Rev. Ann C. Fox
(508) 992-7081
RevAnnFox@aol.com
Unitarian
Universalist
Society of Fairhaven
Obama’s Promise, Our Opportunity
an inaugural sermon by Rev. Ann C. Fox
January 18, 2009
Note: A reading is attached, which you might like to read first
Years ago, during the Senate Watergate hearings, perhaps around 1974, there was a black senator by the name of Barbara Jordan who was part of the committee investigating the break-in of the Democratic headquarters. She impressed the nation with her intelligence and eloquence. I recall that many of us talked about how great it would be if she ran for President—we’d have both a woman and a black person in one fell swoop! However, she soon became too ill to even serve in Congress.
It has been disappointing that there have been no female presidential candidates, except Geraldine Ferraro for vice president in 1984 with Walter Mondale. So it was with great pleasure that the most recent presidential race offered both a woman, Hillary Clinton, and a black man, Barack Obama. It was a difficult choice in the primaries for me. I wanted a woman president and yet Barack Obama was as good as Hillary! But was the country ready for a black man as president? Clearly, forces were at work in the country that were not understood by many if not most of us. Even political experts were not able to predict the outcome. It is highly likely that young adults swung the vote to elect Barack Obama. On Martin Luther King, Jr.’s birthday weekend, how fitting it will be to have the first black person installed as the 44th President of the United States.
Did you sit through all the debates? I’m one of those who sat through most of the debates. There were times when I looked at Obama and asked myself, “Why is he taking so long to answer?” It came to me that he was thinking deeply, not wanting to give a glib answer but the best he was able. I even thought, “Oh, it’s ‘spirit’—the deep small voice.” I was struck by how unflappable he is, how calm, even when everyone around him is anxious.
Recently, I have been studying the writings of a famous Hindu philosopher, Swami Vivekananda. He is the founder of the Vendanta Centers that we find in most major cities around the world. (Interestingly, over a hundred years ago, he came as a “missionary” to the U.S. to, in his words ‘help us with our spirituality.’) Vivekananda says that calmness is absolutely essential if we are to act wisely. His advice on how to remain calm is: have faith in yourself, don’t compromise the ideal, don’t be contemptuous of others, think of your strength and act from this. (Vivekananda, p. 157) I believe that Obama has a naturally calm center; it is a rare and fine quality for high office.
Obama was born in Hawaii on August 4, 1961 to 18 year-old Ann Dunham and Barack Hussein Obama from Kenya, the first African student at the University of Hawaii. If Ann Dunham’s parents had any objections to the marriage, it was not apparent. Obama’s growing up was quite different from that of most Americans, even most immigrants. I think you know that when Barack was 2-years old his father left Hawaii to get his Ph.D. at Harvard. While he was away, they decided that the marriage wouldn’t work. After receiving his Ph.D., he returned to Kenya. Barack was apparently called “Barry” until sometime in his college years. He met his father for only two weeks when he was 10 years old. He was to spend much of his young life wondering about his father and trying to come to terms with the abandonment. Barack’s, mother, Ann, married another foreign student, an Indonesian man, who turned out to be a wise mentor for him. When he saw that Barack was unlikely to fight back when attacked, he taught him to box. Barack recalled this wise counsel from his step-father: “Better to be strong. If you can’t be strong, be clever and make peace with someone who is strong. But always, it is better to be strong yourself, always.” Ann, bore a daughter called Maya. But her husband grew more and more remote and this second marriage also didn’t work out. Ann returned to the U.S. and to college for advanced studies, and sent Barack to live once more with his grandparents in Hawaii, a good and safe place in which a young black man could grow up. He was quoted in a newspaper as saying, "The opportunity that Hawaii offered — to experience a variety of cultures in a climate of mutual respect — became an integral part of my world view, and a basis for the values that I hold most dear.” (Honolulu Star Bulletin, 1/8/08)
He greatly admired his grandparents, Madelyn and Stanly Dunham, especially his grandmother, known to him affectionately as Tutu, which is Hawaiian for grandparent. His adventurous grandfather took them to join the local Unitarian church where he was impressed by the Unitarians’ interest in world religions. Tutu didn’t approve and didn’t bother with organized religion at all but she did read the Bible to Barack. As he grew up, he sought out the black community at the local university. He looked to men of lofty standards for his role models, like Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcolm X, W.E.B. Dubois, and Nelson Mandela.
He was a good student and won scholarships to Columbia University and Harvard Law School, “where he was the first African-American president of the Harvard Law Review. He worked as a community organizer, and practiced as a civil rights attorney in Chicago.” This is where he met his spectacular wife, Michelle, who is also an attorney. He taught constitutional law at the University of Chicago Law School from 1992 to 2004. He served three terms in the Illinois Senate from 1997 to 2004. Following an unsuccessful bid for a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives in 2000, Obama was elected to the Senate in November 2004. Obama delivered the keynote address at the Democratic National Convention in July 2004.” I remember very well indeed and thought at that time, “What a good candidate for president he would be!” One of you said this same thing to me. (Note: biography information in quotes is from Wikipedia.)
“As a member of the Democratic minority in the 109th Congress, Obama helped create legislation to control conventional weapons and to promote greater public accountability in the use of federal funds. He also made official trips to Eastern Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. During the 110th Congress, he helped create legislation regarding lobbying and electoral fraud, climate change, nuclear terrorism, and care for U.S. military personnel returning from combat assignments in Iraq and Afghanistan.” (Wikipedia information.) So how will he be as our president?
There are some drawbacks to being the president of the U.S. Late-night comedians, like Jay Leno and David Letterman, have to find funny jokes about whoever is president. They will no doubt take great care not to be interpreted as racist. One comedian wrote on the Internet of Obama,
“Immediately after his inauguration, Barack Obama will balance the budget, revive the economy, solve the real estate problem, solve the auto industry problem, solve our gas/alternative energy problem, stop the fires and mudslides in California, ban hurricanes and tornadoes, stop identity theft, reverse global warming, find Osama bin Laden, solve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, get rid of corruption in government and achieve world peace. Then on the 7th day, ‘He’ will go back to Hawaii and rest!”
I hope Barack has a healthy sense of humor because the tasks that he faces are monumental and a good laugh will be helpful. And I hope he sheds some tears as well. It would be easy if he had only to come up with a national health plan and a long-term fix for social security, but with the world economic crisis in full swing, the decisions he makes may well affect people’s lives across the world. King’s words in the responsive reading, “We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny” have never sounded more meaningful than at this time in history.
With his knowledge of other cultures, I hope that Obama will have a deep understanding of international affairs. In Samuel Huntington’s book, The Clash of Civilizations, he argued that “Most societies were intensifying, often radically, their cultural identities, not shedding them.” (People in a pluralistice society such as ours may not understand this.) He pointed out that “culture, religion, and tradition are not background noise…rather, they constitute the drumbeat to which whole civilizations march….Most of the globe’s intractable conflicts are more clearly viewed through the prisms of culture and history. Tensions between India and Pakistan or Israel and the Arab world have little to do with Gross National Product.” (Goldberg, Jonah, article in Los Angeles Times, 12/30/08) While we are a diverse people, our diversity is mostly in our cities, where tolerance is high. We still have to understand more the monolithic cultures in our own country—in the south and the midwest. Obama’s election will help all of us expand our notions of racial justice. And I dearly hope he does understand the impact of culture and identity.
During his campaign, Obama spoke in the spirit of Genesis when he said, “I am my brother’s keeper; I am my sister’s keeper.” I have confidence that Obama will address the basic needs of healthcare, education, and the greening of the job market. And he will have to create a plan of withdrawal from Iraq, and yet…………. Afghanistan’s needs loom large.
He may well need our help. How can we help? First, expressing our good will and using our creativity to solve local problems will leave him free to focus on national and international issues. Second, we must keep an eye on on Congress so that partisan interest doesn’t get in the way of progress and justice. It might mean that we’ll have to be active in calling our representatives to account and expressing to them our opinion of what support they need to give to this bill and that issue. We’ll have to read the newspapers carefully and watch for the old, corrupt tradition of adding “goodies” (or pork) for a particular state, such as the “Bridge to Nowhere” in Alaska a few years ago.
This president holds much promise to make our country better as a people and also help us improve the quality of our lives. Perhaps it is that he will inspire us to do the hard work of nation and culture rebuilding in a far healthier way than before. Perhaps he, and also the spectacular Michelle, will be models of wise spending and wise behavior. Certainly, they’ll help our image abroad for it is much tarnished. The opportunity for building up culture and country in a way that we like and are truly proud of not because it is our country but because it is truly something to admire.
We should celebrate these possibilities for they haven’t been before us for many decades. One writer cautions us that we mustn’t look upon Obama as a savior—some people are already using this word. He is just a man—even though a rather Lincolnesque-looking man. Hundreds of inauguration celebrations are planned across the country. I know that at least one of you is having a party. I am going to the brunch at the Wamsutta club where will be a large screen for the gathered to watch the swearing in and the proceeds are going to the Treatment on Demand program.
We must ask the right questions and listen for the wisdom to act. In his book, Dreams from My Father, Obama says, “I find myself modestly encouraged, believing that so long as the questions are still being asked, what binds us together might somehow, ultimately, prevail.” I am sure we will. Let us go forth with hope in our hearts and peace on our lips. May the events of this inauguration week, lead us onwards and upwards to our greatest benefit.
Reference
Vivekananda, Swami. The Way Home, Vol. 2, (His Western Works on The Spiritual Commonality of All Religions), Temple Universal Publishing, 2003. (Revised and edited by Swami Brahmavidyananda.)
Reading
from Dreams from My Father
by Barack Obama
I went to Harvard Law School, spending most of three years in poorly lit libraries, poring through cases and statutes. The study of law can be disappointing at times, a matter of applying narrow rules and arcane procedure to an uncooperative reality…But that’s not all the law is. The law is also memory; the law also records a long-running conversation, a nation arguing with its conscience.
We hold these truths to be
self-evident……. In those words, I hear the spirit of Douglass and Delany,
as well as Jefferson and Lincoln; the struggles of Martin and Malcolm and
unheralded marchers to bring these words to life. I hear the voices of
Japanese families interned behind barbed wire; young Russian Jews
cutting patterns in Lower East Side sweatshops; dust-bowl farmers loading up
their trucks with the remains of shattered lives….I hear all of these voices
clamoring for recognition, all of them asking the very same questions that
have come to shape my life….What is our community, and how might that
community be reconciled with our freedom? How far do our obligations reach?
How do we transform mere power into justice, mere sentiment into love? The
answers I find in law books don’t always satisfy me—for every
Brown vs. Board of Education I find a score of cases where conscience
is sacrificed to expedience or greed. And yet, in the
conversation itself, in the joining of voices, I find myself modestly
encouraged, believing that so long as the questions are still being
asked, what binds us together might somehow, ultimately, prevail.
(pp, 437-438)
© The Rev. Ann C. Fox