My sample ballot arrived yesterday afternoon. If I remember the article in The Bee correctly, absentee ballots will be mailed tomorrow. Election season has already been swirling around us for quite a while. You may be tired of particular ads, slick mailings and phone calls with the recorded - but oh-so-urgent - voices of well-known political figures. If you're as lucky as I am, even ex-presidents have called your number. And of course, it's all going to get more intense in the next few weeks. And, at times, more irritating.

But the arrival of those ballots means that it's time to get serious about making some decisions. A lot of candidates and a lot of issues stand before us. Perhaps you, like me, you are more than a little suspicious of the ads that definitely promote - or oppose - particular people or propositions. In today's political climate, they are likely to be quite misleading. And most of those earnest testimonials are given, not by ordinary citizens, but by actors portraying them. I am grateful for the more considered comments of the League of Women Voters or the newspaper editorial pages. Not that I necessarily follow their recommendations - I don't. But I like to consider the reasons they offer to support their choices. And I like to talk with people about their views, about how they weigh the issues and make their choices. I look at who supports candidates and measures. When I can, I check on who is funding them.

We have a little more than three weeks to reach our decisions. Part of me envies you absentee voters - you are able to make up your minds before the last day. Myself, I wait. It's mostly that I like walking into the neighborhood school and going into the library that serves as our polling place. It's an older building and I like the sense of history, the reminder of our long tradition of public education. I like signing my name on the list, greeting the poll workers, marking my ballot and turning it in right there. It just feels right to me. And I admit that waiting till Election Day also gives me more time to think about the complex decisions.

I think this year's ballot is especially difficult, though I understand that it's not a record for California. There are a lot of measures and propositions. A few are issues I've studied before. I know just where I stand. I'm definitely for limiting the influence of big money in elections and for the right to choose. Others simply make sense to me. Some of them seem immediately appealing. I am definitely for reducing the use of tobacco. I'm all for encouraging alternate energy sources. Yet when I look at some of the provisions in those proposals - well, then I'm not so sure. Will those measures really improve our situation or will they bring whole new sets of problems? Are concerns about certain provisions real or are they being raised as scare tactics by those who are opposed to the very principle I want to promote? Sometimes it's pretty hard to know.

I am definitely opposed to some measures, and at times, I can make my decision based on tactics I don't like. I don't like name-calling or smear tactics. When I hear appeals to the selfish side of my nature, I try to resist. If each of us votes only on the basis of our own benefit, regardless of overall impact - well, we see the effects of that all too often. I am heartened that I am beginning to hear political appeals asking us to consider the wider picture. I even occasionally hear the term "common good" again - it's been out of fashion far too long.

In the middle of the last century, such appeals were commonplace. We seemed to be more accustomed to seeing ourselves as having a stake in the overall well-being of our people and of others around the world. Initiatives to improve the lives of many were active in government policies - in programs like the Marshall Plan and the Peace Corps. California's public education system was the envy of all. The Civil Rights Movement called us to remember the ideals enshrined in our founding documents and to realize that we could - that we must - do better at living them out. We made a step toward meaning it when we say all are equal. We haven't achieved the full meaning yet, but we made great advances. Our Constitution says that promoting the "general welfare" is among the founding purposes of our government. We keep developing and deepening our understanding of what those documents mean.

But somehow as we moved into the latter part of the 20th century, we lost that vision. "Look out for Number 1!" became our slogan. Care for the common good, the "general welfare" began to be interpreted as being taken for a fool. "What's in it for me?" we asked. "What have you done for me lately?"

I have personally bemoaned the loss of the notion that we're in this public together. But maybe we're beginning to look again at the common good. Several recent books and articles take up the idea. I even found a website for the Common Good Party. It's not active in California, though, at least not as far as I could tell.

The idea of the common good has a long history - dating all the way back to Plato, Aristotle and Cicero. The world's religions have added their pieces - ideas of righteousness, the care the least, for widows and orphans; of humility, of generosity and love of neighbor; of compassion for life. Humanist voices name the power of the human mind, calling out the rule of law and the importance of democratic process. They point up continuing advances in the sciences, the insights of literature and developments in other fields. John Rawls says that the common good is made up of "certain general conditions that . are equally to everyone's advantage." It sounds a bit unrealistic to me, but there are plenty of others. I don't very often quote Catholic positions on issues, but I like their statement - "the sum of those conditions of social life which allow social groups and individuals relatively thorough and ready access to their own fulfillment." I could go for that. You may respond to ideas of enlightened self-interest or hear the call of religious tradition. Either way, the notion of the common good has a fine pedigree.

Americans - and maybe UUs especially - have emphasized the importance of individual rights and freedoms. In these days of domestic wiretapping, of the Patriot Act and the FBI investigating 14-yr olds for their web postings, we certainly need to defend those freedoms. But truth be told, we humans are both unique individuals and social beings. Sometimes those facts seem so completely opposite that we can look at only one or the other. And we can get so focused on the individual and ourselves as individuals that we begin to think only of what we want and forget to make room for others. Yet we would never survive at all if it weren't for our families, our communities. Individual - yes. Social - yes again. Both are true.

Our gaze rests on one, forgetting the other - and our decisions take us all out of balance. Then something calls out - and we remember that neglected side. One of the large challenges of living is to consistently look beyond our personal wants, needs and rights to something larger - something connecting us to other people and our world. As much as we may wish we could just do things our own way, we know that we affect others and are affected by them. And in ways sometimes direct and obvious and sometimes quite mysterious, we are often enriched by those connections.

The outpouring of support for tsunami and hurricane relief in the past couple of years makes it obvious that we do indeed care about the good of others - even those far away and unknown to us. But it's hard to sustain that concern as we meet the ongoing challenges of our own days. During the last days of August we were reminded in reports and pictures that a year's progress on the Gulf Coast leaves much still undone. The heralded reopening of the SuperDome can't have much impact on people whose neighborhoods are still wreckage. Yet even with this knowledge and heartfelt sympathy, we find it hard to find the ways to show the people of the Gulf Coast or even those in our own circles that they are not forgotten.

And sympathy aside, we must struggle with questions about our responsibility to and for each other. We are each beholden to countless others who came before us. Family members and friends deserve our gratitude, yes, and others with no obvious connection, who built roads and schools and irrigation ditches; libraries and hospitals, parks and so many other things that we enjoy and depend upon. Certainly we intend to be responsible for ourselves and our families. But we must go further. We must also build the common good - that store of facilities and systems and opportunities which allow and encourage each of us, and those who will follow us, to flourish.

We do this with personal actions when we plant trees, when we conserve resources or help with youth programs. We do it here at the Fellowship with our internal activities and in the ways we serve others. We do it with educational programs and by offering someone a ride to an event. We support to cultural activities and health research. We can each act to increase the public good.

And we also do it with politics. Some issues are too large to be addressed solely by individual actions. Some are too central to the "general welfare" of all our people and are better done for all. Part of our democracy is the right - and responsibility - to promote those measures and candidates we favor.

The trouble, of course, is that when you try to address large issues, things get complicated. We don't all see things the same way. So my solution may be your nightmare. Large amounts of money and power are involved in political decisions - and their outcomes. It's no secret that money and power are seductive in themselves. Sometimes it's hard to tell if they are the real reasons people run for office, why they put forth ballot measures. Maybe all the rationale and earnest appeal is just for show.

We have too many issues for everyone to be involved in each one, so we have representative democracy - and no one completely agrees with us. We're asked to vote without knowing all that much about the candidates - which seems to be the way they like it. Even in the best cases, we know that once elected they will do what we want some of the time, but not all the time. We're asked to approve measures without being able to tweak this or that part that doesn't seem right. And somehow we need to gaze into the future and predict how they'll work out and whether it will match the stated intention. We need crystal balls. I afraid mine is a dud.

We do our best to learn about the issues and candidates. We listen to their positions, to the ads, to the comments in the media and from our friends and acquaintances. We make up our minds. We have about three weeks - maybe less - to do that. And as you go through the process, I hope that you will use the idea of building the common good as a guiding principle. Does this candidate appeal to our narrow, self-seeking interests or to a larger good? Will this measure mean we are promoting the general welfare or are we opening the door to new abuses? Whose voice or opinion seems more reliable? What's the most responsible choice?

And even though I use words like responsibility, I agree with the ideas Michael Lerner offered in this morning's reading. It's not about being scolded or told what we ought to be doing. It's about building the common good, about the beloved community, about the kind of society we want for ourselves and for our children. If we truly believe that we are a part of an interdependent web of all existence, we know that whatever we do affects all the rest. We can choose to benefit others and ourselves. We benefit when we - and they - choose well. The repeated line in one of our hymns goes "all life is a gift, which we are called to use to build the common good and make our own days glad." It's a great line - build the common good and make our own days glad. Not one or the other: both.

Sometimes we look at all this and want to throw up our hands. "I wish someone would just tell me how to vote!" - of course we want just the right person to do the telling. And I hope that you aren't of the mind that the purpose of an election sermon is for the minister to tell the congregation how they should vote. That's been done plenty of times, of course.

But I find I'm reminded of the story that tells how the members of a small Jewish congregation were once lost in a forest. They wandered about trying different turns and never seemed to make any progress. They were getting desperate. Suddenly they heard someone approaching. What do you know? It was the rabbi! "We're so glad to see you," they cried. "Now you can show us the way." "I'm glad to see you, too," the rabbi replied, "but I'm also lost. Here, I'll show you some ways that don't work and offer some guidelines. Maybe we can find the right path together." Maybe that will work for us, too.

15 October 2006

(Copyright by Rev. Grace Simons. Contact the author for permission to use.)

This is one in a collection of Minister's Sermons. We also have a collection of Guest Sermons, a brief Welcome and Biography from Rev. Simons, and the latest edition of Grace Notes, a column Rev. Grace writes for our newsletter.