Elections and Illusions: On the Article II vote

When the 2024 UUA General Assembly voted this past weekend to say “We covenant … to protect all beings from exploitation” in our faith’s central “Values and Covenant” statement, also known as Article II of the UUA Bylaws, it was truly a historic change. I found this outcome exhilarating, and full of promise! It was truly a dream come true, which I had not known if I would see achieved in my lifetime. I am eager to begin the work of unpacking the implications of this statement for our faith movement. 

When I learned that the Article II revisions were passed with over 4 of 5 of GA delegates voting in favor, I was immediately struck by two things. First, this was a resounding statement of support for such a momentous sea change. But second, almost 1 in 5 delegates voted against the change, suggesting that a substantial division among UUs remained, even after years of discussion.

So it should come as no surprise that—I know from direct conversations—some friends of UUAM hoped that the overall package of changes would be adopted, and some hoped that it would not be.

This is not heresy, this is democracy.

I want to make something clear: all UUAM supporters are welcome in this organization, whether they found their faith more recognizably described by Article II as it was written, or as it is now written. 

In mid-June, a UUAM supporter noted that she was unsure of her welcome in the organization, given her own sense that UUism was better served by not revising Article II. Why was she feeling unsure if she belonged? The UUAM Board and I had broadcast our hope that the revisions would pass, and even urged UUAM supporters to serve as delegates to GA in order to support their passage. Because of that conversation, I have realized that we should have made equally clear that we understood UUAM supporters and other delegates would (of course) vote as their congregation or conscience deemed best, and that we supported their doing so.

Believe me, as an animal advocate, I am eager to discuss with you how we can make good on the promise held by the new language about “all beings.”

But I am not just an animal advocate, I am also a minister, and I think what UUAM needs—right this second—is not to launch that discussion, but to begin the work of helping UU animal advocates find their way back into solidarity with one another (and with all other UUs), despite our different feelings about the Article II vote.

I mentioned how I planned to focus this column earlier today to a strong supporter of UUAM, and he expressed some genuine surprise about why any UUAM supporter might have opposed the revisions to Article II. Similarly, I know other UUAM supporters who strongly opposed the revisions overall may feel just as stumped by why other UUs supported the revisions.

We need to find a way of making sense to one another again, and rediscovering our common cause with one another. We need to rediscover, in the words of Francis David, that “We need not think alike to love alike.”

If you have been feeling any alienation from other UUs on the topic of Article II, I wish to humbly offer you some words, in case they might help you in your own process. I wrote a sermon almost twelve years ago that might not seem exactly topical—but it very much is. It is called “Elections and Illusions. ” I hope you can ignore the mentions of particular personalities and policies, and see if it still resonates with you today. I offer it as a gift for this moment, and as an invitation to begin a conversation.

I know I speak for the UUAM Board when I say that we look forward to discovering, with you, how best to move forward in the days to come, for the sake of the animals and for this faith.

Thank YOU for being a blessing to animals, and to this faith.

John
Rev. John Gibb Millspaugh
Executive Director, UUAM

Sunday service: “Elections and Illusions”

Winchester [Massachusetts] Unitarian Society, November 11, 2012

Meditation in Words and Silence 

Rev. Sarah Gibb Millspaugh

Spirit of life, embracing spirit binding each to all, we arrive in this space of worship seeking your peace and insight.

In this season of division and political polarization, help us, for this moment, let down our guard, and see the humanity in those we might caricature or ridicule. Help us let go of the media’s hype about “a nation divided” – Help us perceive the unity behind the divisions, help us perceive the humanity behind the opinions, help us perceive the love and the fear that courses through our veins is like the love and fear that courses through the veins of our political opponents. In this moment… here… let us feel the unity that binds us. Help us live as if we depend on one another, as if we share one fate…

Help us remember that even after decades of deep political division, enemies can become friends. Our partnership with the church in a formerly communist, totalitarian country reminds us of this. The divisions can melt away, and the unity underneath can hold us.

In the spirit of love, let us each pray for ourselves and for those we disagree with politically. Let us pray that we might find a way to work together, to move forward in unity to face the great challenges of the days ahead. In the quiet that follows let us lift our silent prayers.

Reading from World Religions -Thinley Norbu Rinpoche, adapted.                     

Our reading from world religions, “Examples of Maya,” is adapted from Tibeten Buddhist teacher Thinley Norbu Rinpoche, who lived from 1931-2011. In his essay, Rinpoche writes for those within the Buddhist tradition. A sample sentence reads, “According to the general Hinayana, relative truth is all phenomena, including the gross phenomena of the five skandhas.” We have adapted this Buddhist teacher’s text to be accessible to this gathered congregation; you can find the original in Marcia Binder Shmidt’s book, The Dzogchen Primer.

Maya is illusion. Maya is the belief that our projection of reality is reality itself. Maya is mistaking relative perception for absolute truth. We mistake sensations, beliefs, conceptions, feelings, thoughts for something more than sensations, conceptions, feelings, or thoughts.

In Sanskrit, ma means “not,” and ya means “that.” So, ma-ya: “not that.” Not truth. Illusion. When we see maya as illusion, we see clearly. When we see maya as reality, this is called delusion.

Our attachment to maya as if it is truth causes great suffering and keeps us from enlightenment. Maya is only a passing dream, a magician’s trick, a floating bubble. Adults chuckle when a child reaches out to hold a bubble in his hand, but we, too, mistake maya for true form.  

Maya is a rainbow, which is as tall as the sky but has no substance beyond our perception. Maya is the moon reflected in water, not the moon itself; a mirage, not an actual oasis; a fantastic figment of the imagination, not an actual heavenly city of celestial musicians. Our senses are attracted to magic, bubbles, rainbows, mirages, reflections, dreams, fantasies. While all these captivate, they are without effect or function. When closely examined maya is nonexistent, perception not reality, “not that.”  

Sermon: “Elections and Illusions”  -Rev. John Gibb Millspaugh

This congregation, this house of worship, is a sanctuary from dogmatic political or religious thinking.

All are welcome here, whether they are politically conservative, or liberal, or completely elsewhere.

We believe in the right and responsibility of conscience, even if your conscience differs from mine or your neighbor’s in the pew. Each of us has the breathtaking responsibility of determining what is true for ourselves and, with humility, being open to new revelation.

You will never hear a particular candidate or party endorsed, I hope, from this pulpit or by this congregation. But I also hope you will never see this place as politically irrelevant, or our Unitarian Universalist faith as apolitical.

Not only does our faith call us to engage in social issues, it also provides our spirits support as we try to move through what, this year, has been a particularly polarized political environment.

We’ve been immersed in a divisive presidential campaign season, with passions running high on all sides.  

We’ve also been immersed in congressional races and ballot issues. Some of us are celebrating, some relieved. Some are stunned, some grieving.

Whether we voted for Mitt Romney or Barack Obama, Elizabeth Warren or Scott Brown, or other candidates, for or against the ballot measures termed medical marijuana and death with dignity and more, we now face the question of how to move forward with integrity in a divided state and divided nation.

I wasn’t surprised by the vitriol of the campaigns. But I was stunned, if not surprised, by the toxicity of much of the dialogue that followed the vote. Many Democrats and Republicans have acted as if we are defined by our differences. From CNN interviews to Facebook comments to blogs to editorials, I’m struck by the antipathy to one another’s humanity shown by regular people of all stripes, once they get onto the internet.

Conservative commentator Eric Dondero, who this past week advised stopping speaking to co-workers and divorcing your spouse if they voted for Obama, was asked by a reporter if he would help a Democrat drowning in a lake. He said, “I honestly do not have an answer for that one.”

Meanwhile, some liberals have taken great pleasure in conservative’s pain. An article called “Liberal Schadenfreude Is Out of Control”[1] brought to my attention snarky articles proudly declaring things like, “I am just…completely…delighted by every single right-wing temper-tantrum [following the election] … I can’t stop hate-reading. I can’t stop.”

Meanwhile, a blog commentator writes, “My father defriended me on Facebook and told me that he never wants to speak to me again because I voted for Obama…What…is wrong with people?” Onto the tumblr site “White People Mourning Romney,” where liberals cackle as they post pictures of weeping conservatives.[2]  

After a divisive election, many of us are united, still, in vitriol.

With images of red states and blue states fresh in our minds, it may be tempting for us to fall into polarizing as well. It’s easy to feel that we live in a land divided, with no common ground. Maya. Illusion. On one side are humanitarian, reasonable, responsible citizens; on the other side are the uninformed, the misled, the ignorant. Maya. Illusion.

This week I overheard a woman in a coffee shop who is stunned to the core that almost half of Massachusetts voters affirmed “Death with Dignity.” She was trying to make sense of the fact that nearly half of her fellow citizens sanction murdering their own relatives. She was sure that it would have been a license for murder. She was sure that 49% of Massachusetts voters had said that they would morally sanction one of the worst crimes imaginable, murder. She was in such pain.

As all of us know what that pain feels like, if ever we feel that half of our fellow-citizens are opposed to our most core and sacred values.

My guess is that when we feel this profound of alienation from other human beings, almost always, we are caught in maya, illusion. In three ways.

The first way maya separates us from reality, in regard to politics, is revealed through a rather uncomfortable thought experiment designed to filter out some illusion.  

Let’s try it this morning, uncomfortable as it may be. I invite you to close your eyes.

I invite you to think back to this past week’s ballot, and the contest that mattered the most to you, about which you felt most passionately. Maybe it was the presidential race, or a race for Congress. Maybe it was death with dignity, or medical marijuana, or one of several other issues. Pick the contest about which you felt most passionately. Okay, now this is uncomfortable, but picture the candidate or option you voted against.

See that person or that opinion, and the dread you felt as you imagined if your side lost. Call up all the reasons you voted against that person or that position. Why would it have been terrible if that side carried the day? You may feel a lot of those emotions coming up. Some you might be able to name, some you might not. There’s a lot there. Let yourself feel what you are feeling for a moment.

Now. I invite you to keep your eyes closed, as you Let go of that image you were picturing, those opinions you were calling to mind, and the feelings that they called up. I invite you to relax, Feel yourself supported by your seat, as you breathe in, and out.

I’m about to ask you a trick question.

I want you to guess, silently to yourself, the approximate percentage of people who voted for the person or position you were picturing. Come up with an actual number, a percent, even if it’s a wild guess. Once you have a number in mind, open your eyes.

Okay. We’re talking about illusion this morning… I imagine that most of us guessed a number above zero. That some number of people above zero voted for the person or position that we opposed. And perhaps that’s a delusion. Perhaps that’s a confusion of our perception of reality with reality itself.

Why? Because those who voted for a person or position we disagreed with, weren’t voting for our idea of that person or position. They don’t share our illusions, projections, and biases, just as we don’t share theirs.

The image you held in your mind of Obama or Romney, Brown or Warren, or one side or another of an issue is not the same image of that person or position that supporters of that person or position had in mind.

I’ll spell this out a little bit. Many Obama supporters saw in Romney the school bully, at best, and a selfish, flip-flopping, disingenuous delusional jerk at worst.

Why would anybody have voted for disingenuous delusional jerk?  Well, no one did. Those who voted for Romney were voting for a decisive, responsible, trustworthy leader, who could put our country back on the path to prosperity in these perilous times. They saw a different candidate than the one Obama supporters saw.  

In just the same way, many Romney supporters saw Obama as an out-of-touch policy wonk at best, and a manipulative, arrogant, elitist, emotionless failure at worst. So they were mystified that anyone could support him.

Why would anyone vote for a manipulative, out-of-touch, emotionless failure? Well, no one did. Those who voted for Obama were voting for an exceptional, responsible, trustworthy leader, who could pragmatically enact the policies our country needs in these perilous times. They saw a different candidate than the one Romney supporters saw. 

So. You may know that your neighbor on the block or in the pew voted differently than you did but hear this: even if your neighbor voted differently than you did, it’s an illusion to think that your neighbor voted for the candidate you voted against.[3] It’s an illusion to think that your neighbor voted for the ballot issue that you voted against.

We mistake maya-—sensations, beliefs, conceptions, feelings, thoughts— for something more than sensations, conceptions, feelings, or thoughts. Our attachment to maya as if it is truth causes great suffering … Maya is only a passing dream, a magician’s trick, a floating bubble. Adults chuckle when a child reaches out to hold a bubble in his hand, but we, too, mistake maya for true form. Maya is a rainbow, which is as tall as the sky but has no substance beyond our perception. Maya is the moon reflected in water, not the moon itself; when closely examined maya is nonexistent. Maya is perception, not reality, maya is ‘not that.’

Even referring to people as conservative and liberal is a false distinction. Most all of us are both conservative and liberal. If you look at surveys conducted by Pew Research Center over the past few decades, from 1987 to 2009, you’ll find that when it comes to ideology about the size of government and so on, ideological conservatives outnumbered liberals by a ratio of 3.5 to 1. But when you look at specific social programs, liberal supporters outnumbered conservative opponents by a 2.2 to 1 margin. In other words, in every Pew survey, there were always more conservatives than liberals regarding the overall role of government but a greater number of liberals than conservatives in support of specific programs designed to promote equality and economic well-being. If that’s true, then the United States is neither a center-right nor a center-left nation; it is, and always has been, both at the same time.[4] There’s common ground, plenty of it.

The idea that we are more divided than united as a nation is maya. The second way maya shows up is in our post-election thinking, in those maps of red states and blue states, competing against one another. Conservative fathers unfriending their liberal children on Facebook, liberals creating websites reveling in conservative pain, these remind me of a cartoon four people in a rowboat. At the boat’s stern, we see a hole in the boat, water rushing in, and two sailors frantically trying to bail out the rushing water slowly filling the boat. At the other end, the two other sailors lean idly against the bow, one commenting to the other “Sure glad the hole isn’t at our end.” 

We may have competing ideas, different ways of seeing the world, different mayas we mistake for reality, but in the end, we’re all in this together. As UUA President Rev. Bill Sinkford has pointed out, “There is only one destiny for this nation and its people.”[5]

And to paraphrase psychologist Jeremy Shapiro, despite the violent rhetoric politicians use:

• that the right is waging war on the poor, war on working people, war on the middle class, war on children, war on the elderly, and

• that the left is waging class warfare, war on business, war on the middle class (again), war on marriage, war on the American way of life, war on religion,

we are not at war with one another. We need not accuse one another of malevolence.[6]  

We do have fundamentally different ideas about some aspects of civic life that we’re debating as a country right now. But there is nothing that makes rhetoric of division inevitable. President Lincoln’s words from 1858 and his 1861 inaugural address are still relevant today, as is the scripture he quotes: “A house divided against itself cannot stand… My countrymen, one and all, think calmly and well upon this whole subject. Nothing valuable can be lost by taking time… We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break the bonds of affection.”

Think calmly, he said, and think well upon this whole subject. Think before we stoke one more fire for partisan gain, before we invent one more ideological sneer whose outcome merely feeds our self-righteousness. “Take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your neighbor’s eye.”[7]

 Do not believe the illusion that what divides us is more important than what unites us. There is only one destiny for this nation and for its people. We are all in this boat together.

Finally. It is an illusion, pure maya, to think that with the election of a president, of congressmen and congresswomen, with settling of ballot questions, we have reached an end, and we can withdraw our energies from matters of state and national import. We have only reached the beginning, and all of us our needed. The president is not the most important person in changing society. The senator is not, the representative is not. Each of us is the most important person in changing society.

We are used to thinking that important decisions belong to others— corporate or government leaders, activists, people more powerful than we are. We don’t see the modest things that we can do as part of the ongoing story of liberation.

We don’t think of ourselves as those shaping society. But we are the most important people shaping society. Presidents and congress people are severely restrained by what they can do by their vast constituencies. Those of us without such positions might have the fantasy that the President, for example, has great freedom in what he can do. More accurately, leadership theorists say, he is one of the most constrained people in the country, with millions watching and judging his every move, his every word.

Ordinary people like us may have less power than the president, sure, but we also have much more freedom to decide how we will change society. And through our changing society at the local level, through changing ourselves and others, we change the constituencies to which presidents and senators respond. 

We can set aside the polarization that maya invites us to, and relate to one another as human beings, in wise and deliberate conversation and reflection, treating others as if they might be the most important person in the kingdom, even if their views differ sharply from ours.

This isn’t fantasy, it’s a reality we have the power to create. Our Church Administrator Mary Ann Young recently shared with me a great example of such a conversation to forge understanding amidst a polarized issue, mentioned in a sermon by my colleague Rev. Cricket Potter, in which she wrote,

Recently, I heard a podcast from one of my favorite radio shows called On Being. The topic was ‘Pro-Life, Pro-Choice Dialogue,’ and it was part of a larger series entitled ‘The Civil Conversations Project.’ I was intrigued right from the get-go because, frankly, I wondered how any kind of civil conversation could happen between a pro-choice activist and a pro-life advocate…

The interview between Frances Kissling, a longtime reproductive activist, and David Gushee, a Christian ethicist, had me captivated. These folks were grappling together with the complexity of the issues, not arguing against one another.

The interviewer Krista Tippett asked David Gushee about this amazing quality to their conversation, this obvious willingness to be break down walls and be vulnerable— to move past facile arguments about right and wrong to a much more ample place of questioning. The key is the questions, Gushee offers: [T]his kind of relationship requires you to ask certain questions of yourself. What is it in your own position that gives you trouble?  [And] what is it in the position of the other that you’re attracted to?… 

What is it in your own position that gives you trouble?  What is it in the position of the other that you’re attracted to? Powerful questions to ask of yourself and the other person— on any topic that you feel strongly about… As Krista Tippett observed near the end of her interview with Gushee and Kissling, In this world of polarizing conflicts, we have glimpsed a new possibility: a way in which people can disagree frankly and passionately, become clearer in heart and mind about their [own stances], and, at the same time, contribute to a more civilized and compassionate society.”[8]

In the coming weeks, let us welcome the full range of feelings that flood our hearts, knowing that doing so will lead us to find greater clarity and courage.

When we feel that what divides us is more important than what unites us, when we commit the sin of reducing people to labels, inaccurate labels, when we pretend that interdependence is a lie and that we’re not all in this together, when we forget the freedom and responsibility each of us have to shape society gradually over time though civil discourse, when we fail to ask what about our own position gives us trouble, and what about the position of the other we’re attracted to, let us say to ourselves, this is maya, I have become enmeshed with it, and my attachment to this maya is causing me and others great suffering.

Let us remember that more than any political affiliation, we are a people of faith, who believe in the importance of every person, that there is one destiny for this nation and its people, that we are all part of the same human family, that each of us is responsible, now more than ever, for building a sane and compassionate society.

As we step forward in faith, we become more fully alive, more in touch with our deep selves, our connections to others, and to the Divine. We have this freedom. We have this power. As we are willing, and as we discover it, may each of us take that first step.

So may it be. Shalom, Salaam, Namaste, Blessed Be, and Amen.

[1] Katherine Goldstein, “Liberal Schadenfreude Is Out of Control: Why gloating after the election is nastier than ever.” Slate, Friday, Nov. 9, 2012, at 8:04 PM ET, available here.

[2] http://whitepeoplemourningromney.tumblr.com/

[3] This idea, as far as I know, is original to Rev. Edmund H. Robinson.

[4] Morley Winograd and Michael D. Hais. “Why most Americans are both liberal and conservative: Ideologically, we favor small government. But practically, we defend big-government programs.” The Christian Science Monitor. January 27, 2011. Available here.

[5] UUA President Rev. William G. Sinkford, “The Destiny of Our Democracy,” Unitarian Universalist Association, November 3, 2004, Boston, MA. Excerpted here.

[6] Jeremy Shapiro. “Opinion: Class warfare. War on teachers. War on business. War in America?” The Christian Science Monitor, September 23, 2011. Available here.

[7] Matthew 7:3-5, The New Testament, NRSV.

[8] The Rev. Cricket Potter, “Leaning In,” October 21, 2012, formerly available here but no longer. Rev. Potter references Krista Tippett’s show On Being episode “David Gushee + Frances Kissling: Pro-Life, Pro-Choice, Pro-Dialogue.” Available here.