We Are the Storm
Le Chambon-sur-Lignon is a small village in the mountains of Southern France. Located in this Roman Catholic nation, the people of Chambon-sur-Lingon were Protestant and had a long history of resistance to maintain their religious identity. When France fell to the Nazis in 1940, Jews from around the country were rounded up mostly for deportation to death camps, but some for medical experimentation or slavery. Nazis made their way through French villages to capture Jews, but when they arrived in this village, the people didn’t comply, mostly feigning ignorance.
The effort was led by the pastor in the town, André Trocmé (trog-ma) and his wife Magda. Magda explained how it began.
“Those of us who received the first Jews did what we thought had to be done—nothing more complicated. It was not decided from one day to the next what we would have to do. There were many people in the village who needed help. How could we refuse them? A person doesn’t sit down and say I’m going to do this and this and that. We had no time to think. When a problem came, we had to solve it immediately. Sometimes people ask me, “How did you make a decision?” There was no decision to make. The issue was: Do you think we are all brothers or not? Do you think it is unjust to turn in the Jews or not?”
When there was a raid, Jews were often hidden, but most of the time, the strategy was to incorporate these refugees into the village seamlessly so that when Nazis marched through unexpectedly, they couldn’t discern one person from the next. Children went to school, people worked in shops and in the fields. The remarkable thing, the thing that worked, was that everyone participated, no one thought these people should be sent to their deaths.
Pastor Andre had been in that parish a long time and had been preaching a message of Christian love and action long before the Nazis arrived. His standard benediction was, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your mind and with all your strength, and love your neighbor as yourself. Go practice it.” This message had been- even without him but explicitly with him- part of the culture of the village.
The remarkable thing about the actions of this village is that no one dissented. Everyone did what they thought they had to do given the situation in front of them. Some didn’t actively participate in hiding people at risk, but they didn’t turn the others in either. It was this unity, this unbroken refusal to participate in evil, that kept the people safe.
Historian Marianne Ruel Robins notes:
“The fact that an entire community participated (or watched and said nothing) is remarkable... The silence observed by the people of the Plateau was an important condition for its success, not simply because it sheltered Jews from external threats, but also because it minimized internal dissent. To refrain from talking meant that one would not shame one’s neighbor for his lack of participation; it also meant that different rationales for behavior would not conflict with another, be they commitment to pacifism, nationalism, or Christian charity... Silence did not necessarily imply that everyone implicitly agreed on the reasons for hiding Jews, but rather that most people came to agree that something ought to be done.”
When Magda, the minister’s wife, reflected on her choices years after the war, she said, “When people read this story, I want them to know that I tried to open my door. I tried to tell people, ‘Come in, come in.’ In the end I would like to say to people, ‘Remember that in your life there will be lots of circumstances where you will need a kind of courage, a kind of decision on your own, not about other people but about yourself.’”
Over the course of four years, this tiny village in the mountains of southern France saved 5,000 people.
Last week, the Sunday after the election, we spent our time together acknowledging our anger, worry, and grief. It was cathartic, and I told you it was only the beginning. We need to feel what we feel, and find others to commiserate with, but that’s not all we need. We also need to understand what’s at risk, and commit to protecting ourselves, each other, and our country. That’s what we’re up to today. We are taking our cue from a tiny village in France who demonstrated for us the power of Resistance.
We may not agree on the level of risk we’re facing. It’s always difficult from a place of safety or near normalcy to look into the future and declare with certainty what’s coming. Acknowledging a wide range of opinions on this – and many other subjects – I have decided to spend these four years speaking Truth as I know it without being afraid of losing congregants or even making people uncomfortable. I don’t know what’s before us, but I know what’s behind us. I know history. And while it’s possible we won’t be repeating it, we have, as a nation, taken a clear step toward a fascist future, and if the worst repercussions are to be avoided, we will need to make some courageous choices. Speaking Truth is one of them, even with the understanding that there could be consequences. (The pastor of that small village was arrested by the Gestapo.) Timothy Snyder, the acclaimed Historian at Yale with a specialty in 20th century fascism wrote this week that the United States is not in a post-electoral moment, but in a post-catastrophic one. He, along with other historians, political scientists, and Constitutional lawyers, is sounding every alarm telling us to do what we can to stop the avalanche barreling toward us- or at least to get out of its way so not everyone is buried in the wake.
Democracies can become autocracies in less time than one might think. This is because democratic systems survive on what’s called legitimacy. The idea is that the government is ruled by a set of laws, that those laws provide the guardrails for ethical behavior, that there is a free press who have access to ensure those laws are being followed, that the people are free to disagree with government and can assemble in a variety of ways to hold them accountable, and that the people elect the government freely. The legitimacy of the government is held up by the many trusted systems in place, but when those systems are no longer trusted or are no longer in place, legitimacy is challenged.
We started to see the beginning of the end of American legitimacy when the result of the 2020 election was challenged. We witnessed an attempted coup, designed to stop the levers of government running. When that failed in the courts, they physically attacked Congress, which also failed. Not being successful with an outside attack, they have now staged an internal one, which is how these things often happen. They came to power with the consent of the majority, and are now getting to the work of dismantling the government. Installing incompetent people in positions of power, removing people with experience, putting the Justice Department in the hands of a criminal, shutting down entire systems like the Department of Education, are all part of history’s autocracy playbook.
The march of tyranny is getting louder, closer, gaining more soldiers jumping into lock-step both thoughtlessly and too often with tremendous pride. We can feel the thumping in the ground beneath us, a ground we aren’t sure will hold when that army of angry, lost, people- our neighbors, family, co-workers- marches by us drunk on hate and the power of being one of many. As tyranny assumes more of our country, as it infiltrates our neighborhoods or even our own minds, it is up to us to be the front line of defense.
I’m not going to outline all the ways we can do that today; we’ll have time to talk over the course of the next few months. But there are a few things for us to keep in mind as this situation unfolds.
Trust your own senses. We’ve seen this strategy at work, in fact, the GOP just swept the nation with a full campaign of gaslighting, telling people that what they are experiencing isn’t real. How many times did we hear that immigrants have taken over entire cities which have fallen into lawlessness? That they are eating pets, or that they are living in luxury at our expense? Trust what you see, not what you are told.
Be careful about your media consumption. Determine now what sources are attempting to bring you facts verses those married to an agenda they will alter the stories to serve. The New York Times, and the Guardian. Have been safe for me. Others trust the BBC, ProPublica, Mother Jones and the Atlantic. The Atlantic, as it happens, was founded by Unitarians and continues with it’s mission of being the organ of no party.
Social Media is not a news source, but it will give you a feeling of the national conversation. Follow people you trust. Twitter has become state media. BlueSky is more trust-worthy at the moment. Facebook is a highly manipulated platform.
But, Facebook has something no one else has created yet. Groups. And at the moment, groups are a very good way to stay connected. Fascist systems need people to be isolated. We are more easily convinced, more easily controlled, when we are alone. One of the most effective things we can do is build and sustain strong communities.
Timothy Snyder tells us that one of the 20 things we need to do is pick an institution and defend it. As I’ve said to you before, I’ve picked this one. This particular church with it’s long, very proud and effective liberal history, but also the idea of Church itself. All the liberal churches which, to be honest, we’re dismantling without anyone’s help. I’m defending Church, places people gather to pray, to care for each other, to get some window into Truth, and where we practice being our best selves. Strong religious communities, grounded in shared values, committed to taking care of each other, are a critical part of the social infrastructure we will need.
In the Guardian last week, Rebecca Solnit wrote: We do not know what will happen. But, we can know who we can commit to be in the face of what happens. That’s a strong beginning. The fact that we cannot save everything does not mean we cannot save anything and everything we can save is worth saving.” She closes by quoting Julian Aguon, “No offering is too small, no stone unneeded…All of us, without exception, are qualified to participate in the rescue of the world.”
The needs right now are great, and we might feel small or insufficient. And we are. Alone, we are less than what’s needed. A single voice speaking of love won’t be heard over the cacophony of hate coming at us from every direction. A firestorm of anger was unleashed and is being celebrated, supported, funded, institutionalized.
So we change our aloneness. We partner with each other, with other congregants, with the person you’re sitting next to or in front of. We partner with other churches, with religious people called by their faith to embody and bring forth love. We don’t have to be single raindrops trying to put out this fire, we can build alliances, join arm in arm with like-minded people.
And they may not be people with whom we agree on everything. Our motivations might be different. Our theology, philosophy, our politics might even be different, but we aren’t getting picky, aren’t looking for purity. We are looking for allies who, like us, refuse to let hate win.
Like the people in Chambord who leaned into their collective power and unspoken decision to fight a terrifying foe, we can build our own coalition of Love to combat the hate getting hotter around us.
(*SLOW) We are not enough alone, but we are Not Alone.
The devil might whisper in our ears, “You are not strong enough to withstand the storm.” But we, together, will whisper back, “We are the storm.”
