First Unitarian Universalist Society Burlington

August 4, 2024

There’s this old joke about Unitarian Universalists. It goes like this:  

There are two doors. Above each door is a sign that indicates what is on the other side. One door has a line of people streaming through it; the other attracts only sparse interest. 

The “sparse” door’s sign says, “Heaven.” 

The sign over the door with much interest?  “DISCUSSION about Heaven.”

(Ba-da -bump)

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This is the Unitarian Universalist reputation that we are more interested in things of the mind, than things themselves. More interested in talking about spirituality, than practicing it. As a joke, it may not be as accurate as it once was, but there’s still a kernel of truth about our cultural patterns. 

In this illustration, there are two doors: a binary choice. Perhaps a false one, but it serves a purpose. We must choose.  And in so doing, there are consequences. We enter only one door. And in choosing, we reveal our values; we reveal what we consider worthy of our attention; which is the definition of worship, which comes from the old English word: worth-ship.

Ralph Waldo Emerson, 19th century Unitarian minister for a hot minute, and father of American Transcendentalism, once wrote:

“A person will worship something, have no doubt about that. We may think our tribute is paid in secret in the dark recesses of our hearts, but it will come out. That which dominates our imaginations and our thoughts will determine our lives, and our character. Therefore, it behooves us to be careful what we worship, for what we are worshiping, we are becoming.”

In this context, worshiping means not just what we are raising up as worthy of our attention, but that to which we are giving our attention. Choosing community over commerce. Choosing ballots over bullets, though it seems ever less likely that this country is making that choice. 

What are we worshiping? To what are we attending, and thus becoming?  Yes, let us ask this question of ourselves, and even of our congregation. But also, and more importantly today, let us ask it of our nation. 

And if we flip the concept on its head, given what our nation is becoming, what can we deduce that we ~ perhaps not you or I, but we as a nation ~ are worshiping? Either in the dark recesses of our hearts, or flagrantly out in the open?

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Are you familiar with the genre of video games, or books, called “Choose Your Own Adventure”? They are based on the concept of an unfolding narrative with no set ending.  The ending results from a series of choices made by the reader or player, which determines the plot and its outcome. 

As the story moves along, there are decision points, at which the reader or player must decide. Does the reader (or the protagonist) go this way or that way? Does the player open the cage with the pacing tiger or lock it and throw the keys off a nearby cliff? 

This concept is relevant because I want to talk with you about the adventure – so-called – that our nation is facing, and the elongated decision point we are approaching, or the multiple decision points we are in the midst of, with the upcoming presidential election and beyond.

Recently a UU friend of mine passed along to me a website built based on the Choose Your Own Adventure concept. Now, to use the word “adventure” is a bit irreverent. Adventure implies fun. This website’s focus is on the outcome of the upcoming presidential election. Though the whole election cycle, and especially this summer, has been a kind of rollercoaster, it has not been a fun one. And it’s not over yet. So we can call it an adventure only with our tongue in our cheek.

An important note before I go further. Important given that we are in a season of high intensity electioneering. Important, because as a religious institution we are bound by a rule that protects our non-profit status. Every so often, our amazing Director of Operations posts a reminder to all of us that we cannot host activity – on our physical campus or in our virtual spaces – that support any one candidate over another. 

We can support or oppose causes, but not specific candidates. So with that firmly in mind, I have concluded that this sermon, and specifically preaching about this website, does not violate these rules handed to churches by the Internal Revenue System.

Let me be clear: I am not advocating for any particular candidate. That is far too small of a thing. I am preaching for the health and survival of the American democratic experiment.

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The website, which rhymes with “whatiffrumpwins dot org,” is a tool of discernment for what to do depending on what happens when either candidate wins. Like a Choose Your Own Adventure story, the website is set up with a series of what we might call “plot twists.” Not every possible plot twist. But some realistic plot twists. 

The builders of the website make that clear that they hold progressive values: that they have created a tool to resist fascism. And, in my opinion, it is a tool that aligns with Unitarian Universalist values and with First UU’s mission and visionary ends. It is not neutral, just like we cannot be.

Daniel Hunter is the author and Elizabeth Beier is the artist who illustrates the concepts. Originally created in August, 2020, a few short months BEFORE the January 6th Insurrection, the creators were reading the political and social tea leaves and seeing the potential for a coup or some other disruption growing. Now, four years later, the tool has been updated, because the danger is still here – not just theoretically, as the assassination attempt a few weeks ago demonstrates.  And, in fact, it’s been updated in just the past few weeks, with the same “plot twists” but reflecting that there has been a recent shift in candidates.

This website can help us (you and me) explore, individually or collectively, our choices and their consequences, depending on which major presidential candidate is elected. The website states their philosophy this way: 

 Part II

On the “whatiffrumpwins-dot-org” website, the adventure begins with this prologue, focused on November, 2024:

Your friend calls while you are heading to your local polling place, exclaiming, “It’s almost over!” It’s been such a long campaign season. You vote along with 160 million others. Then you await election results. You know counting will take many days — and that no matter the outcome, there will be accusations and denunciations.

As the reader of the website, we are confronted with a decision point. The two choices are either Harris wins or Trump wins.  It is now up to the reader – up to us – to decide which path not to vote for, but to explore. 

For instance, if the reader chooses to explore what happens if Harris wins, the story continues down that path: there are similarities to what we saw happen in the 2020 election – accusations of fraud and calls of Stop the Steal; recounts, angry mobs and threatening tweets. 

Then another decision point for the reader ~ for us. The website says, “There is a lull during the holiday season. What do you do?” It offers four choices. Perhaps you could come up with more than that, but four is what we must choose from:

–Organize protest in the streets

– Trying to be ready to take action if something happens

– Gather friends to prepare to defend each other

– Have quiet holidays and try not to think about it

When we choose – when we click on one of those four options – the narrative continues further. The plot thickens.  A story emerges based on the choices we make. We are co-creating the story. We are co-creating the future.

Because it’s a virtual tool, we can go back and explore different choices, both educating ourselves and engaging in and evolving our own personal ethics discernment process.

If we click on Trump winning, there are six options at this decision point. Of course, there are far more than six options and the ones I am about to read to you from the website do reflect a particular set of values that might not apply to everyone who is listening to this sermon. 

As in the example I gave before, all the options are about what to do during the months before that winner takes office. In exploring the options, we are confronted with what we personally would do in that time period? Our choices are

– Join protests in the streets

– Connect with grassroots group preparing for what’s coming

– Wield legal and insider approaches to protect democracy

– Sit at home and weep

– Flee to Canada

– Create a small support team

With this tool, we can do more than just think good and clever thoughts or complain to anyone who will listen or yell at the screen delivering the latest worrying news. We can do more than just “talk about heaven.” It helps us engage in a values-based discernment process and, if we play with the tool in small groups, it can lead to actions that are beneficial given the precarious state our democracy is in.  

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It’s a bit of an understatement to say that politically and socially, it’s been an intense summer. One that is giving ordinary Americans more reason to be very concerned about the health of this American democratic experiment. That’s what I’ve come to call it in my mind, and I guess now out loud, because I see how my mind wants to cling to the idea that our democracy is a solid force. 

But we keep seeing that it is not. Perhaps because of the human capacity for denial, perhaps because of the privileges of my personal social location, I find that I have to remind myself over and over again. So that phrase – American democratic experiment – helps me get the urgency of our time.

For instance, I had been hearing about Project 2025 for the past nine months, but hadn’t really brought my attention to it until July 4th, just after the actress Taraji P. Henson brought wide attention to it at the Black Entertainment Awards (BET) on July 1st, after which Project 2025 began trending on Google. 

That’s when it seemed everyone was talking about it all the time, at least on my social media thread. And then, just a few days before the assassination attempt, the social media posts about it petered out (or were censored out). So maybe not everyone does know about it.

In fact, it turns out that while Project 2025 might have been on my social media stream, it wasn’t on everyone’s. I recently attended a webinar with the American historian Heather Cox Richardson who said (now this was mid- July, just as the Republican Party’s National Convention was convening) that 70% of the American public had not heard of Project 2025. Seventy percent!

So, in not wanting to assume that you know what it is, let me offer this brief summation. Project 2025 is an extensive set of documents created by the conservative think tank, the Heritage Foundation. Its purpose is to make the shift into power easier and more efficient for the next conservative president.

The details within Project 2025: well, they are outrageous. And dangerous. It’s easy, so easy, to be overwhelmed by the onslaught, by the devastating possibilities. While this is not the official Republican platform, the people at the Heritage Foundation, along with the hundred other conservative groups who are a part of its four-pillar approach, are doing everything they can to insinuate themselves into not only the policy structureof the next conservative president, but into the selection of only presidential loyalists as federal personnel and attempting to move our form of government from one where the three branches of government are equal, to one where the executive branch has unilateral powers.

Devastating. Dangerous.

As Unitarian Universalists, we are not a people who believe in predestination.  That is reserved for some other religion. We believe that we have not only the ability to influence the future, but the responsibility to do so. We believe that transformation for the moral good ~ and for collective liberation ~ is possible, but requires all our participation. Perhaps that is why I was drawn to this Choose Your Own Adventure concept – the narrative conceit is one that resonates well with our theology that affirms that revelation is not sealed (not done and never will be) and that there is always the possibility of change or transformation.

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There are choices to be made. Nope. Wrong syntax: we have choices to make. 

After using that website as a tool of education and discernment for myself, making this choice and then that choice, these are the words that I encountered when one adventure concluded for me:  

You survived the transfer of power, but you could have been more efficient. Researcher Stephen Zunes has identified four things we need to stop a coup: widespread opposition, nonviolent discipline (to avoid giving the wanna-be autocrat excuses for more violence), alliance building, and refusal to recognize the coup plotters as legitimate.In a coup situation, you don’t confront the extreme — you speak to the middle. 

I suggest that we all use this tool to learn so that we might discern how to ensure that more of us live more freely and more freely together.

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Reflecting back on our reading this morning, might you be a Shambhala Warrior and not even know it? Ready to disarm those that would cause our world destruction?

Yes, you might be. And you. And you. And me. 

Any one of us might be. Perhaps all of us MUST be. Do we need to wait for some sign, some signal, some assignment from an external source? 

Part of me says no. That part says that we must follow our own inner moral compass.

And part of me says yes: the sign is the current, urgent distress of our democratic experiment, and of our climate. The signs are all around us. We are all warriors in service of saving this nation and this planet.

Ruha Benjamin, whom I greatly admire, wrote this exhortation that I have decided to adopt for now and the near future.:

Remember to imagine and craft the worlds you cannot live without, just as you dismantle the ones you cannot live within.

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One last thing: can I ask Diana to stand up?  If Diana were standing in front of two doors, she is planning to choose the one door with the sign “postcard writing” over it.  Choosing it for herself and inviting others at FUUSB to join her. These postcards are a non-partisan effort to encourage voting with a focus on those who are undecided in swing states.  Please talk with Diana after that service if you are interested in choosing that particular plot twist.

Friends:

Should others in this country allow the dark recesses of their hearts to dominate the character of our nation, let us use our imaginations to worship even more fiercely and more brilliantly a robust democracy that insists on love at the center.

Remember, even as we are exhausted, or overwhelmed or not feeling hopeful, to choose and co-create the adventure we hope for, rather than let the forces of authoritarianism choose for us.

Alongside doing what is necessary to dismantle the world we cannot live within, let us imagine and craft the worlds we cannot live without, ones where collective liberation is the adventure that sets us all free.