All is Not Lost©
Reverend Janet Parsons
Gloucester UU Church
November 17, 2024

“Everything is still on fire,”, wrote my colleague, Julian Soto.

“I am sorry that everything is still on fire…” they continued.
“Once hate catches, the winds of “not my problem” blow
and the blaze is hard to stop.
But hard is not impossible.” (Everything is Still on Fire, by Julian Jamaica Soto, in Spilling the Light, p. 20)

I had collected several readings to share in today’s service, more than I could ever use, and it resulted in some difficult choices in the end. And reviewing my choices yesterday, I couldn’t help but notice that I chose two readings that mentioned fire. It was a little surprising.

I don’t know about you, but I’ve been feeling pretty cold inside, not exactly fiery, not really letting myself feel pain and rage as I think about the presidential election. I love my country, and I love our form of government, even though I sometimes find myself agreeing with Winston Churchill when he said, “Democracy is the worst form of Government except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time”.

And suddenly here I am, drawn to language about fire. It’s making me wonder if I’m beginning to move forward, to begin to think about the future, and about what I can be doing to try to keep bending the arc of the universe toward justice in these years ahead. Perhaps I’m ready to hear that “all is not lost.”

The weekend before the election, when all things seemed possible, I was reading a book called Saving Democracy, by David Pepper. It’s required reading for my study group and I admit I picked it up with a sigh, thinking, “can I really read any more books about democracy?” But I found it surprisingly inspiring. The message throughout the book was that change emerges from small actions, from small groups of people to small decisions, that can then be scaled up, expanded into broader movements.

It calls to mind the images of fractals, and of murmurations. Tiny crystals building themselves into larger crystals, perhaps. Or groups of seven starlings creating huge ballets in the air.

And it creates a flicker of hope. A tiny flame, a bit of candlelight.

It’s time for us as individuals and as communities, to begin to look for small flickers of hope. Where should we begin?

Back in 2018, an African-American woman named Stacey Abrams, a Democrat, ran for governor of Georgia. She was defeated, amid many claims of voter suppression. But since that defeat, Stacey Abrams made the decision, instead of seeking elected office again, to devote her efforts to strengthen democracy in the State of Georgia. She founded an organization named Fair Fight, and ever since has focused her attention on voter registration, and fighting voter suppression. As a result, in 2020, Georgia elected two Democrats for the United States Senate, and voted for President Biden as well. It was a historic victory. While Donald Trump was elected this past November 5, the State of Georgia was considered a swing state that Democrats had a solid chance of winning right up until the end of the campaign.

I have wondered for years why Stacey Abrams hasn’t run for office again. I found the answer in David Pepper’s Saving Democracy. She is playing a long game, as he advocates – not focusing on individual election years, individual races, but spending her time strengthening democracy as a whole in Georgia, making sure that voters are registering, and then urging people to make sure that they vote so that they are less likely to be removed from the voting rolls. It’s an important approach; stepping outside of the every-two-year or every-four-year election cycle to carry out a sustained, long-term effort to create a solid foundation of voting rights and engaged voters who will go to the polls.

Stacey Abrams is kindling a small flame of hope for us today.

The flame of hope was fanned right here yesterday, as many of you know, during the Meetinghouse Foundation’s symposium about democracy. This room was packed. Just the sight of the hundreds of people who came out seeking understanding and even possibly a path forward was heartening. People care. They truly do. The sight of so many people listening intently, leaning forward, engaged, is an image that I’ll carry forward when I am looking for hope in the coming days.

Our theme this month is Repair, and everything that I am reading makes it clear that we have a great deal of work to do to repair our democracy and our system of government, starting from the ground up. Our keynote speaker yesterday, historian and author Colin Woodard, was asked why liberal democrats are struggling to effectively reach voters. In response, he spoke about the ongoing impact of the pandemic. Think about that profound disruption: how long we were stuck in our houses, barely going out. And we spent a tremendous amount of time online, and we still are. Many of us haven’t fully returned to a life of participation; our social muscles are a bit weak. It can feel easier and more comfortable to just stay home. Professor Woodard’s point was that our social fabric has become frayed, and as a result it’s too easy for bad actors to flood the Internet with misinformation. We need to repair our social structures, and our relationships. Our root systems, our mycelium networks, need to be encouraged to grow back together again.

Is there hope to be found? Yes, I am feeling it. I have been finding hope in recent days through the consistent messages I am reading everywhere. There are a lot of thoughtful people who are saying much the same thing, that we need to scale back, to focus on much smaller scale activities, to grow from our roots, to nurture our own networks and strengthen those so that the networks can grow and thrive and connect to each other. While it may feel daunting, the very fact that I keep seeing the same message reassures me that a lot of people are thinking about this and are already at work, much as Stacey Abrams has been for several years.

David Pepper points out that we are so focused on the large pattern of our election cycle that we ignore the consistent groundwork that needs to take place year in and year out in order to foster the health of our elections and our government. We focus on the big prize – the presidency – and don’t spend much time or attention on local or state issues. But what if we were consistently registering folks to vote, and keeping them engaged around local issues, to strengthen their voting muscles? What if we are carefully watching local races: school committees, library boards, to make sure that even those reflect the wishes of the majority? How do you keep your community from banning books? How do you make sure that good candidates are chosen to run for statewide office? Pepper urges us to be watching every race, so that no one runs unopposed. We need to be vigilant, and connected. We need to shift to creating healthy small patterns, that can then grow into larger ones.

The consistent message is that this is everyone’s work. David Pepper advocates that people factor in strengthening democracy as one of their daily priorities. Where are you placing your time and attention? What are your own patterns?

Remember our conversation earlier about murmurations and fractals? Think how a murmuration happens: each starling surrounded by only seven other starlings, and yet resulting in thousands of birds flying, and twisting and turning in unison.

And fractals tell us how forms in nature scale up from small to large. The author and activist adrienne maree brown wrote this about fractals: “The patterns of the universe repeat at scale. There is a structural echo that suggests two things: one, that there are shapes and patterns fundamental to our universe, and two, that what we practice at a small scale can reverberate to the largest scale.” She went on to say, “It was and is devastatingly clear to me that until we have some sense of how to live our solutions locally, we won’t be successful at implementing a just governance system regionally, nationally, or globally.” (adrienne maree brown, Emergent Strategy, p. 52.)

We see again the importance of patterns: David Pepper pointed out that our pattern is to only focus on national elections. We need to return to a much smaller-scale pattern to create a healthy electoral system and government.

But according to brown, we have to get even smaller than that. She frequently quotes her mentor, Grace Lee Boggs, as saying, “Transform yourself to transform the world.” In other words, the patterns of your life, of your thinking, affect the larger patterns of society, of elections, and of government.

It would be easy to feel overwhelmed, and indeed hopeless at the task before us right now. And who feels like transforming ourselves? But I have thought of some small things:

Let’s start by rebuilding connections. Are there people who you haven’t talked to or seen in a long time? Remember, this is about changing patterns in our own lives, to work toward changing larger patterns.

Maybe we start by resolving to do an act of kindness, every single day.

What local groups or organizations can you help strengthen? You don’t have to run for office yourself, but are you paying close attention? Do you know who your city councilor is, or your select board members? Then, think about your connection to this institution. The community and indeed the world need us right now. This church offers a saving message of love that is so needed today. How do we strengthen ourselves in order to spread that message?

The more connected we are, the more aware of what is happening around us, the more ready we will be to take even the smallest actions, to disrupt, to resist when called to do so. We can choose joy over despair. Remember that authoritarians want us to be afraid, to be isolated, to be unhappy, so that we’re easier to control. Joy can be an act of defiance in itself. Bishop Steven Charleston tells us, “My joy will not be contained, though the news of the day tries hard to make it so.”

My friends, it can feel so overwhelming. But the hope is in the reminder to stay small, to work on your own patterns and the shapes of your life, and then to expand outward into growing networks and spirals and branches. Colin Woodard yesterday advised us to not try to be everywhere, to not try to do it all. Work on what is natural for you, on your patterns.

Centuries ago, a wise rabbi offered the same message, that speaks to us today: “Do not be daunted by the enormity of the world’s grief. Do justly, now. Love mercy, now. Walk humbly, now. You are not obligated to complete the work, but neither are you free to abandon it” (“Pirkei Avot” 2:16).

Colin Woodard had one final piece of advice for us yesterday. He said, “Don’t be afraid.”

Don’t be afraid.

“My joy will not be contained, though the news of the day tries hard to make it so.
I will accept the realities in which I live, in all their vagueness and distraction,
knowing that I cannot control where they will take me,
but refusing to allow them to define me.
They do not. Hope defines me. And love. And vision.
I will carry joy with me like the First People carried fire.” (Bishop Steven Charleston)

Hope. Love. Vision. Joy. Fire.

Amen.