October 2022
If I tell you I’ll do it - then I will. That’s what I’m saying to myself, five weeks before the November midterm elections. I will finish another packet or two of postcards to mail by October 10. And then I will join phonebanks for “Yes on 4” and/or to get out the vote.
The Reverend Jan Taddeo serves the UU Church of Gwinnett in Lawrenceville, Georgia, 20 miles north of Atlanta. She wrote recently of a voting event at her congregation. It began with music and inspiring words, and concluded with time for people to either write postcards or join a phone bank.
“I knew, deep down,” she wrote, “that I needed to do what is the hard thing for me to do. I knew the postcards were in good hands. I needed to go make calls.”
I know some of you are like me, and like my colleague Jan. Our stomachs churn at the prospect of calling strangers. For us, joining a phone bank takes courage.
Jan also wrote: “I place my heart, my faith, in the hands of humans to do the work of love and justice. I have to trust my core values to bolster my spirit to do the hard things that need to be done… It takes small drops of courage from each of us to create a waterfall.”
Courage is October’s theme. Sometimes we need to help if we’re going to be able to shake out those drops. So I invite you to ask me, when October is nearly over, “Did you do it?” And I will have to say, “Yes, I did.”
There will be lots of opportunities that our USNF the Vote team will share with us. I invite you to join in if you can.
It is my joy and privilege to be your minister.
