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Justice and power must be brought together, so that whatever is just may be powerful, and whatever is powerful may be just. – Blaise Pascal

Which is it, I wonder… which do we lack more?  Justice in our power or power in our justice?  A strong argument could be made for either, or both.

The world seems mad for power these days.  One need only look to the dramatic consolidations of political and economic power in the past few decades.  This is power for power’s sake.  

A conversation with a young person recently revealed something.  This avid watcher of content shared that they wanted to be an influencer when they grow up.  An adult then asked a question that to many moderns may seem old fashioned: “What do you want to influence?  Why?”  The child looked back with a blank stare, as if to say: old man, you just don’t get it.

Which may be true, and often is, but not this time.  Because what is power if it has no purpose?  With great power comes great responsibility, we are told.  And yet today, it may be more accurate to say: with great power comes… likes and subscribers, monetized channels, and more disposable income for status symbols and photo-friendly travel.  With great power comes an inflated self of self-worth?

In the Unitarian Universalist tradition, we ordain people not to serve generally but to serve specific communities of people.  This powerful connection of authority with accountability is a cornerstone of our congregational tradition.  It is informed by any number of religious people we see who walk around claiming religious power and using it as a cudgel, a weapon.  Again, power for power’s sake… only this time in a robe.

Many UUs these days interpret the idea of power not theologically but politically.  This has history, and understanding political power is important in working for justice and fairness.  But political power is not the highest or the deepest kind we claim to know.  Our tradition exists to connect people freely with the deepest sources of power and meaning that can be known.  True, we each may come to define, and even experience, that power differently… but that diversity doesn’t mean that spiritual or religious power isn’t there.

Some in our communities use traditional theological language like God and Spirit; others avoid such terms.  Some describe the greatest power there is as Love.  Some tap into cosmic power in Nature, in Community, or even in silence.  Some feel that power move through them while singing or playing, or praying or marching.

The organizing principle of our community, and of our tradition, is not to amass political power, so that we can get our way in the halls of power (tempting and important though that organizing may be).  Our organizing ideal is connected to existential power, the ties of individuals and all to this planet and everything else.  Our ministry and practices exist to discover and deepen that spiritual power in all people.

Ralph Waldo Emerson offered an address to graduating ministers at Harvard in 1838 that became formative in our tradition, and in American religious thought overall.  One line stands out among many as we consider power: “Yourself a newborn bard of the Holy Ghost — cast behind you all conformity, and acquaint [people] at first hand with Deity.”

Our language is different now, for good reason.  But the organizing idea was as true then as it is today.  He was telling these young ministers not to go through the motions, nor to throw away the power and reality that those motions get wrong.  We are not here to push conformity but rather to encourage depth and see where that takes us.  The Holy Ghost is the spirit of creativity, the breath of life.  “Deity” was to Emerson the deepest and the highest. .  We exist — as a community, as a tradition — to acquaint people at first hand with their deepest connections to this life, sources authority and accountability, sources of power.

What happens when “the church” doesn’t do its job, of inviting people into the deepest of connections?  To Emerson, “a decaying church and a wasting unbelief.”  And more:  “[W]hat greater calamity can fall upon a nation…? Then all things go to decay. Genius leaves the temple, to haunt the senate, or the market. Literature becomes frivolous. Science is cold. The eye of youth is not lighted by the hope of other worlds, and age is without honor. Society lives to trifles, and when [people] die, we do not mention them.”

Today, much genius has left the senate and the market, and elsewhere.  Not that its gone; it just ins’t being encouraged.  Those who seek power do so without first seeking depth; they seek power for power’s sake.  Decency and justice in our politics are predictable casualties.

But fear not!  The sources of power that guided the ancients away from tyrants, through deserts and diaspora — that power is still here!  The power that has animated countless liberation movements and struggles for human rights, often at great personal risk — that power is still here!  The power that dwells in Nature, the awesome majesty and mystery of our interdependence, the power of hurricanes and gravity and solar energy — that power is still here! 

For UU’s fearing loss of political power these days, fear not.  Aung San Suu Kyi wrote: “For it is not power that corrupts but fear. Fear of losing power corrupts those who wield it and fear of the scourge of power corrupts those who are subject to it.”

Let us instead keep touch depth, and with the power we find there.  Power to persist.  Power to dream.  Power to love. 

That power is in you.  And in us all.  That power has purpose.  It is deeper and stronger than any other kind.

 

A Blessing For One Who Holds Power
by John O'Donohue, from To Bless This Space Between Us

May the gift of leadership awaken in you as a vocation,
Keep you mindful of the providence that calls you to serve.

As high over the mountains the eagle spreads its wings,
May your perspective be larger than the view from the foothills.

When the way is flat and dull in times of gray endurance,
May your imagination continue to evoke horizon.

When thirst burns in times of drought,
May you be blessed to find the wells.

May you have the wisdom to read time clearly
And know when the seeds of change will flourish.

In your heart may there be a sanctuary
For the stillness where clarity is born.
May your work be infused with passion and creativity
And have the wisdom to balance compassion and challenge.

May your soul find the graciousness
To rise above the fester of small mediocrities.
May your power never become a shell
Wherein your heart would silently atrophy.
May you welcome your own vulnerability
As the ground where healing and truth join.

May integrity of soul be your first ideal,
The source that will guide and bless your work.