"Several of you emailed me this week, saying, I feel like we need to do something..."
“What We Can Do”
Rev. Linda Hoddy
Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Saratoga Springs
July 30, 2008
Several of you emailed me this week, saying, I feel like we need to do something. What can we possibly do? It is natural to feel helpless at such a time. We are helpless in the face of death. It is an impenetrable boundary which confronts us with the limits of our power. So, physically, there is little we can do about the deaths resulting from this violence.
But there is much we can do about the spiritual and societal factors which have brought us to this point. Spiritually, we can tend to ourselves through prayer. Humans often pray when we reach the limits of our powers. But even if prayer means only sending healing thoughts to the people in Knoxville, you may find comfort in it. Spiritually, these events ask us to go deeper—to ask ourselves, Should we? Can we forgive? Where do we find hope in the face of such tragedy? Shall we lose heart and simply hire some security guards, retreat from our public stands on marriage equality or reproductive freedom or economic justice or access to health care? Or, can we find new and more durable sources of hope and courage? Can we refuse to retreat into piety, and instead re-dedicate ourselves to working hard to bring about the beloved community of all Americans and all of earth’s citizens?
James David Adkisson left a four-page letter telling us why he did what he did. It contains a confused and confusing jumble of thoughts about the things that led him to this state of mind. It is clear he was in despair— over failed relationships—five failed marriages; over an inability to find a job; over threats to his ability even to eat, as he was threatened with termination of food stamps. Perhaps he is mentally ill. As our president, Rev. William Sinkford, said, “he lost the battle with his demons.”
How interesting that he chose his target in the religious realm rather than the political realm. We might ask, what has a church to do with unemployment, and failed marriages and lack of food security? What has a church to do with a sense of frustration over these issues, frustration that builds up to the point of exploding in violence?
We Unitarian Universalists have always said that our church has everything to do with these conditions—that we cannot live with one set of values in the religious realm and one set in the secular realm. For us, truth is one, reality is one. The truths we proclaim here must be lived out every day and not just for an hour or two on Sunday.
And what are those truths? We have always preached a theology of radical inclusion—a theology that says, all human beings have worth. All are children of God. All deserve love. God loves all beings. Our Universalist forbears preached a God who loved so much that there is no hell. Bill Sinkford was asked whether he thought James David Adkisson would go to hell. He replied, I think he has been living in hell on earth.
So, what can we, what shall we do now? After we bear witness to the suffering, what is there to do? We can support economic policies which result in economic justice, which provide meaningful work and a livable wage. We can support the provision of mental health services as an essential part of health care, refusing to buy into the point of view that says mental health is unreal, unimportant.
We can support institutions which value all people, not just people of one skin color or one ethnicity or one religion. We can renew our dedication to these values. We can bear public witness to them, both in how we live our personal lives, how we run our businesses, how we conduct our professional lives and in our political lives.
We can also refuse violence. We can refuse it in our speech. We can refuse it in our entertainment. We can refuse it in our sports. We can refuse it in our children’s games—especially video games. We can model a more wise and gracious, and non-violent way of living. We can model dialog, listening respectfully to those who disagree with us. We can risk being changed by listening enough to understand another’s pain, another’s point of view.
On a very immediate and practical level, we can take the small steps of sending our messages of solidarity and hope and sympathy to the people in Knoxville. On Sunday, we will have poster board on which you may write your personal message to those involved. And we can give of our financial resources to assist in the cleaning of the sanctuary, the restoration of the building, paying the medical bills and the bills for counseling which all of the victims need.
But perhaps the most important thing we can do is to not give in to despair. To continue to hope, to continue to work, to continue to believe in grace—the possibility of a future without violence.
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Last updated on Thursday, June 3, 2010.
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