarian Universalist church several years ago, a church which, as most of you know, did not ask me to adhere to a dogma or creed, but which did expect me to participate in its governance…a church that relied on the fact that I would speak up when I was dissatisfied, and that I would leave space for others to be heard.  As I studied to become a UU minister, I began to further understand the demands of a democratic approach to religion and the direct correlation between the health of a church and the degree to which its members (or citizens) are willing to fully participate in its functioning, despite the common expectations of many newcomers and long-time members alike that the church is there only to serve their needs. Yes, a church that is functioning well will serve the needs of its members and friends.  But a church that is functioning well also relies on the fact that its members and friends serve it.  Likewise, a nation that is functioning well should serve its citizens, but a nation that is functioning well relies on the fact that its citizens serve it.

I learned even more about what it means to be a citizen, what it means to truly serve a democracy, when I attended a four-day training event last June sponsored by the Industrial Areas Foundation.  As I have reported in the church newsletter, I was invited to this training by the Des Moines area group operating under IAF principles, a group called AMOS.  IAF groups like AMOS are not-for-profit organizations that attempt to draw people out of their private pain, out of their cynicism and passivity, so that they can get connected with other people in collective action. IAF groups recognize that we all need to be taught what it means to be a citizen and the only way we can learn is by doing the work, by starting with the bad, sad scene of our current state of affairs and creating ways in which we can see the possibility of engaging in effective action.

An IAF approach to organizing is not all that unlike theologian Henry Nelson Wieman’s notion of creative interchange that I keep mentioning from this pulpit, because it is based in the building of relational power…the power that occurs when participants engage with each other with the expectation that they will be transformed without assurance of the outcome.  This transformation, which occurs when people open themselves to the truth of another’s experience, enables the people to grow their own perspectives enough to want to do what is necessary to improve the conditions described. IAF groups talk a lot about action, a word, I think, that is easily misunderstood. The action they envision is not some predetermined rigid blueprint for success, but a shared willingness of the participants to give themselves to the democratic process itself, whatever it might bring.  One trainer put it best when he said, “I used to say I’m an organizer because I want to change the world.  Now I say I’m an organizer because I want to change me.” 

One of the things that I most appreciate about the IAF approach is that it is focused on education.  The organizers follow what they call the iron rule: Never do for people what they can do for themselves.  IAF groups adhere to the belief that no one is born a leader; each person has to have experiences that enable her to become leaders.  So, IAF groups work to create situations in which people can have the experiences that will teach them the skills needed to be leaders…to be effective citizens.  IAF groups help people to stop seeing themselves as incompetent or uninteresting and to start believing that there is, as they say, life after birth.  IAF groups therefore, are one avenue to the ultimate LIFESPAN religious education experience.

AMOS, as many of you know, is currently in its foundational stages, following in the footsteps of other successful IAF groups from other cities such as Omaha, Chicago, San Antonio, Baltimore, and Los Angeles.  The group is now seeking to link area churches together as a means to build an organization of relationships.  No issues have been identified yet because the issues must always take a back seat to the relationships or else the organization has lost its power.  The issues will emerge once the relationships have been solidified.  It may seem difficult to imagine participating in an organization that had not defined any issues.  But that fact is what makes AMOS special.  It is committed to democratic process in a way that many other groups have not taken the time to be.

Should our church play a role in AMOS? That, of course, according to our congregational polity, is for the membership to decide.  I will tell you that other Unitarian Universalist churches have played important roles in IAF groups.  In fact, the Evanston, IL church where I interned a few years ago was a member of the Chicago area group and Omaha’s Second Unitarian was one of the founding members of their local group.
And, I will tell you some reasons why we might like to join. 
–The IAF approach to organizing is completely in line with our principles, so there should be no disconnect there. 
--Joining AMOS would broaden our involvement in the community without us having to reinvent the wheel or carry all of the weight ourselves. 
--AMOS would provide a great way for us to experience some “creative interchange” with folks outside our church.  After all, a religious community is a place where we should celebrate our private relationships, but it should not be a place where public relationships are ignored.
–Participation in AMOS could help us better understand our own democratic structure.
–AMOS could provide a handful of members with an opportunity for a transformational learning opportunity.
–AMOS will undoubtedly fight for those in Des Moines who do not have a voice and will help improve the lives of people in our city.

The next opportunity for members of this church to learn about AMOS will be Saturday November 16^th at a Saturday training event to be held at First Christian Church.  I hope you’ll consider joining me there.  Some of the details are in your order of service, on the church website, and in the November newsletter.  And of course, I would be happy to try to answer any questions you might have. 

I close this morning with a quote I have used before from playwright Tony Kushner, a quote that speaks to our current malaise and the needed remedy: In a recent New York Times article, Kushner wrote:  “Our despair over our own powerlessness is simply a lie we are telling ourselves.  We are all engaged in shaping the interpretation, and in the ensuing actions, we are all implicated.”

So, how are you choosing to shape the interpretation of our times?  And how are you being implicated in the ensuing actions?

Your status as a citizen in this ailing democracy demands that you respond.

 

Closing Words (James Baldwin)

“Everything now, we must assume, is in our hands.  We have no right to assume otherwise.”