A call for unity

[athenaltena]

I didn't get a chance to write about it last week, but at the Arlington St. Church they played "American the Beautiful" on the bells before the service began, and we sang a similar song (the name of which escapes me) that was very moving, especially since this was before the election.

There was naturally a mood of celebration today, but the point of the sermon delivered by today's speaker Dan Kane was that this isn't the end of this, oh no. "Only we can save ourselves, Obama can just point us in the right direction" was the main gist of it, and he kept going back to that. He also stressed that 46% of America didn't vote for Obama, and if we really want this change to stick we have to reach out to them and resist the urge to inflict the pain and fear that we (meaning Democrats and Political Progressives, most UUs, in other words) have felt for the past 8 years on them in a sort of "revenge".

I thought it was a very moving sermon, and I think he's exactly right. I've always tried to push towards listening across the aisle (some people may recall that I liked this about John McCain way back when) and that simply disregarding one side doesn't do any good. A local journalist named Jon Keller talks in his book The Bluest State about how this attitude has landed Massachusetts in deep trouble, since as much as I loathe Mitt Romney for various reasons the fact is that he was exactly right about our budget and what would happen if we kept doing what we had been doing, and of course now we're up the creek without a paddle. Mass in particular is very Democratic, but we keep making the mistake of governing it like it's totally blue and ignoring some very good ideas.

Basically, one-party rule -- no matter which party -- doesn't work, and if we really want Obama's mantra to come true we can't fall into the same traps. Otherwise all we do is go back and forth, not forward.

And now that I've said that I need to get something to eat, seeing as how my stomach is making more noise than the traffic on Tremont St. after a Celtics win.

Comments

[subtlety.livejournal.com]

I wish I could have been there for that sermon! Your speaker is completely right. I didn't vote Obama (nor McCain for that matter) but I agree that we have to come together as a nation and work on what changes need to be made in this nation. We can't separate just because we're bitter or overjoyed about the recent election. It's time to bring down the celebratory front and begin to come together to work on this as a nation. "United we stand, divided we fall" so to speak.

E pluribus unum ("Out of many, one") works too. :)

[athenaltena.livejournal.com]

He actually mentioned e pluribus unum in this talk, too, and to quote another president from Illinois "A house divided cannot stand." I admit to being amused at how the College Republicans on my floor of the dorm basically barricaded themselves in their rooms for two days after the election (in part because they'd been being jackasses for several weeks beforehand), but we need to roll up our sleeves and get to work, since we all live in the same country.