While we fight the good fight, take care of each other

Remembering who and whose we are

It remains pure insanity in DC and national politics these days. I know that is not news to any of you, but it is good to keep reminding ourselves that this shit is not even close to being normal. Don’t get used to all this Trump stuff: keep fighting.

But I want to take a step back today, and lend a note of sanity to the situation all of us who love this country find ourselves in.

I grew up in the Methodist church. One of my favorite things about their Sunday services is the minister’s closing message to the congregation:

“Remember who, and whose, you are.”

Bowery Mission Soup Kitchen, New York. Photo Credit: Africa Renewal / Bo Li

Remembering who you are is one of the essential cornerstones of a good life. It’s the ballast when the sea gets stormy. Remembering whose you are is more nuanced. I know for Methodists, the phrase means that we are God’s people.

But for me, remembering whose I am means all the people in my beloved community. At the center for me is the love of my life, Barbara. My sisters and brother, their spouses and children (and the children’s spouses) and grandchildren. A group of friends from high school and their long time spouses. My business partners at Democracy Partners, all of whom are good friends. Other dear friends I have gained from a lifetime in politics.

More than that, though, as a part of humanity, as a part of the interconnected fabric of the world, I feel bound to everyone, especially those who are suffering. When I first read John Donne’s No Man is an Island it spoke to me more than any poem I had ever read:

“Any man's death diminishes me,

Because I am involved in mankind.

And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls;

It tolls for thee.”

And when Jesus in Matthew 25 speaks of feeding the hungry, comforting the sick, and welcoming the stranger, “because when you do this for the least of these, you do it for me,” that passage spoke to me in the same powerful way.

What does all this have to do with my usual topics and the Soul of the Party? Because Democrats’ job is to build the beloved community, where those who are hurting can be healed, where those who are downtrodden can be lifted up. That should be our party’s central mission.

A friend of mine wrote an amazing piece on this topic recently. It’s called A Modest Proposal for Democrats: all politics is local. In it, Christy Hardin Smith writes of helping her neighbors in West Virginia, and helping the Democratic Party’s brand and cause at the same time. She captures something that I think is profound, which is that we don’t just rebuild our party by better messaging and ads and mail pieces; we rebuild it by showing that we give a damn about improving people’s lives – right now, not in some future when we have managed to win enough elections to govern again.

Martin Luther King’s theory was that by loving one another, we build something that matters and begin winning people over. Remember who and whose you are.