It has been ten days since the midterm election, and I’m still processing the results. As is usually the case, there has been lots of talk of winners and losers. That’s how it goes: A narrative takes shape that confirms the expectations going into the election or (like this year) doesn’t. Of course, we prefer a good crisp narrative. It helps to try to make sense of these confusing and complex times.
But it is important not to lose sight of any given situation’s subtleties. Nuance is so important. That’s why it is always important to notice all the layers underneath something. How a shift here, in turn, shifts something else over here.
The big picture is that we are a country (and probably add state and city) divided in so many ways. In this election it seems we avoided the worst that could have happened. Those candidates who wanted to dismantle the very structures of our democracy. And I’m also struck by just how close we came to that not being the case. I’m struck yet again just how set and calcified the divisions are in our country. How some really terrible candidates managed to come awfully close to winning because of that calcification. Doesn’t matter how awful or how compromised as long as they are on my side that’s all that matters. While there are some hints of progress in the right direction in this election we have an awfully long ways to go.
It would be easy to ask just what difference can any one of us make? I take hope in the work that I witnessed so many of you doing in this election. The UU the Vote work was inspiring and folks even seemed to be having fun! And I also want to acknowledge the hard work people did on ballot measures including Measure 114, which will put limits on guns in our state. I was so sad to hear that gun sales are way up since its passage.
Take courage friends. The spiritual task, as far as I can determine, begins with bearing witness to where we are and asking what it is we can do. I’d like to offer a poem by Oregon poet Kim Stafford that has been with me of late. He wrote this, I believe, in the aftermath of the 2016 election.
Advice from a Raindrop
by Kim Stafford
You think you’re too small
to make a difference? Tell me
about it. You think you’re
helpless, at the mercy of forces
beyond your control? Been there.
Think you’re doomed to disappear,
just one small voice among millions?
That’s no weakness, trust me. That’s
your wild card, your trick, your
implement. They won’t see you coming
until you’re there, in their faces, shining,
festive, expendable, eternal. Sure you’re
small, just one small part of a storm that
changes everything. That’s how you win,
my friend, again and again and again.
Keeping the faith,
Tom
Rev. Thomas Disrud (he/him)
Associate Minister
First Unitarian Church of Portland