How Free Are We?

Boom! Boom! Boom
The skyrockets exploded into a zillion sparks of light
over my childhood amazement.

My family had gotten in a boat
motored across the big lake,
and anchored among a flotilla of several hundred boats,
waiting for the darkness to deepen,
and the first signal that the
Fourth of July Fireworks Celebration was beginning.

I had never heard such explosions and seen such a sight.
The booming echoes were welcomed by boat horns,
and ooohhhhs and aaahhhhs from excited observers.
The flash of flowers and mushrooms, arcs, and spheres,
in all the colors I could imagine
kept my rapt attention on the magical sky.

I’ve seen hundreds of fireworks shows since then,
some were longer and louder
and must have cost a whole lot more.
But, there is something special about that first
festival of remembrance:
it has to do with innocence.

On the Fourth of July sky rockets went up
Over the church and the trees and the town,
Stripes and stars, riding red cars.
Each rocket wore a red-white-and-blue gown,
And I did not see one rocket come down. (Vachel Lindsay)

The elementary school I attended,
Charles William Eliot School, in Tulsa, Oklahoma
(named for the famous Harvard President and Unitarian educator,)
did a good job of instilling in me
appreciation for this nation of ours.
For freedom, and democracy, I pledge allegiance,
with hand over heart and deep solemnity.

I was an American jingoist before any other loyalties.
My Country ‘tis of Thee…
When in the course of human events…
Four score and seven years ago…
We saluted the red, white, and blue,
and I played with my plastic army men,
their tanks and bazookas.

My favorite store was the Army Navy Surplus,
where my parents indulged my desires for
packs, and canteens, and ammunition belts.
My neighborhood friends and I
built forts and bombed them with hickory nuts.

Glory, Glory, Hallelujah
His Truth is marching on.
Bring on the sky rockets;
Light those Roman Candles.

My generation grew up in the wake of World War II.
America was a savior.
I was a little fuzzy about what was going on in Korea,
but I had no doubt we were the good guys.
And I did not question, when the test sirens screamed,
getting out of my desk and down on the floor,
covering my head, practicing…

It was not until my teens that the TV began
showing images of Viet Nam,
soldiers, civilians, gun fire, bombs and fires,
screaming and crying,
that I began wondering,
and over the next years,
with a rising generation of resisters,
I signed my name and submitted my declaration
as a Conscientious Objector opposed to
participation in war in any form.

Had the splendor of the sky rockets lost its meaning?

Next day on the hill I found dead sticks,
Scorched like blown-out candle-wicks.
But where are the rockets? (Vachel Lindsay)

Was the Fourth of July just history,
some glory day of the past,
not about living the principles
of truth, justice, freedom, and democracy?

One of the outstanding events of the recent
General Assembly of the Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations was a presentation and panel discussion titled,
“The Pentagon Papers Then and Now: UUs Confronting Government Secrecy.”

Thirty-five years ago,
in the midst of the Viet Nam War escalation,
Daniel Ellsberg,
who lives here in Kensington and has spoken at this church several times,
copied over 7000 pages of secret documents
exposing the governmental deception that led to the Vietnam War.

After these pages were published by the New York Times,
the Washington Post, and several other newspapers,
then Senator Mike Gravel sought out a publisher
to print a complete version of these papers in book form.

This was a challenging time.
The Nixon administration considered Ellsberg a traitor
and sought to convict him as such.
To publish these secret papers —
even though they had already appeared in newspaper form —
could lead to prosecution.

Thirty-five publishing houses turned down Senator Gravel,
before he approached the Beacon Press,
the publishing arm of the Unitarian Universalist Association.
Even though Gobin Stair, the Director of Beacon Press,
was visited by two agents of the Defense Department,
and received a phone call from “President Nixon
saying he was sure Gobin
did not want to get into any trouble by publishing” them,

“On October 22, 1971, Beacon Press published…the Pentagon Papers…
In the introduction, Senator Gravel wrote that
had the true facts been known by the American people
‘the war would long ago have ended,
and the needless deaths of hundreds of thousands of
Americans and Vietnamese would have been averted.
This is the great lesson of the Pentagon Papers.’”∥

At General Assembly, the esteemed panel,
moderated by Democracy Now radio host Amy Goodman,
included Daniel Ellsberg,
former Sen. Gravel,
and the Rev. Robert Nelson West,
President of the Unitarian Universalist Association
when the Pentagon Papers were published.

As each of these people told, from their perspective,
the story of the Pentagon Papers,
we in the audience,
sat on the edge of our seats,
living in the present that tumultuous time
that threatened the very heart of our nation’s values.

We gave them a standing ovation.
But we all were left with the ominous realization
that what happened leading to the current war in Iraq
was just as deceitful
as the government’s actions leading to the Viet Nam war.

The difference is, to date,
we have no Daniel Ellsberg,
no inside whistle-blower,
no media defenders of democracy
willing to dig deep enough to expose the duplicity.

Perhaps it is changing.
When the Vice President of the United States
is forced into a corner and
his best defense is to declare his office
to be something like a fourth branch of government,
we may be getting close.

Our freedom, our democracy,
and our ability to participate in the community of nations
as a partner, instead of as a bully, hangs in the balance.

Over 250 years ago,
young Thomas Jefferson,
as in our story of this morning,
played with his siblings and friends,
pretending to be a king,
and experienced a revolution.

He lived in a time when women had few rights,
and his family owned many slaves.
Still,
“Thomas thought to himself,
‘I wonder what the world would be like if everyone was equal,
if we all had a say in how our laws were made
and how the taxes were charged.
I wonder how it would be if each of us
could set our own beliefs
and each of us could have true freedom.”∥

These are the sky rockets,
the beautiful ideals that explode
in images of light
and capture our imagination.

Perhaps, back in 1970,
when I declared myself to be a Conscientious Objector,
in spite of the duplicitous actions of the Nixon administration,
the principles of democracy stayed true for me,
because I knew Thomas Jefferson had declared himself to be a Unitarian.

My commitment to democracy
was deeper than political philosophy.
It was grounded in my religious faith
that affirms the worth and dignity of every person.

But where are the rockets? Up in the sky.
As for the sticks, let them lie.
Dead sticks are not the Fourth of July. (Vachel Lindsay)

The ideals of freedom and democracy are alive
only as we embody them.
That’s when they sparkle,
that’s when they excite our imaginations
and enable us to create communities of compassion,
justice, and joy.

With the approach of the Fourth of July this year
I’ve been reflecting on democracy,
how we embody it in our congregations,
the sky rocket ideals and dead stick casings.

When I graduated from theological school thirty years ago,
my first ministry was with three congregations in the Dallas/Ft. Worth area.
One congregation had about seventy members.
As time went on, I learned it was a community where
you could not plan two events at the same time.

Think about that for a minute.

A strength of the community was that they all pretty much knew each other,
and, for the most part, they liked being together.

At first I thought that was the reason
we could schedule only one event at a time:
we wouldn’t want to leave anyone out of a good thing.

I took a deeper step in understanding the dynamic
when I heard people say
the reason we could have only one event at a time
was because
in a democratic organization
every person had the right to be at every event.

How could my perspective be known
if I couldn’t come because I had a different event to attend?

When I began serving as their minister,
sixteen years after the founding of the congregation,
the same folks were holding the leadership positions,
they had just rotated over the years.
I came to realize that the issue was really one of trust.
Democracy works because everyone has a voice,
there are checks and balances,
and because we trust one another and the process.

Developmental psychoanalyst Erik Erikson, many years ago,
suggested a theory of human development
based on the notion that we each have a series
of life-forming struggles
through which our personalities evolve.

The base of it all is the struggle between trust and mistrust
that we each as an infant experience.
The successful resolution of this tension
creates a personality in which
the quality of hope is well-grounded.

A basic assertion of this developmental theory
is that each successive struggle, through our life times,
re-visits, and re-integrates the earlier ones.
As a person struggling with Intimacy versus Isolation,
I will experience again the tension,
and my resolution of the trust-mistrust dynamic of early life.

If I am able to be trusting I am more likely able to be intimate.
I came to believe that the major factor holding back that congregation
was lack of trust of one another.

Instead of empowerment theirs was a dynamic of power over.
All that was left of the beauty of the sparkling ideal
was the dead stick, the scorched casing of control.

Our congregations are learning a lot about how to develop
the trust that is the basis of democracy.
Our small group ministry programs,
like our own Chalice Circles,
that will organize again in the fall,
gather people together to learn the skills
of listening, and appreciating,
rather than debating and convincing.

We learn we can speak the truth we know,
and invite others to do the same.
We learn we can have differences of perspective and opinion,
and be enriched.

We learn to take these skills into congregational life and beyond.
When we strive together to make a decision,
we can listen with appreciation to all the voices,
we can cast our votes,
appreciate diverse perspectives
and support the decisions that are made.

We learn to trust the community,
and when it falls short of our expectations,
we hang in there,
assuming good intentions.
We continue to speak our truth,
with compassion and understanding,
respecting the worth and dignity of one another.

When the sky rockets zoom and burst
this Fourth of July
I want to remember the sparkle of democracy,
and the human spirit at its center:

I want to be renewed in my freedom as a
loving, healing, forgiving, direct-speaking,
compassionate person.

I want us all to claim our freedom,
to be renewed in
vision and mission,
to keep our focus on transforming
ourselves and the world
toward justice and love.  ♦