
What is up is down, what is down is up.
Aug 16, 2020 @ 10:30 AM Pacific
A Lay-Led Worship Service with Mark Bergtholdt
Come worship with the UU's!
An exploration of how we need to reshape our thinking on elections to live our UU values.
Service Details
Invocation & Opening Words
Let us begin with words by John Lewis: "Democracy is not a state. It is an act, and each generation must do its part to help build what we called the Beloved Community, a nation and world society at peace with itself."
| Hymn - We'll Build a Land (https://farfringe.com/stlt121-well-build-a-land/) We’ll build a land where we bind up the broken. We’ll build a land where the captives go free, where the oil of gladness dissolves all mourning. Oh, we’ll build a promised land that can be. |
Come build a land where sisters and brothers,
anointed by God, may then create peace:
where justice shall roll down like waters,
and peace like an ever flowing stream.
We’ll build a land where we bring the good tidings
to all the afflicted and all those who mourn.
And we’ll give them garlands instead of ashes.
Oh, we’ll build a land where peace is born.
(Chorus)
We’ll be a land building up ancient cities,
raising up devastations from old;
restoring ruins of generations.
Oh, we’ll build a land of people so bold.
(Chorus)
Come, build a land where the mantles of praises
resound from spirits once faint and once weak;
where like oaks of righteousness stand her people.
Oh, come build the land, my people we seek.
(Chorus)
Welcome
Of Our Hearts
"Participating in the political process does not require us to sink to dirty politics or reduce our vision to sound bites. As our circle of compassion has expanded so have our capacities to keep ego from dominating the world, to build movements based on distributed power, to listen deeply to the fears and the hopes of those we are trying to reach, and to choose language that communicates our common humanity and aspirations." -Sarah Ruth Van Gelder
| Hymn - Sprit of Life Spirit of Life, come unto me. Sing in my heart all the stirrings of compassion. Blow in the wind, rise in the sea; move in the hand, giving life the shape of justice. Roots hold me close; wings set me free; Spirit of Life, come to me, come to me. |
Offering and Invitations Story for All Ages Granddaddy’s Turn: A Journey to the Ballot Box read for us by Charlie Mara YouTube from Sankofa Read Aloud Clark County Las Vegas Library record | |
| Pete Seeger's 'If I had a Hammer' If I had a hammer I'd hammer in the morning I'd hammer in the evening All over this land I'd hammer out danger I'd hammer out a warning |
I'd hammer out love between My brothers and my sisters, ah-ah All over this land If I had a bell I'd ring it in the morning I'd ring it in the evening All over this land I'd ring out danger I'd ring out a warning I'd ring out love between My brothers and my sisters, ah-ah All over this land If I had a song I'd sing it in the morning I'd sing it in the evening All over this world | I'd sing out danger I'd sing out a warning I'd sing out love between My brothers and my sisters ah-ah All over this land I got a hammer And I've got a bell And I've got a song to sing All over this land It's the hammer of justice It's the bell of freedom It's the song about love between My brothers and my sisters All over this land |
Our fifth principle is “The right of conscience and the use of the democratic process within our congregations and in society at large.” As I have said before, I believe that this is the most important principle because it is the glue that holds all the others together. Like the others it is a difficult principle to live up to. It requires time not only to do the act of voting but also time to educate ourselves about the issues before us. Many of us, including me, sometimes take the easy way and not take the time to educate ourselves. It may be because we have too little time to study the issues and candidates, or it may be that the issue in front of us is too difficult to deal with on any number of levels. We may also think that the practice of democracy feels like Don Quixote tilting at windmills or worse, a fool’s errand.
I think that as a nation, state, and local community we are on the precipice of losing our democratic processes. We have either been moving in that direction for years, or we are finally waking up to the truth that has always been. Those with money make the decisions. So, what are we to do?
I believe we need to do three things. First develop our stories, second educate ourselves about the issues third hold anyone we elect accountable to those issues. Today we as a group if you wish will start with developing our stories. I start my story with why am I inspired to vote. It starts with my first experience when I was seven years old. We had this Volkswagen van that we used as a family car. It was cherry red with a white, it broke down frequently, usually somewhere far away from the nearest service station. On that van sometime in the in the late summer of 1972 my parents put two bumper stickers on the back of it. One was Come home, America, vote George McGovern, the other was Bring us together, vote for Shirley Chissom. The us was the abbreviation for the united states (U.S.). When we visited friends, I remember my parents having conversations about why those two were on the bumper. Dad was supporting McGovern, mom Chissom. Then before school on November 14, my dad and I walked to the local polling place. On the way I remember talking to him about what he is going to do and why. We stood in line for a few minutes outside a garage of a house in the community where we lived. He was given some paper and I remember him marking his ballot by punching out those little pieces of paper called chads in the ballot card. I thought it was amazing that you could mark a paper and that paper led to electing the people on the ballot. After he voted we walked back home, and I caught the bus to go to school. To this day, I still enjoy the ritual of walking to my polling place, contemplating my decisions and casting my vote, by pulling some levers, punching paper, filling in bubbles, or touching a screen. It is also when I feel the most patriotic. As a side note, my favorite method of voting was pulling the voting machine. It always ended in a ringing of a bell when you moved the lever that both pull the curtain back and casted your vote.
Now I would like you to take a few moments and right down your thoughts on why you are inspired to live the value of the fifth principle. What you write should be personal and yours. Sky will now play some music for us as you think and write.
Why do we choose not to vote? I hear stories that people who don't vote because they believe that their vote will not count. When I hear that my first thought is to wonder how many more people didn't vote for the same reason and could that have had an effect on the election. I have seen many news stories where a tie was decided by random draw from a deck of cards. And I share with them my story with how I witnessed a measure fail by less than five votes. It was a measure to pass a bond for libraries and it needed a super majority to pass. It missed that supermajority by five votes. If five more people voted for the measure, it would have passed. I knew one of those disaffected voters, so I am sure that there were more out there. These were local elections. Local elections are the most. Not only does your vote count more because there are fewer folks in the voter pool, but it is also where our back bench of leaders is created. The other thing about local elections is that you have more say in how the candidate will act when they get to office. In the local elections, even if your candidate does not make out of the primary, you can still hold the primary winner accountable for your vote for the general election, by letting them know that while you did not support them in the primary, you will support them in the general election and will hold them accountable. I have done that, and it was very effective at pulling the primary winner more in the direction of the people I was working with.
There are also other reasons folks don't vote, I hear that there is too much to educate myself on and I don't have the time research and vote for each issue. My response to that is, educate yourself about an organization that matches your values who endorses candidates and look to their endorsements for answers. Many groups spend much time talking with the various candidates and endorsing them. Once you found a group you like, get out and vote. Folks also don't vote because of those nasty voter suppression tactics. Here in Nevada those cards we keep getting is a form of voter suppression. If your card is returned, you are de-listed. Yikes, you could show up at your polling place, and have to cast a provisional ballot because the postal system made an error in the delivery of your card. There are other methods, that are used. This is tougher issue to deal with, but all I can say is educate yourself on candidates and issues that do not support suppression and fight that suppression by getting out and voting. If there are enough folks who want change, we can do that. Here is some interesting history that I have discovered. Our countries covenant, the constitution, has been changed through 27 times through amendment. If you throw out those that were included in the bill of rights and the one that was ratified in 1992, the period between amendments is an average of every 13 years. The last amendment before 1992 gave suffrage to 18 to 20-year olds. It was ratified in 1971 nearly fifty years ago. This 50-year period of no amendments is only exceeded by a 61-year period between ratifying the 12th and 13th amendments, that period started before the civil war and ended after the civil war ended. Now I ask that you take a few minutes and contemplate on how you can acknowledge and address why people don't vote.
As I have said, democracy takes a lot of work to do it right. It requires each voter to be educated on the issue and to understand where the candidates stand. That can take a lot of time. For the past year, I have been active in my union's political organizing committee. We have spent countless hours developing questionnaires for the candidates of the various state, county and national offices and questions for the slate of judges. And interviewing each of them to understand where they stand on various issues. We then decide on whom to endorse and after endorsing, publish that list. It took a lot of time to go through all of the candidates, but it does have an impact. Those folks if elected will know that they have a block of voters to count on. It also helps the union because it will have the capability to hold those office holders accountable. This has been one the most rewarding experiences that I have done as a citizen. Through the process I discovered something very interesting about how we vote here in Nevada. I knew that the most important vote were those down ballot races. What I discovered is that all of those judges that are elected are very important. You are more likely to interact with one of those individuals than you would your senator, congressman, state office holder even you city council. All of those judges make decisions that change the lives of those that appear in front of them. No other elected official has that effect on people. Now I would like you to finish your story. Take a few minutes to contemplate and write down what you will do to educate yourself about the issues in the upcoming election.
Now that you have returned, I hope you were able to share and improve your story. Use it in conversations so that we can all get out the vote this coming election. If you are interested in being even more active, please see me as there is an opportunity in our faith to organize in getting out the vote.
As I have grown older, I look at elections as a way to change our society to how we want it to be. We cast our ballots like everyone else and end up selecting as a group a person to represent us. In our system, it is an unfortunate fact that we are left with a binary choice. That leads to either a centralizing of the ballot or a polarization of a ballot. These are some interesting times that we are living in. We are in the midst of a pandemic, an environmental catastrophe a recession and who knows what in the coming months. As a result, we are all under some stress that is making life difficult, making participation in the democratic process even hard. Together, we all can vote and make this world a better place.
Let’s Talk About It
| Answering the Call of Love (https://farfringe.com/stj1014-answering-the-call-of-love/) The promise of the Spirit: faith, hope and love abide. And so ev’ry soul is blessed and made whole; the truth in our hearts is our guide. |
Chorus: We are answering the call of love: hands joined together as hearts beat as one. Emboldened by faith, we dare to proclaim we are answering the call of love. Sometimes we build a barrier to keep love tightly bound. Corrupted by fear, unwilling to hear, denying the beauty we’ve found. Chorus | A bright new day is dawning when love will not divide. Reflections of grace in ev’ry embrace, fulfilling the vision divine. Chorus |
"Our time together ends
In the days before we come together again
may our actions match our words
may our thoughts be filled with love
and may we truly make a difference in a troubled world.
-Jim Wickman
"Be the good heretics you are and do good trouble."
-Reverend Gordon Bailey and John Lewis