UU Values: Interdependence

This past Monday afternoon – I was (as my grandmother used to say) feeling poorly.  I just need to rest – I said to myself.  And so I did.  But by 6 pm I started having chills and the house temperature was 72.  Oh my.  I was sick.  Greg later came home from his night class and confirmed I had a fever and gave me some Ibuprofen to bring it down – as I shood him away – afraid that I might infect him with whatever had gotten ahold of me. Of course – though I fully boosted – you know what I was thinking. Is it finally my turn?  Do I have COVID?  Then my mind raced to the previous weekend and all the folks I had been around – perhaps infecting them as well.  I had even hugged my beloved elderly and vulnerable friend Mary Freeman at church in Brunswick on Sunday – and others as well.  And attended a Halloween party with the children.  And at a meeting of our UUFS Committee on Shared Ministry earlier Monday afternoon, a member said she thought I needed I hug before we departed, and I hugged and perhaps infected her as well.  Oh, Gee. 

And it occurred to me the truth that we, indeed, live in a world in which we - and viruses - and more are very interdependent.  And sometimes that’s a good thing – and sometimes – not so much.

Well, I went to the doctor’s office the next day to get tested for the flu and COVID and to drop off a specimen since I had been living with a Urinary tract infection for over a week using just over the counter meds.  Results were that I didn’t have COVID or the FLU but that my UTI had most likely moved into a kidney infection that was causing the chills and fever.  They treated me with a shot in my hip and ordered medication and told me to rest and stay very hydrated – which I’ve done. 

I’m sharing this personal, somewhat embarrassing, story with you today as something that led me to see that we VALUE somethings as UU’s, not because they are good – but because they are REALITY.  Now certainly if you look at these words up here – you could perhaps view all of them through a good lens – and certainly most of us would say that very definitely LOVE is good, if it is thought of in that way that my sometimes friend/ sometimes adversary Paul describes it in Corinthians 13. 

But Interdependence is valued not because it is good.  It is valued because it is REALITY.  It is TRUE.  And not recognizing that Is where problems occur.

In April 16, 1963, Martin Luther King wrote a letter from the Birmingham City Jail addressing white clergymen in the city who had complained that his presence as an “outside agitator” was unwise and untimely.  This was a long letter, addressing many points of concern.  But here is one quote that is especially related to our topic today.  King wrote:

“Moreover, I am cognizant of the interrelatedness of all communities and states. I cannot sit idly by in Atlanta and not be concerned about what happens in Birmingham. Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.”

Let me read those last sentences again.  “We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny.  Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.”

Of course, all of us became more aware of interdependence during the pandemic.  I attempted to read an article published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, in which researchers used all kinds of data and all kinds of statistics in looking at how coordination or sometimes more likely uncoordinated responses to the pandemic affected all of us.  After lots of analysis, charts, and more, here is what they found and recommended.

Our findings indicate that any given government’s decision to lift a social distancing policy will likely affect the behavioral and health outcomes of not only their own citizens but also the citizens of geographically and socially proximate communities. These results suggest there are significant negative welfare repercussions from uncoordinated government social distancing policies, which suffer from a coordination problem resembling the price of anarchy. This implies that it is important for federal governing bodies (e.g., the United States federal government and the European Union) to coordinate policy action, even in cases where final policy decisions are in the hands of local governments. In the absence of coordination by federal governing bodies, we recommend that individual countries, states, and counties coordinate with the countries, states, and counties to which they are the most strongly geographically and socially connected.

 

The old English Poet John Donne wrote:

No man is an island entire of itself.

And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.

 

If we are to survive, if the earth is to continue to survive as a place we can call home, then we must work in harmony together – not only for humanity – but the rivers and streams, the soil and forests, the lily of the valley and the herbs and fungi that may one day provide medical miracles. 

One person who speaks so well to this need to coordinate and work in coalition with others who want to do just that is the Rev. William Barber, from North Carolina. 

In his book, “The Third Reconstruction,” Rev. Barber recounts that the first Reconstruction after the Civil War saw advances in public education and voting rights and yet would eventually cement segregation into the fabric of our nation and usher in the era of Jim Crow - to the second Reconstruction – the civil rights movement - that integrated public schools and saw passage of the Civil and Voting Rights Acts of 1964 and 1965 - and yet would see the more abstract but just as harmful disintegration to social advances through gutting voting laws and social programs in communities of color that are still felt today. Rev. Barber argues that America is in need of a Third Reconstruction – one founded on moral principles and built through a fusion organizing model – bringing together movements that tackle a variety of social oppressions – interwoven and interdependent - to move forward together.

He was able to build a coalition of what had been very distinct social justice groups – working for justice for women, people of color,  lgbtq+ folks, indigenous people, poor people,  plus environmental groups, folks working for prevention of gun violence, reproductive rights, immigration reform, and many others to show up together on “Moral Mondays” in North Carolina and support one another.  For we are all interdependent.  And we will rise or fall together.  Since then, he has transformed his ministry – picking up from where Dr. King left off – on a poor people’s campaign, for all of these injustices affect poor people the most. 

Some local communities have tried to form coalitions and work together as well.  We are proud to partner with Magnolia Missionary Baptist Church and serve as one of the Rebecca’s Café teams which are made of churches and community organizations all realizing the importance of providing a good meal for folks to assist with food insecurity in this community. 

We have made other efforts as well, and many of us spread ourselves thin in trying to meet the needs of the community.  Sometimes we are spreading thin, because our work is not as efficient as it might be if there were even more coordination across groups. 

I’m very fortunate to be a part of a clergy group in Glynn County – with folks from all faiths – working together, especially on breaking down systems in our organizations and in ourselves which have been based on the bigger systems of white supremacy and patriarchy.  It took the lynching of Ahmaud Arbery – a young man out for a run through a neighborhood adjacent to his own – for us to get to that point. 

We tried to do that kind of thing here as well – coming together as clergy after the Charleston shooting at the Mother Emanual Church – to write a letter signed by clergy and leaders of probably 30 or more communities of faith.  It was based on one that I presented initially which was then edited by a group consisting of me, John Waters - the minister of First Baptist, Francys Johnson – a minister of a black church and civil rights leader, and Doug Clark – who was then the priest at the Catholic Church.  We figured if we could agree, others would sign.  Many did – many did not.  Maybe some that did took some heat from their congregations, I don’t know.  What I do know was that some of our joint efforts after that were not very successful

It doesn’t have to come from churches though.  I’m proud that our Mayor has formed various groups to work with others to tackle some difficult issues.  We have to adapt and be willing to ride in different vehicles with others to accomplish what needs to be done.  But we MUST, we MUST – recognize our interdependence and work together on these issues.

One of the ways we can work together is to try to coordinate how we are going to get out the Vote.  I hope that can happen.  Greg and I voted early this past week.  How many of you have voted.  I am also doing “whatever it takes” to get folks who I think will vote the right way – or perhaps I should say “the left way” to go vote.  Democracy is our vehicle for making a difference.  It’s not perfect.  But the more people that vote, the better off we will be.  That’s why one party is trying to limit voting.  Let’s not let that happen.  We have worked too hard in our lifetimes for many things to throw it all away. 

Well, before I turn this sermon on Interdependence into a political rally, I better find a good way to end it.  And I think this poem by Julie Cadwallader-Staub will do! It’s called Blackbirds.

I am 52 years old, and have spent

truly the better part

of my life out-of-doors

but yesterday I heard a new sound above my head

a rustling, ruffling quietness in the spring air

and when I turned my face upward

I saw a flock of blackbirds

rounding a curve I didn’t know was there

and the sound was simply all those wings

just feathers against air, against gravity

and such a beautiful winning

the whole flock taking a long, wide turn

as if of one body and one mind.

How do they do that?

Oh if we lived only in human society

with its cruelty and fear

its apathy and exhaustion

what a puny existence that would be

but instead we live and move and have our being

here, in this curving and soaring world

so that when, every now and then, mercy and tenderness triumph in our lives

and when, even more rarely, we manage to unite and move together

toward a common good,

we can think to ourselves:

 

ah yes, this is how it’s meant to be.

 

And Kermit would add: "Someday will find it, the rainbow connection, the lovers, the dreamers and me."