Dancing With History

You want me to say something that’s going to make you feel better, that’s going to bring clarity, something you’ll be able to remember all week long to keep you grounded, something clever and honest and useful. I want me to say that thing too. I would like to hand you a pile of magic words that fit neatly into a sparkly gift box, ribbon on top, for each of you to take home.

I’d like to start that sermon with a story. My story would be ancient, filtered through millennia and the breath of our ancestors. It would be about a people who called a leader who was cruel or incompetent, and the people rose up against him in some glorious, bloodless way, to take back their nation. It might include a wise woman who loves her people into knowing they deserve more, that they can be more, maybe a woman who inspires them to build a new society of mutual aid centered on love and a commitment to companionship.

That’s a sermon I’d like to preach. It’s a sermon I’d like to hear.

But, I don’t know a story like that and I don’t have any gift boxes.

There are plenty of stories of bad leaders, but no bloodless uprisings ending in utopia.

There’s the story of Saul, the first king of Israel, chosen by god through Samuel. He was an awful king, selfish and arbitrary, and as soon as they realized he wasn’t up to the task, god and Samuel got rid of him.

I thought I might tell you more about Saul, maybe by way of saying, “See, leaders can be damaging and dangerous,” but you already knew that. We’ve been here before.

I could also outline for you all the stages of resistance, all the things the experts tell us about how to recognize the fall of democracy, how to live in a fascist society, how to prevent civilization from collapsing. And, I will, many times, I’m sure. But, not today. 

I’m a student of history. My doctoral work was in American Religious History. My Masters is in Medieval Theology. My Bachelors, if you’re interested, is in Liberation Theology. In other words, I spent a lot of time studying so I could be ready for – or at least understand – a moment like this one. Power imbalances, profound sexism, intractable racism, in-fighting, rage, systemic economic injustice, these things have been part of the human story from the beginning. We are, in some way, who we’ve always been. If we’re stunned that a charlatan promising everything to everyone with a message soaked in hate was elected in what might be called a landslide, if we’re stunned and we keep asking ourselves Why or How Could This Happen or Who Are These People, we haven’t been paying attention.

These are Americans, they are humans, demonstrating for us, again, who we are at our most broken. These are the people they have always been -  for 400 years, and long before that. These are the people who filled Roman coliseums to see slaves and Jews and Christians torn apart by hungry lions while they cheered. These are the people who showed up to watch the heretics march through the streets naked, the people who taunted them and threw rotten food on their children. These are the people who tortured women behind prison doors for trying to get the right to vote. These are the children in the schoolyard who circle around two people arguing and chant “Fight Fight Fight”. These are the people who covered themselves in white sheets, tore their neighbors from their homes, and hung them on the tree outside. 

Cruelty is and has always been part of the human condition. So has apathy. When Jews were rounded up and put into ghettos, Germans would walk by without glancing in the direction of their neighbor, now starving and desperate. The most common acknowledgement was a request to move the ghettos further from town centers because of the smell.

It’s not difficult to get people to behave badly. When I was teaching undergraduate theology, I had a lecture I called “10 Easy Steps to Genocide”. It starts with naming the out-group. Create an “us” and “them”. Who can we hate? Fear? Who can we blame? Turning from our own problems to a concrete cause, a people we can target, is an easy first step. Call them animals. Different. Not really human. Vermon. Need to be eliminated so we can all be happy again.

This has already started, and some of us are the new “Them”. Trans people, trans families, queer people and queer families, immigrants, people of color, women, especially those without children, even more childless women of color, and anyone who speaks out for any of them. We are Them. And our neighbors voted for a society where we don’t exist.

Or, some did. Some weren’t paying enough attention to know what they were voting for. The most Googled question on election day was, “Did Biden Drop Out?” That day was the first they’d heard that Harris was the candidate.

That’s part of the end of democracy too. Without an engaged electorate, without civics taught in schools, without a body politic tuned in to and actively participating in the national conversation, democracy has no one to hold it up. We work too much, we have too many devices barking at us, the news cycle literally doesn’t stop, and in the end, it’s all we can do to get through a day and have dinner on the table when over. This cycle of exhaustion serves anyone who needs us to look away.

So, here we are. After all that has happened, all our get out the vote efforts, sending post cards, making phone calls, knocking on doors, sending money, after months of doing whatever we can to stop the rising tide of hate, we lost. More than half the country – for many, many reasons – voted for project 2025 and the elimination of the EPA and the Department of Education and climate ambitions, and diversity equity and inclusion initiatives, and social security, and health care, and reproductive rights. 

It stings. It’s infuriating. Maybe terrifying.

It also isn’t the end of the story.

I’m absolutely not going to pretend everything will be OK, but I also know that none of the examples I gave of our inherent violence end with those acts.

Women did get the right to vote, the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts were passed, the Inquisition ended, seven states codified reproductive rights in their constitutions on Tuesday, and believe it or not, even the lions got tired of tearing apart those defenseless Christians.

This story is not over.

That it started is depressing. It’s mind-boggling. It’s also, in too many ways, expected. We should sit with that. Sit with the sadness of it. Sit with the disconnect we feel from people in other parts of the country, or maybe in other parts of our own families. Sit with a mirror up to our own culture, our own people, our own history. Sit with the feeling of being baffled, and of sort of understanding the ways hate can feel good. Sit with our anger, our fury, our rage. We’ll need it later. Sit in the feelings of being alone, of being afraid, of not knowing what’s next. It’s all real.

But, this story is not over. 

For now – for this afternoon and each of the afternoons through this week – I’m hoping you can take care of yourself. Next week, we’ll get ready to fight fascism, but for now, let’s all sit with what we know and what it means. Let’s hold fast to each other, share meals with each other, send texts with love to each other. Hold someone’s arm as you walk together. Take time in the morning for meditation. Go to sleep early. 

For this week, consider eating really well. Consider full, well-balanced meals. Consider cooking. Consider sharing that meal with a neighbor. It doesn’t have to be a sick neighbor or a single mom or someone in need. Just cook and share with anyone in your sight. Offer kindness to someone. Offer care. Drink water.

Allow this week to be a little slower, a little quieter. Make room for introspection. For dancing. For howling at the moon. 

I love the Jewish death ritual of sitting shiva. The family sit in their homes and the community takes care of them. The door is unlocked, the mirrors are covered, people bring food. For one week, let’s take care of one another. Maybe before you leave here today, make a date with someone for window shopping on Tuesday or morning coffee on Thursday. 

There is a lot to do in the years ahead. 

For now, rest in knowing you are Loved. Beloved. You – and I -  have been claimed by Love. We are part of this mysterious universe, this world too big to understand, this galaxy spinning, this planet sustaining. We are no less than the trees and the stars. It’s so easy to forget our place, here at the Center, with Love, who has wrapped herself around us each, who delights in our wondering and in our searching, who accompanies us in our rage and witnesses our despair. Rest in knowing that you belong here. You are part of whatever happens next, part of the march of time, even this time. You. Belong. Here. With the rest of us, all beloved, all called by Love.

I started by telling you I don’t know what to say, that I don’t have wisdom, that I don’t have a story that will illustrate and guide our next steps. I don’t. But, I will. And you will too. It will all become clear to us as time unfolds. For today, we’ll stick with what we already know.

We are Loved. We are Love. We have been claimed by Love, and we will claim others for the path of Love. 

For today, that’s all we have, and it’s enough.