I was thinking this week of Mr. Hoban, an elderly neighbor of ours when I was growing up on Broadway Street, there in Danville. He was a veteran of two wars—World War I and World War II. He was so gentle and kind, his activity as a soldier seemed incongruent with the man I knew, who wouldn’t hurt a fly. I went to his garage one day and found him bottle feeding baby rabbits whose mother went missing. Looking back, I have the feeling he was like so many people, caught up in situations he hadn’t caused but couldn’t easily avoid, a feeling we’re all experiencing these days. We’re in circumstances we didn’t cause, and certainly don’t support, but now can’t avoid. So we’re keeping an eye out for the metaphorical baby rabbits of the world and making sure they are taken care of.
The other thing I remembered about Mr. Hoban was architectural in nature. The back side of his garage was close to the ground and by standing on the stack of firewood he kept there, I could climb up on his garage roof and lie on my back and stare at the sky, which I would do from time to time when I felt overwhelmed and needed privacy and perspective. Even today, when feeling battered and outnumbered, I climb that wood pile in my mind, and in my imagination, lie on that roof, gaze at the heavens, and feel a certain peace. It was, what we call now, my happy place. I’ve been visiting there quite a bit lately.
I went there again this week, in my mind, when Donald Trump called the Ukrainian president a dictator and accused him of starting the war against Russia. While we can certainly reflect upon the expansion of NATO and its role in this tragedy, we also know who invaded who, and which leader is striving to defend his nation, and which presidents are striving to expand their personal wealth and political power. To continue with our metaphor, we know who is tending the battered creatures, and we know who is doing the battering.
We Quakers value truth-telling, so let’s tell the truth. Defending evil and tyranny is not a Quaker virtue. We are for peace. We believe the Light of God is also in Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump, however much they have let it dim, but we are also for justice, without which peace is not possible.
We are also people of hope, so in the weeks ahead, I will be sharing with you the developments, people, and circumstances that give me hope, that temper my gloom. What inspires me today is the conviction that we are not alone. For every oligarch who has sold their soul, for every official who has lost their way, who act with timidity when courage is required, there are many others who are decent and brave. There are far more people who value compassion and truth than worship at the altar of greed and tyranny. We mustn’t make the mistake the prophet Elijah made, who in his moment of darkness, complained to God that he alone was faithful, causing God to remind Elijah there were thousands of people every bit as righteous as Elijah himself.
I remember Elijah’s story because I often catch glimpses of Elijah in myself, when I am inclined to think that resistance to our current troubles rests solely on me, forgetting there are tens of millions of Americans who are equally determined to resist Donald Trump’s tyranny du jour. All around our nation are governors, senators, representatives, soldiers, police officers, prosecutors, and judges committed to justice and the rule of law, forming a bulwark against his cruelty.
In addition there are Americans who might not have sworn an oath to protect and preserve the Constitution but are every bit as resolute in their defense of decency and democracy. They recognize a dictatorial impulse when they see one, are disgusted by it, and will stand against it to their last breath.
What gives me hope is the witness of history, the dismal track record of tyranny. In the end, tyrants are never celebrated, only scorned. Their statues are pulled to the ground. The adulation they crave never endures. Tyrants are not invincible, they only think they are. Bashar-al-Assad, whose family ruled Syria since 1971 and thought himself beyond the reach of the citizens he ruled, now cowers in Moscow. The mills of God grind slowly, but they grind exceedingly fine.
Next month, a group of Fairfield Friends will be visiting the civil rights sites in the South, and I promise you one thing, they will find no statues of Bull Connor or Lester Maddox, whose legacies are relegated to the dustbin of history. Do you know who replaced Lester Maddox as the governor of Georgia? Jimmy Carter. The mills of God grind slowly, but they grind exceedingly fine.
I am encouraged.
I am encouraged by the movements of resistance being born right now, led by people whose names we don’t yet know, but will one day know and honor.
I am encouraged by the True Church, not the Paula White church and the First Baptist Dallas church, whose abandonment of the gospel is crystal clear, but I am encouraged by the True Church, by Pope Francis who defends immigrants, by Methodists and Quakers and Mennonites and Presbyterians who march and write letters, who feed and clothe immigrants and hide them away. I am encouraged.
I am encouraged by New York prosecutors who resign rather than break the law. History will judge them well.
I am encouraged by the former Minnesota Vikings punter, Chris Kluwe, a native of California, who protested the installation of a MAGA plaque at a public library in Huntington Beach at the direction of the Huntington Beach City Council. I am encouraged by what I suspect will be the briefest tenure of any plaque ever installed. I give it a week.
I am encouraged. I hope you are too. For to be discouraged is to think ourselves alone in this moment, battling this tyranny alone. To be discouraged is to be like Elijah, forgetting God is raising up other prophets, other lovers of decency and good, to be discouraged is to forget that the mills of God grind slowly, but they grind exceedingly fine. Be good Quakers. Never give up. Instead, look up, speak up, and when needed, rise up and act up.