"Belonging"

READING

"The Faith of an Unrepentant Liberal"

by A. Powell Davies

 

We grow by fellowship. The life of our minds and the joy of our hearts

is very largely the gift of others. We long to share our lives with

other people, to understand other minds, to be ourselves understood.

Such fellowship, such communion, is life itself. If we are denied it, we

become dwarfed and wizened, shrunken and distorted — spiritual

starvelings. So closely are we intertwined with other lives — indeed

with all the life of all the world — that all gain and all loss

anywhere, all advance or all disaster everywhere, intimately affect us.

As John Donne told us, "no man is an island, intire of itself." No, we

are what we are because of the human world in which we live, a world of

manifold relationships, and because of our intimates, our close

companions, our friends. It is therefore obvious that we grow by

fellowship — by relationship to other people, by not being alone.

 

Yet we remain alone . . . and lonely. In spite of all we have said, in

the last analysis the soul is solitary. No matter how much of its life

is owed to the world outside itself, or even how much of its very

substance, it never really quite meets another soul or altogether

mingles with another life. By its own essential nature, it lives alone.

Its communion at last is with itself, with its own inner solitariness.

Nor is there any cure for such loneliness. Anything that takes away the

soul's final solitude destroys it. I say this deliberately and in spite

of all the lighthearted promises of so many shallow religions. A great

and true religion is the last thing in the world that is ever likely to

do so. Every human being who ever lived, in whom was recognized the

signs of greatness was inwardly and incurably lonely. If that final

solitude could have been invaded and dispersed, there would have been no

greatness, for it was there that greatness grew.      

 

 

SERMON

 

It is both paradoxical and true,

        wrote A. Powell Davies,

                that the human soul "is naturally made for companionship,

                        and [is] at the same time, naturally lonely."

We grow in fellowship with others,

        but greatness grows out of solitude,

                he declared in his sermon "The Soul in its Loneliness."

A good religion provides companionship

        but also respects the separateness of each member.

Rather than deny that loneliness is our human condition,

        or dismiss it with shallow reassurances,

                an honest faith sees it as the source of strength,

                        of courage

                                and of transformation.

 

The yearning to belong is just as fundamental.

Like the lone black fish in the children's story Swimmy,

        we seek out others,

                sensing that we are stronger and safer in a group.

So we join a faith community.

Here we experience the growth that comes with fellowship.

And here we experience the tension between being one

        and belonging with many.

 

In a religious democracy such as our church,

        the tension plays out in the activities

                we find in any democracy.

Since we are a voluntary membership organization,

        anyone who wants to belong 

                can become a member.

When you become a member of this community,

        you are entitled to vote on church business.

Your individual judgment carries equal weight 

        to the judgments of other members.

Each of us in our separateness

        contributes to the collective outcome.

 

People participate in this community in different ways,

        but only members can vote.

In many ways, you cannot tell a member from a non-member.

Everyone is welcome here.

But when you become a member,

        a deepened sense of belonging  

                may then become possible for you.

That deepened sense is symbolized by your vote,

        that your opinion will shape the larger whole.

It is both paradoxical and true that something we do as individuals –

        and the act of voting is as individual 

                as something can be –

                        also symbolizes our belonging to a community.

 

National events of the past few weeks have given all of us

        reason to ponder what it means to vote

                and to be part of something greater than ourselves.

The tension between an individual act

        and an ambiguous collective outcome

                has tested our patience 

                        and challenged our understanding of democratic process.

We have all learned what we once took for granted,

        that each and every vote is decisive and necessary.

The debate has tapped into a passion that citizens feel

        for the weight and worth of every single ballot,

                for that individual, even lonely act, of casting one’s vote.

It is a passion with deep roots into our history as a country.

 

Historian Alexander Keyssar, 

author of "The Right to Vote: the Contested History of Democracy in America,"

        summarizes it this way:

"At the opening of the twenty-first century 

        (and the new millennium),

                nearly all adult citizens of the United States 

                        are legally entitled to vote.

What once was a long list of restrictions on the franchise

        has been whittled down to a small set of constraints.

Economic, gender-based, and racial qualifications have been abolished;

        literacy tests are gone, if not forgotten;

                residency requirements have been reduced to a matter of weeks;

                        the age of political maturity has been lowered;

                                and the burden of registration 

                                        has been rendered less onerous.

The proportion of the adult population enfranchised

        is far greater than it was at the nation’s founding

                or at the end of the nineteenth century….

 

"Yet getting here has taken a very long time.

The elementary act of voting... 

        was for many decades reserved 

                to white, English-speaking literate males,

                        a majority of whom belonged to the respectable classes.

As late as 1950, basic political rights were denied 

        to most African Americans in the South,

                as well as significant pockets of voters elsewhere,

                        including the illiterate in New York,

                                Native Americans in Utah,

                                        many Hispanics in Texas and California,

                                                and the recently mobile everywhere."

 

Universal suffrage was hard-won for our country.

The struggle for it does not fit easily

        into the "official portrait of the United States

                as the standard bearer of democracy

                        and representative government."

In fact, it has not been the American way

        until relatively recently.

 

Yet it is paradoxical and true  

        that however strongly we may feel about the right to vote,

                only about half of us do.

We can hope that the agonizing debate we are currently holding

        will yield a renewed commitment

                to the effort of participating in elections.

Whatever the outcome, the process demonstrates

        how fragile a democracy can be

                if even a single vote does not count.

Everything we have struggled to become as a society

        demands that every one be included.

 

The insistence on every single vote counting  

   for a community to be whole

        is fundamental to our faith tradition 

                as well as to our American democracy.

And in our own religious history,

        inclusiveness has not always been a fundamental value either.

The early churches out of which Unitarianism evolved

        once held the belief that only some members were among the elect –

                eligible for salvation,

                        while all others merely worshipped beside with them.

Unitarians rejected this arbitrary claim,

        over which congregations split and eventually divided.

 

Gradually the idea of election as salvation

        merged with election as an activity 

                that everyone shared.

It became an affirmation

        of the value of the contribution of every person

                who chose to be part of the community.

The concept of voting is just as precious

        to our religious faith

                as it is to our democratic nation.

In each arena,

        it defines what it means for us to belong

                and for a community to be whole.

 

If you sense that there is a spiritual crisis

        swirling around this election debate,

                perhaps it is because voting is a spiritual activity.

It speaks to the inherent worth and dignity

        of every person –

                so long as we maintain universal suffrage, that is –

                        and it taps into that fundamental loneliness

                                that A. Powell Davies identified at the center

                                        of the human soul.

With the results unresolved,

        we are the loose ends,

                we have not come back together yet,

                        and we are not whole.

 

A week or so ago,

        in the locker room at my gym,

                I was talking with a woman I know 

                        about the election.

It was a partisan conversation,

        between two people who agree on things,

                unaware that anyone else was listening.

After I went on my way,

        my friend told me later,

                another woman in the locker room came up to her,

                        angry and upset,

                                complaining about having to listen to us talk politics.

"You have no idea how difficult it is

        to be a Republican on the Westside!"

                she protested.

 

We are not whole.

Our souls are lonely

        and waiting for resolution.

We can only wonder which lawsuit 

        will finally take care of the ambiguity

                once and for all.

 

This is not the message I expected to deliver

        when I planned this sermon 

                a couple of weeks ago.

I thought the election would surely be over by now!

It seemed like a good time

        to celebrate the resilience of democracy

                and its spiritual expression in our church community.

I never expected that saying something as innocent 

        as "every vote counts"

                could ever be construed as a partisan statement.

 

What we have now is a dense and tangled series of legal proceedings

        that makes us alternately numb or outraged,

                and by the time it's all over

                        even more people will be alienated than ever before.

I am not optimistic about wholeness emerging in our nation

        anytime soon.

I think we're all going to end up feeling

        like the Republican in a Westside locker room.

The soul in its loneliness will have some hard work to do.

 

At least we have a place to take our souls to be together.

Here we can come to be whole,

        diverse though our views may be,

                and trust that even when we do not agree,

                        we can all belong together.

It is both paradoxical and true

        that we find our fellowship most comforting

                when we are most acutely aware

                        of how separate we can be.

 

For what is belonging but the knowledge

        that our individual selves are safe and intact

                in the company of others?

What is belonging but the affirmation

        that each individual has an inherent substance

                that deserves expression and respect?

What is belonging but the willingness

        to feel alone at times

                because of one’s convictions?

And what is belonging 

        but the mutuality of knowing and being known,

                for all our idiosyncrasies and irritating opinions?

 

Belonging to a faith community such as ours

        is an invitation to go deeper 

                into the loneliness of the soul.

That is where the conscience struggles,

        where we find truth,

                where greatness grows.

We are companions in that spiritual project,

        which no one can do for us,

                but which gains strength from being together.

 

The human soul, Davies assured us,

        is also made for the intimacy of human contact,

                for friendship and love,

                        for cooperation and solidarity.

But the collective is strong

        because of the individuals who comprise it,

                because each of us,

                        reckoning with our true selves,

                                come forward knowing

                                        that we count.

That acceptance is what makes loneliness bearable.

In a time when it will be hard to find a place to belong,

        remember what it means to come here.

Find hope in the truth

        that your substance and your struggle are accepted.

Renew yourselves in the long wait for wholeness

        with the comfort of knowing

                that though the work is lonely,

                        we are not all alone.

We are strong together

        because each of us has chosen to belong.

Sources:
"The Right to Vote: The Contested History of Democracy in America," by Alexander Keyssar (New York: Basic Books, 2000)
"The Soul in Its Loneliness," in "The Faith of an Unrepentant Liberal,"by A. Powell Davies (Washington, DC: All Souls Church, Unitarian, 1946)