For Those Who Live at the Shoreline ©
Reverend Janet Parsons
Gloucester UU Church
June 2, 2024
It was such a joy to be present at the flag-raising at City Hall this past Friday to kick off the month of June as Pride Month. It was the largest crowd at this event I’ve ever seen, and I want to acknowledge the hard work and organizing skill of the new Cape Ann Pride Coalition, which has provided exactly the spark we’ve needed here to really turn Pride into a full-throated celebration. I was happy to see the mayor, and our state representative and senator, and the superintendent of schools, not just present, but speaking wholeheartedly for the need to recognize the beauty and worth of every human.
Our opening words this morning asked us, is Pride a protest or a party? And of course, it was born out of protest, out of a riot at the Stonewall Inn 55 years ago this month. But along the way the joy of Pride took its equal place as well. Because the message, year in and year out, is that humans have the right to take up space in this world, not to hide, not to remain in the shadows, but to be in public as their true selves. How could that not turn into a party? Imagine the joy of putting down the fear, stepping out of the workday clothes and into something more comfortable, more fabulous, and showing up.
It feels more important than ever for big, visible Pride events, and not just Pride, but all events that combine celebration with a loud statement that “We’re here!” I’m thinking of just this month here in Gloucester, first with Pride, next week with a flag-raising protesting gun violence, followed by Juneteenth, and then, of course, Fiesta.
It feels more important than ever, because there’s a shadow, a dark cloud on the horizon.
Our poet, Audre Lorde, wrote:
“…For those of us
who were imprinted with fear
like a faint line in the center of our foreheads
learning to be afraid with our mother’s milk
for by this weapon
this illusion of some safety to be found
the heavy-footed hoped to silence us
For all of us
this instant and this triumph
We were never meant to survive…”
“For by this weapon – fear – the heavy-footed hoped to silence us…”
There is so much to be afraid of these days. Since the insurrection at the United States Capitol building on January 6, 2021, we have sensed the fragility of our form of government, and have a new understanding that it could be overthrown if we are not vigilant. And of course, since then, the increasingly brazen rhetoric and actions of those who are no friends of democracy – the ones our poet calls ‘heavy-footed’ – have been emerging from many directions, from members of the Supreme Court to local school committees. Those people talk a lot about the desire to ‘roll back the clock’, to return to a different time when we were ‘greater’. But what they are really saying, what all these efforts amount to, is a concerted effort to deny others a chance to take up space. Think of all the objections – to critical race theory, to visibility and rights for trans people, to reproductive rights for women, to justice for immigrants. All of these add up to a message of “you are in our space, and we don’t want you taking up our space.” I was startled last week to read that the Republican challenger to Senator Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota appeared on Steve Bannon’s podcast to announce that ‘women are getting too mouthy.” (https://www.msnbc.com/the-reidout/reidout-blog/royce-white-women-too-mouthy-rcna154332)
There is much to be afraid of. In the past year, as legal action has been taken against the former president for his efforts to overturn the presidential election of 2020, as well as other actions, we’ve listened as threats of violence against judges, jurors, and election workers become more and more frequent. It was probably for that reason that so many were profoundly relieved at the ‘guilty’ verdict against the former president this past Thursday. The verdict demonstrated that the rule of law, the foundation of our system of government, had prevailed. Yale scholar Timothy Snyder wrote this, “Trump knowingly lied about the 2020 election, creating the conditions for insurrection; his campaign now is centered on his big lie, which becomes the justification for violence against those who do not believe. As he threatens judges, prosecutors, and elected officials, he spreads the rule of fear.” (https://snyder.substack.com/p/law-or-fear). Snyder went on to say that we have a choice: law, or fear. “If we give in to fear again and again, law will eventually yield.” (Ibid.)
Timothy Snyder often speaks of what he calls ‘anticipatory obedience’, or responding to perceived threats by being more and more careful to not make waves, to not take risks. Maybe you decide to quit your job as an election worker. Maybe judges resign or turn down appointments because of the potential of violence toward their families. But we need unbiased election workers, and judges. Our system hinges on roles such as these. But once people begin to pull back, to obey out of fear, says Snyder, we are well on our way toward authoritarianism. We don’t volunteer at the polls. We decide to stay home from flag-raisings. We take up less and less space, make fewer and fewer demands, and by doing so, we give our space and our voices back to those who are hungry for increasing power, the heavy-footed ones.
There is an even more frightening aspect of the effort to keep us afraid, compliant, and out of the public square, and that is gun violence. I never equated the two until last summer, after a lecture at our UU ministers’ conference by the Reverend Cecilia Kingman. (https://uuma.org/berry-street-essay/2023-berry-street-essay-the-reverend-cecilia-kingman/) It had never occurred to me that the inability to get control of this nation’s seeming love affair with weapons had anything to do with authoritarianism. But think about it. If we’re afraid to gather in groups, who does that benefit?
We have been subscribing to the narrative that those who commit mass shootings tend to be ‘lone wolves’, and many consider this uniquely American social failure to be a mental health issue. However, the Anti-Defamation League has been tracking violent deaths for over a decade, and reported in 2022 that of 450 politically motivated killings, 75% were committed by right-wing extremists, and half of those were committed by white supremacists.
This, pure and simple, is terrorism: the effort to gain control over people by frightening them. To keep them from using their voices and their bodies, to cow them into obedience. (https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/17/briefing/right-wing-mass-shootings.html)
And so, on Friday, a large group of people, many of whom live at the shoreline, as our poet put it, came together at our City Hall, led by our elected and appointed officials, to do the work of democracy: to show up, to be seen, to raise our voices and to take up space in public together. More than ever I was grateful for the presence of our officials: by their presence they helped hold the balance of law vs. fear. But it is going to take the presence of every single one of us to hold onto our fragile system of government and to continue to create a society that is based on care and compassion, and love for one another.
It helps to find and share small acts of courage. I happened to see just yesterday that at a recent high school graduation in Idaho, a graduate named Annabelle Jenkins tried to hand a banned book, The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood, to the school superintendent. He crossed his arms and refused it, so she laid it at his feet and left the stage. Of course, she was criticized for disrupting the ceremony. She told the newspaper, the Idaho Statesman, “My goal was never to be disruptive or mess up the ceremony. And I really don’t believe that I did. I mean, at the end of the day, I think that that was my time on stage and that was my moment, and that was something that was important to me to do.” (https://people.com/idaho-graduate-gives-superintendent-copy-of-the-handmaid-s-tale-after-book-censorship-8656592#:~:text=During%20the%20May%2023%20graduation,district’s%20libraries%20in%20Dec.%202023.)
We must make a conscious decision to continue to show up, to speak up even if our voices shake, to sing, to shout, to wear clothes that might not be seen in the boardroom. We do this for each other, those of us who are less vulnerable helping the more vulnerable to hold their space. To be willing to use our time on the stage.
It is a scary time in our history, and much hangs in the balance. It would be easy to think that there is nothing we can do about it. But Pride protests and celebrations have been showing us the way for years: show up, dance, be a little outrageous, and let everyone know that you’re there. This is work for us all, queer and straight alike: to be an ally, to keep showing up, to help each other to flourish, to become all of whom we are meant to be in the world. And on those days when the fear seems to be getting the upper hand, remember how much there is to celebrate, and how much we need to celebrate people becoming more and more empowered to find their rightful place. We should be proud of that every day, all year long.
when we speak we are afraid
our words will not be heard
nor welcomed
but when we are silent
we are still afraid
So it is better to speak
remembering
we were never meant to survive.
Blessed Be.
Amen.
