Reimagine Democracy

Healing Conversations - Reflections Series

I have always been somewhat cynical about democracy-talk. Mostly because in the United States, despite our rhetoric, we don’t actually have a democracy—have never had one. So when I was invited by Faith Matters Network, an organization I love and respect, to be part of their webinar series on Reimagining Democracy, and particularly to address “healing our democracy,” it gave me pause. What could I add to that conversation? It turns out that Spirit and the Ancestors had an answer. (Of course, right?)

My cynicism was based on the flawed institutional structures of governance in this country, but democracy is actually a profoundly spiritual idea, rooted in the principle of the inherent and equal worth of all. This is the ideal that our elders in the Southern Freedom Movement were seeking to advance as they worked not just for civil rights, but a spiritual revolution, what Dr. King called “a revolution of values.”

If we truly believed in the principle of equal worth, it would lead to a system of governance that values the dignity, safety, and belonging of all people. And I would add all of Life, because we are not separate from Earth and our more than human kin.

Trauma often results in the rupture of one or more of those—dignity, safety, belonging. Healing relies on their restoration. This is true for the collective as well as the individual. If we’re attuned to our own worth and dignity, and the worth and dignity of everyone else, if we feel our deep belonging to the wholeness of Life, we are less vulnerable to the manipulation of fear and divisiveness that is weaponized as tool of domination. From this perspective, healing is not only crucial for our survival and well-being, it’s also a practice for upending the strategies of oppression.

Without personal and collective healing, we as a people don’t have the maturity to live into the demands a true democracy. The practice of genuine democracy requires us to do the hard inner work of cultivating wisdom, compassion, patience, empathy, commitment, and willingness. It invites us to dream beyond the confines of the current institutions.

Simply reforming a system created by capitalist colonialism and white supremacy is not enough. Yes, harm reduction is essential. Things like doing away with the electoral college, eliminating corporate and mega-donor financing, and instituting ranked choice voting would all move us in the direction of democracy. But in order to realize enduring systemic change, in order to expand our vision of possibility, the consciousness that underlies the system must also be transformed.

In a 1952 sermon Dr. Howard Thurman—who was deeply influential to the Southern Freedom Movement—said, “the point at which democracy lives or dies is in the human heart and the human spirit.”

So, who do we have to become to create and live into a reimagined democracy? What would it take for us to become those people? I believe that healing—personal, collective, historical, ancestral—is a key part of that becoming. Healing is fundamentally about restoring wholeness. And social justice is a matter of restoring wholeness to individuals and communities where systematic and state-sanctioned harm has been done.

Democracy—like healing, like growth, like liberation—is an ongoing embodied practice. It’s a transgenerational collective project that didn’t begin with us, and won’t be complete during any of our lifetimes. Each of us is called to make our unique contribution. The only way through all that lies before us, is together.

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The recording of the full webinar, which also featured Dr. Bernie Lim, is available for replay from Faith Matters Network here:

There are three more webinar conversations remaining in the Reimagining Democracy series. To register (free) CLICK HERE.

To read my interview with Faith Matters Network founder, Rev. Jen Bailey, click here.

Photo by Inaki del Olmo on UnSplash.