Tag Archive | 2024 Election

The Hard, Holy Work of Repair in this America

The Unitarian Universalist Association follows a calendar of monthly themes that guide our service reflections throughout the year. The chosen theme for November was “Repair.” About six weeks prior to the November 5 elections, I volunteered to offer a “reflection on repair” on the Sunday following the election, knowing that both the content and the tone would be decisively shaped by the results. These are the words I shared. (PDF here.)

Like many of you, I woke up in a fog on Wednesday morning. It hung low and thick in the trees along our street—and equally low and thick in my soul.

Four days later the fog is still thick in my soul as I ask myself—and all of us: How shall we Unitarian Universalists, who have covenanted to transform the world through liberating love—how shall we practice the holy work of repair in this post-election America?

The question takes several forms.

First, how shall we do this for ourselves, for this community, and for others with whom we partner is seeking human flourishing and planetary well-being?

Tenderly, because our grief is deep, our fear is real, and our hope is raw. And we are weary. From Donald Trump’s first term to the Covid pandemic; from the murder of George Floyd to the economic anxiety felt by so many; from record heat and extreme weather to the past year’s turbulent presidential campaign, our spirits have been stretched and strained. Add in the unique challenges of our own lives, and it is no wonder we are weary! No wonder our grief is SO heavy, our fear SO palpable, and our hope SO breathless.

We will need more than tenderness to do this work, but without tenderness, we can’t even begin.

Also, with humble accountability, because we need this braver space more than ever right now. And that need asks each of us to be our best and bravest selves, because the depth of our connection is our best protection. So, let us be courageous in our care, generous with our empathy, and humbly accountable to one another as we create space that is brave enough to hold all our hearts as we lean on each other.

Also, with gratitude, because although this work is hard and we are weary, we are blessed to be working hard and feeling weary—together.

And, by engaging with others who share (at least some of) our hopes for the world. This may mean reaching out to our elected officials at the local, state, and national levels to ensure that whatever our democracy can do to care for people and planet, it does. It may mean forming new and surprising alliances with unexpected partners, because right now repair is fundamentally practical and even desperate work. And it will mean attending to the wounds in our wider community—wherever they’re found, because to practice repair is to be indiscriminate in the healing we offer and in the good we strive to do.

But there is a second, harder question to pose: How shall we practice the sacred work of repair in the strained relationships with family and friends, co-workers and neighbors—who in recent days have betrayed our deepest values and endangered our very being? Who cast their votes for a future that now holds multiple perils for us and for those we love—and for so many of the most vulnerable in our society?

How do we practice repair in these fractured relationships?With clear self-awareness and fierce grace and an open ache.

Clear self-awareness—because as much as we must rise to the challenge of this moment, none of us is asked to endanger ourself in relationships or conversations that are toxic to our soul. Simply put: it is important to know that some repair must be left wisely to the liberating love of others.

And fierce grace—because none of us is called to compromise our values or our love for sake of a false peace. So, we practice repair by continuing to lift up, resolutely and without apology, the sacred diversity of all persons and their right to flourish in our society. It may not be in our power to change our neighbors’ hearts and minds. But when we draw on the truth of our lived experience and the depth of our understanding to express our hearts and minds with fierce grace, we invite liberating love to do its work in their lives.

And open ache—that is, as we are able to, we MUST listen past our sense of betrayal, to the desperation that led some of these persons to compromise their morals to meet their perceived needs. I call this “open ache,” because it will be painful, and it will be more than some of us can do. But while repair never demands that we compromise our values or our loves, it does ask that we attempt to fathom the deep disillusionment, anxiety, or isolation beneath their worldview and vote.

No question, it would be easier to reject or even revile them. But the work of repair requires that some of us sustain an open ache if we hope to heal the fractures. And not only in our personal relationships, but also in the Democratic Party, which manifestly failed to connect its policies to the experience of the working class.

Finally, there is a third and even harder set of questions to pose.

We know unresolved trauma lives in the human body. It lives, too, and long in the body politic. The misogyny and genocide, racism and xenophobia, homophobia and transphobia, the relentless exploitation of laborers and the land—all these injustices and more, have become the collective trauma of our national identity.

And now the lack of an honest moral accounting with these worst choices of our past has compelled some of us—some millions of us—to project the echoes of those past choices onto our future. While couching them in rhetoric chosen to amplify a culture of intolerance, nationalism, and the persistent threat of violence.

How then shall we practice repair when the post-election reality promises to wreak havoc on our common life and the natural world? Havoc still being planned out, as we wait with dread?

How do we imagine the practice of repair, when the system will not actually be broken, but will be doing exactly what it is has been designed to do: reward the rich and punish the poor; dismantle our already weak safety nets; erase hard-won rights; gut public education; and, if possible, reduce democracy to a political charade?

When rupture itself is the PURPOSE of those in power, how then do we practice repair?!

We cannot know in advance, but I will say this much, because it has been true in earlier struggles for justice. It may be that the practice of repair in our civic life will mean, at least at times, to break the ordered disorder of unjust systems. To join in solidarity with others to oppose, impede and, when possible, to dismantle those policies that threaten the peace of people and planet.

Indeed, should the governing system become so oppressive as to constitute in practice the enemy without, in THAT fraught moment it may well become our task, our duty, even our joy, to so fully embrace liberating love that we practice repair by being the enemy within.

It was Theodore Parker, the famous Unitarian minister, who in 1853, first spoke of the long arc of the moral universe and its sure bend toward justice. I suspect that many Unitarian Universalists today are less sure of that bend. Few of us presume that anything is guaranteed, let alone the triumph of the Good. But we DO presume that the values we share, centered on liberating love, aspire to promote the Good. And as we practice the sacred work of repair, those shared values serve as levers by which we ourselves might, working together, bit by bit, here and there, bend that long arc toward justice.

The world—within and without—is longing for repair. This is holy work. It is our work. Let us begin.

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David Weiss is a theologian, writer, poet and hymnist, “writing into the whirlwind” of contemporary challenges, joys, and sorrows around climate crisis, sexuality, justice, peace, and family. Reach him at drw59mn@gmail.com. Read more at www.davidrweiss.com where he blogs under the theme, “Full Frontal Faith: Erring on the Edge of Honest.” Support him in Writing into the Whirlwind at www.patreon.com/fullfrontalfaith.

Flying My Colors

Oct31

Flying My Colors
October 31, 2024 – David R. Weiss

The whole flag episode on Tuesday caught me off guard. I’ve never been the flag-waving type. But there I was, calling my local hardware store and asking with felt urgency whether they had—in stock—an American flag, on a pole, with a mounting bracket. Of course, they did. Multiple options.

I drove over and settled quickly on the “Eco-Glory” (yes, I rolled my eyes at the name): aluminum pole, mounting bracket, and a 100% polyester flag fashioned from eight recycled bottles. And 100% made in the U.S.A. For someone in a committed relationship with over thinking things, it’s nothing short of remarkable that less than an hour after I had the urge and made the call, I had the bracket mounted on our front deck railing and an American flag furling in the early evening breeze. Yesterday I even tracked down and bought a pair of solar spotlights so I can illumine the flag from either side with the nightfall coming early now.

Whence this surge of … patriotism? The word itself makes me nervous. But this election makes me even more nervous. Grieved. Unsettled. Angered.

Never in my lifetime have I witnessed a politician (or campaign) so focused on demonizing others. So relentless in belittling fellow candidates, other politicians, and any American citizens whose views and values differ from his own. So fashioned around whetting the public appetite for division and violence. So openly courting our worst human impulses.

It’s true, not everyone who votes for Donald Trump is misogynistic, racist, homophobic, transphobic, xenophobic, white Christian nationalist, pro-authoritarian, or openly ecocidal. THAT’S ABSOLUTELY TRUE. But listen. I’m speaking now to my family and friends who plan to vote for Trump or who imagine some smug superiority in choosing neither candidate as though the differences are not monstrous.

(I have friends so dismayed by Harris’ complicity in Israel’s genocidal campaign in Gaza they cannot support her. I respect that profoundly principled and morally complicated choice, even as I chose to vote for Harris.)

BUT LISTEN: Almost every voter WHO IS misogynistic, racist, homophobic, transphobic, xenophobic, white Christian nationalist, pro-authoritarian, or openly ecocidal, IS VOTING FOR TRUMP.

Let’s be painfully clear about this.

Almost every voter who regards women as most appropriately second-class citizens with no right to reproductive choice—not even birth control!—is HOPING Trump gets elected. Almost every voter who views people of color as fundamentally and essentially less than white people—and whose voices and votes should therefore be limited in every way possible—is HOPING Trump gets elected.

Almost every voter who regards lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender persons (among whom I count dozens—DOZENS!!—of friends and family) as disordered or worse—and whose civil rights and medical care should thus be forfeited—is HOPING Trump gets elected. Almost every voter who regards immigrants, especially those of color (with or without documents), as intrinsically threatening to our country is HOPING Trump gets elected.

Almost every voter who believes that God has ordained white people to rule(!) this country, to subjugate all other peoples, cultures, morals, and beliefs to some distorted and fundamentalist strand of Christianity is HOPING Trump gets elected. Almost every voter who thinks America should be ruled by an authoritarian dictator (and there are powerful elites who cultivate this notion)—is HOPING Trump gets elected. Almost every American voter who is eager to see repression, imprisonment, and violence wielded against “the enemy within”—“the left” (that’s me!)—is HOPING Trump gets elected.

And almost every voter who openly disregards the overwhelming scientific certitude about climate change and the desperate need to change our lives, most especially our use of fossil fuel—lest we wantonly destroy the future of our own children—is HOPING Trump gets elected.

You may not desire all these abominable things, but there are millions of voters who do—and they regard Donald Trump (and J.D. Vance!) as THE ticket to advance their nightmarish dream for America.

Is this really the company you choose to keep? The side of history you wish to stand on?!

This man is the most anti-Christian candidate who has ever run for the presidency. The fact that he wraps himself in the fawning embrace of some fundamentalist Christians only demonstrates the extent to which their beliefs and values—like Trump’s—are a direct betrayal of the teachings of Jesus himself.

There are some deep policy differences between Harris and Trump. And while I have been—and will continue to be—vocally critical of Harris on any number of policy positions, there is no question that, on the whole, Trump’s policy goals will do damage to America. They will erode human rights, civil rights, labor rights, and voting rights. Though he promises big gains for ordinary Americans, this is a mirage; his policies will work unfailingly to enrich the wealthy, empower corporations, fragment healthcare, and further despoil the planet. They will widen the gap between the rich and the rest of us. His immigration policy—utterly detached from history, economy, and international law—will accomplish nothing except to fan fear and civil unrest. His foreign policy will embolden authoritarian rulers to further abuse human rights, expand military conquests, and flaunt international law. He will undermine hope for democracy around the globe.

But even at that, this election is ultimately about more than policy differences.

It is fundamentally about personal character. And Donald Trump’s personal character is so deeply flawed as to be dangerous. His character represents a profound national security risk because it makes him prey to manipulation by foreign actors who will leverage his insecurities against our national security. I cannot believe that you don’t know this. And his character represents an equally profound domestic terrorism risk. His irrational anger at his political adversaries—whether they’re in office or marching in the streets—will drive him to abrogate civil rights as never before and his incendiary rhetoric will unleash waves of violence against all manner of targeted groups and persons (like me!). I cannot believe that you don’t know this.

I am aghast at Harris’ muted response to the genocide in Gaza (now effectively in Lebanon as well). I’ve written about this and made my views known to my Congressional representatives. I think many of her policy goals, while broadly liberal, remain structurally constrained by corporate interests. Still, I’m confident a Harris presidency will do some good, and much less harm than a Trump presidency. And I’m confident a Harris presidency will preserve my right to be a dissident patriot, allowing me to press her and others in government to craft policies that actually cares for people over profits. It’s a big ask, I know. To wrestle reality out of rhetoric. But I’ll make it. Persistently.

Which brings me back to that flag, still furling in solar-lit light long after dark last night. Trump has pretended for far too long that he and his campaign is all about “America.” That he—and his remade MAGA-GOP—have the only vision of America worthy of the flag. NO. Donald Trump’s vision is an abject betrayal of the ideals carried by that flag.

Fair enough: America has often only begrudgingly moved to embody its ideals—and that with kicking and screaming, civil war and many seasons of protest. But America is the dream of a country with liberty and justice for all. So, I’m flying my colors (right above my “radical left” yard signs) to make clear: the dream that is America is expansive and inclusive—and it belongs to all of us.

Donald Trump stands absolutely, arrogantly—and dangerously—against that dream. He drags the flag through the worst of our past and then flies it as a symbol for the moral atrocities he projects into the future—our future. No presidential candidate has ever so desecrated the American flag.

Such a man is not worthy of your vote.

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DNC 2024: Unforced Error, Unsettled Joy

Aug28

Unforced Error, Unsettled Joy
David R. Weiss – August 28, 2024

I am genuinely heartened by Kamala Harris’ entry into the presidential race. Since late July (just five weeks ago!) she’s brought energy and confidence—even joy—into a Democratic campaign that was marked by varying but unmistakable degrees of obligation, resignation, and dread. (No latecomer to these sentiments, I was calling on Biden to step back last September.) That said, we do ourselves no favors by overlooking unforced errors by her campaign or unsettled joy in our gut.

And that’s tempting, because we can’t afford to go into November with anything less than a Democratic Party united behind and excited about a candidate who offers us the best firewall we have right now against the implementation of Project 2025 and an all-out authoritarian tip toward fascism. The danger posed to democracy and all manner of civil and human rights by a Trump-Vance administration is far greater than the mainstream media seem willing or even able to acknowledge. (Vance, by the way, is the real danger; the Trojan riding in Trump’s horse.) Thus, that the Harris-Walz ticket is actually exciting a range of previously nervous Democratic voters, as well as make a fresh appeal to Independent, undecided, and perhaps indifferent voters is a godsend. An injection of joy.

No wonder that some have christened this unexpected unabashed exuberant energy a politics of joy. The New York Times wants to caution that “Joy is Not a Strategy,” but the truth is that joy is inviting, contagious, inspiring. Joy can unleash the goodness and hope that sit deep within ourselves. And while joy may not be sufficient to map out policy (as of today, August 28, the Harris for President website remains entirely empty on policy), it might be sufficient to win this election—and to frame a powerful governing posture.

Indeed, the PBS series A Force More Powerful (2000) includes a compelling episode in which joy was strategically and creatively harnessed in the 1988 plebiscite (referendum) in Chile in which Pinochet was unexpectedly and resoundingly defeated. Joy can channel profound power. So, I am not about to take issue with a politics of joy. I am all in favor of that. Frankly, we need a politics which summons forth our best angels rather one that plays on our most base fears.

It’s the awkward silence, both by Harris and the Democratic National Convention as whole, with respect to the unimaginable suffering and moral catastrophe in Gaza——that unsettles my joy.

It was an unforced error. Harris had the opportunity to invite a Palestinian-American voice to address her party and the American people with a call for compassion and unity. Multiple speakers were proposed to her campaign. They even had the opportunity to vet the remarks. And speakers representing every imaginable thread in the fabric of her coalition did speak. Harris had a golden opportunity to demonstrate just how big the Democratic tent is—and how committed to justice. She chose not to.

True, the Jewish parents of an American hostage held by Hamas included a call to end the suffering in Gaza in their remarks. True, too, Harris herself acknowledged the suffering, and even affirmed the Palestinian cause of self-determination (although such words are cheap, given the sheer horror wrought by US-made and supplied weapons). MOREOVER—despite running a campaign made possible across decades of fidelity to the simple enduring truth that representation matters, the Harris campaign decided representation doesn’t matter when it comes to the Palestinian people. And that ought to unsettle all our joy.

Her remarks at the DNC called out in concrete language the very real atrocities carried out by Hamas on October 7— and then reduced Israel’s genocidal assault on the whole of Gaza (civilians and civic infrastructure alongside Hamas militants) to much more abstract “devastation” and “suffering,” neither of which acknowledge Israel and the Israel Defense Forces as the agent of these equally real atrocities. And with the International Criminal Court, the International Court of Justice, and the United Nations all concerned/convinced that Israel is engaged in war crimes in its pursuit of vengeance (against Hamas’ own litany of war crimes on October 7), her claim that she and Joe Biden are working “around the clock” to achieve a ceasefire is worse than empty rhetoric. Every new weapons shipment to Israel turns their words to Orwellian doublespeak, stoking the very “fire” they claim to be working to “cease.”

I understand, after months of growing desperation with an aging Joe Biden as our candidate, the hunger for joy, the desire to just celebrate for four days, was real. But simply turning up the joy does not address the atrocity. Meanwhile Palestinian-Americans and Muslim-Americans carry the grief of Gaza in their bones and are desperately hungry to have their voices heard and their yearning for justice embraced.

One speaker proposed to the Harris campaign by the Uncommitted Movement (those who withheld their support for Biden over his policy on Gaza) was Ruwa Romman, a Palestinian-American who is a Democratic representative in the Georgia state house. Her intended remarks, celebrated the unity across the Democratic party, naming it “a beautiful, multifaith, multiracial, and multigenerational coalition.” She paid homage to Fannie Lou Hamer, the pioneering African-American woman from Mississippi, for daring to imagine an integrated Democratic party, now one of the pillars of the party’s big tent.

And she set her call for justice in Gaza right alongside key Democratic goals “restoring access to abortions, ensuring a living wage, demanding an end to reckless war and a ceasefire in Gaza … and to be a Democratic Party that prioritizes funding our schools and hospitals, not for endless wars. That fights for an America that belongs to all of us—Black, brown, and white, Jews and Palestinians, all of us.” You can read the remarks here and listen to Ruwa deliver them outside the DNC here.)

What Romman had hoped to offer at the DNC was, in fact, a call to rally around Kamala Harris that was profoundly resonant with what has been called black joy: the resolute conviction—the miraculous assertion—“that Black people’s humanity will not be defined by trauma or oppression but by something else: a joy that no white man can steal.” (Per Tracey Michae’l Lewis-Giggetts, author of Black Joy, quoted on CNN.) The same is true for Palestinians. Indeed, there is a long legacy of mutual solidarity across Black and Palestinian communities.

Tragically, Kamala Harris chose to silence the kindred expression of black joy that Ruwa Romman sought to voice. The miracle was that even in the midst of genocide, Romman had found a way to voice joy because she grounded her words so deeply in a yearning for justice. But the DNC—and the nation tuned in—never heard them.

I will vote for the Harris-Walz ticket—with real passion. In sharp contrast to the GOP ticket, I believe they represent a path forward that has room for all of us—including the room to press for a still bigger tent and a yet fuller pursuit of justice. Last week, however, the Democratic party and the Harris campaign committed a costly unforced error. Rather than take clear steps to ensure their tent covers everyone, they made a calculated choice to exclude one community. “Unforced error” hardly captures it. This was a deliberate choice to turn their back on the cry of those who are suffering. It was a choice to preserve a safe and shallow happiness at the DNC rather than take the inevitable risk of pursuing a deeper and more just joy. My vote will come with the commitment to press HARD for joy that mirrors justice.

For the sake of the Harris campaign, for the sake of this election, and for the sake of the Palestinian people, I hope Harris recognizes her error and reverses it. Until we invite every voice forward—especially those who bear witness to suffering—we have not yet commenced a genuine and just politics of joy.

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