Rev. Diane Rollert
January 10, 2021
This is one of those Sundays when what I planned to preach lost its relevance to me. My intention had been to talk about the leases we renew in our lives, the big decisions we are forced to make: like renewing a lease on an apartment, where we get caught between a need to go and the inertia of staying.
But today it feels as though renewing my own faith is the biggest question on my mind. How do I renew my faith in humanity, in institutions, in the future?
I think that we can all agree that Wednesday, January 6, was a bad day. I had confidently left a meeting with the Committee on Ministry, assuring the group that the crowds I had seen in photographs that morning, milling outside the US Capitol building, were minimal. It looked like some of the small demonstrations I’d participated in here in Montreal. I wanted to believe that everything would blow over soon without event.
I then turned on TV coverage of the proceedings in the US Congress. I always feel duty-bound to watch history unfolding, wherever it’s happening. Everything seemed to be going as predicted. Debates about the votes in Arizona had begun between the two bodies of government, when the newscasters broke in, shocked. “Something’s wrong! They’re moving the vice president.”
We’d soon learn that an angry mob of rioters had breached the Capitol. I cried as I watched the whole situation deteriorate, as I witnessed the hatred, the fear and the lack of response in real time. Was I surprised? We knew this was coming. But just as you think you are prepared when a loved one is dying after a long illness, nothing prepares you for the deep feelings of loss and shock the moment it actually happens.
Then, that same evening, here in Quebec, our premier announced new measures for a continued lockdown and for a new curfew from 8 p.m. to 5 a.m., starting last night and lasting until at least February 8. Our coronavirus infection rate, deaths and hospitalizations are still rising too rapidly. We keep seeing a glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel, but then it seems as though it’s been snuffed out once again. I’m sure many of us feel as though these really are the hardest times we’ve ever seen. I know we could argue about different times in history. This all could be so much worse, but that’s cold comfort when you are living through your own challenges.
By Thursday, the Canadian Unitarian Council and the UU Ministers of Canada had sent out a pastoral letter to express their solidarity with the many members of our congregations who have strong ties to the US through family or through our own citizenship, and to those who are feeling anxious about the rising anti-democratic movements around the world. As a dual US and Canadian citizen, I greatly appreciated the gesture, as did many others.
But there were also expressions of frustration from some Canadian Unitarians. There was concern that when we release statements about political situations in the US, we fall into the trap of letting the US dominate everything — to the detriment of our own local issues. We forget that we are the Canadian Unitarian Council.
I hear that frustration, but I also know that we live in a globalized time. There’s no such thing as living cocooned within our local communities or in any one country, and to paraphrase Pierre Elliot Trudeau, when you sleep next to an elephant, its every twitch and grunt affects your safety and well-being. And I keep learning more and more, here in Montreal, that many members of our community are originally from the US, or have close friends and family there. A lot of us still vote there. This past presidential election really mattered to us, on behalf of the whole world, in the name of climate justice, peace and more. I like to believe that we do pay attention to local and Canadian issues, but what happened in the US is a big deal, a frightening insurrection that isn’t over yet.
I’d like to be able to give you a prescription for how to renew your faith in what is good. You know that’s always my starting point. Go out into the world in peace. Have courage. Hold on to what is good. I watch my own children sometimes falling into the trap of cynicism, and I try to encourage them not to let anger and despondency rot their souls. Really, it’s a pain to have a minister as a mother. They tell me that I naively expect too much fairness in the world.
They may be right. That’s partly why I think it’s so important for us to stay informed, to not tune out what’s going on in the world — and I know I’ve said this all very recently to you. Many of us are pointing out that what’s happening in the US is nothing new. It’s part of our white supremacist history that is woefully entrenched. Note the pictures of Confederate flags that were brandished in the halls of the Capitol, if you have any doubt. Contrast the violent police response to peaceful Black Lives Matter demonstrators across the US during the summer to the police who took selfies with rioters on Wednesday.
The people who stormed the Capitol deeply believe that they are on the side of God and truth, fuelled by a steady diet of conspiracy theories. Democracy is one of our core Unitarian Universalist principles, as is the free and responsible search for truth and meaning. These are not easy principles to uphold in a post-truth world. But just as the coronavirus knows no borders, conspiracy theories, white supremacy and hatred do not stop at the Canadian border. We have active Q-Anon and hate groups here in Quebec and across Canada. We need to be aware and vigilant.
You know that I am always searching to understand human nature, to understand why people act in hateful and violent ways. Our faith has always taught that all humans are born with the capacity for goodness. That we all have inherent worth and dignity. Our Unitarian and Universalist forebears were criticized for having no answer to evil. They wanted to only see the good in all things, to embrace beauty and the transcendent in the world. They didn’t have an answer for poverty, for abuse, for war or for genocide. I think that’s both a fair and an unfair assessment. Our ancestors were often privileged to ignore what was painful, but they also rose up against what was wrong and unjust, as best they could within the context of their times.
I just read a short essay by John Paul Lederach responding to the riots at the US Capitol. Lederach is an academic known for his work in conflict resolution and peace building. He writes:
“The images of this week remain seared in our minds. While painful, they will not and should not be unseen, precisely because they help us look more carefully at what peers back at us from our national mirror.
“We are not looking at a fringe few. We are gazing upon ourselves.”
He goes on: “The images reminded me of the action and the words of Zechariah when pondering the question, ‘What are these wounds between your arms?’ With hands moving toward heart the response emerged, ‘the wounds I received in the house of a friend.’”
Lederach then holds up the words of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. In the struggle for equality and dignity, the movement must “hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope.” Paraphrasing the great ninteenth-century Unitarian abolitionist Theodore Parker, Dr. King reminded us that “the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.”
I believe that our responsibility is to keep pushing on that moral arc of the universe, even when we feel that we’ve hardly made any impact. The alternative, no matter where we are in the world, is anger, hatred and chaos.
May we hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope.
Stay home, stay safe, but stay engaged.