Rev. Beverly Morrison Boke
First Universalist Society
Hartland Four Corners, Vermont

October 2004

The fifth principle of Unitarian Universalism says that we "affirm and promote the right of conscience and the use of the democratic process within our congregations and in society at large."

Someone, it may have been Winston Churchill, said something like "democracy is the worst system, except all the others." Democracy is a messy and inefficient way of running an organization, a town, a state, or a country. It depends on the good faith of everyone to agree that the majority will, indeed, have things their way. When the majority is won by a small difference, say 49% to 51%, that leaves a lot of people who think an injustice has been done. But true democracy depends on people accepting the outcome, and then working in good faith with those who won, whatever decision was at stake.

This lesson was brought home to me early, when in 1960 John Kennedy, a man for whom my father had no respect, won the presidential election. I was distraught and asked my father, "Daddy, what will we do?"

My father said, quite simply, "John Kennedy is our president, and we will support him." I was much comforted.

In no way did he mean this as another way of saying, "My country, right or wrong." What he meant was for the next four years we could criticize Kennedy's choices in our conversations, we could decide to vote against him in 1964 (would that we had had that chance), we could suggest to him that he see our point of view and take it into consideration, we could try to convince other people that there was a better way than his. But we would stand with other Americans and acknowledge Kennedy's leadership, and allow him to be the leader.

That was an important lesson for me. I realized that democracy means respecting the choices other people make even if I disagree. It means never breaking with their fundamental humanity. It means never allowing myself to be reduced to the lowest common denominator, but to take the high road and admit that other people might be right. It means listening more than speaking, and it involves a certain amount of trust that people are doing the thing they think is best..

Yours in faith, Buffy