How many of you can relate to Anne Lamott when she says that she is “a jello mold of uncertainty right now, with horrible shredded carrots in it”? (She posted this to Facebook the day after the 2024 presidential election.)

I was that way, honestly, a month before the election. One morning while journaling I found myself counting back to 2015 and the beginning of Donald Trump campaigning for President and marveling that, for nine years now, he’s occupied so much space in me. 

It’s been exhausting and enraging. 

But then I thought, if Harris were to win in 2024, where would all the shadow energy of grievance and revenge which Trump’s been a master at generating go? It would not suddenly go away. It would only go underground and get meaner and the conspiracy theories thicker and hairier….

And with this thought, I could feel the classic fight or flight reflex coming on line. The sudden rush of adrenaline. The intense breathing, the heart pounding, the sweating, the trembling.

The fear. 

And then came the day and night of Nov. 5. I was holding all of you in my heart, sincerely. By 7pm I was checking my smart phone for updated results every couple minutes. Trying to be calm. Watching the expected “red mirage” of Trump wins unfold–and despite the expectation, feeling increasing panic anyway. By 10pm Harrris was at 99 Electoral College votes and Trump was at 178. I couldn’t handle it anymore. I was in free fall. I was on the edge of a panic attack. I just needed to shut off the world. So I went to bed. 

Which is categorically different from sleep overtaking me. It took a long time coming. 

At some point, that night, I had a dream. I dreamt of Kamala. We were in Chicago, and we were on a date. We got in my car to go, but I realized that I was alone in the front, sitting on the passenger side. No one was driving. Kamala was in the back with my daughter. It led me to say something about God being my co-pilot. Kamala laughed at that. It made me happy to hear her laughter. 

In the morning when I woke up, I studiously avoided my phone and all other sources of news. I went downstairs and made coffee. I looked outside and things appeared exactly the same as they had the day before. I wrote some hopeful things in my journal, still not knowing. Then Rachel woke up, came downstairs, and the first words out of her mouth were, “America is stupid.” 

It was just as my dream had suggested. Kamala would not be driving the next four years. 

God would indeed be my co-pilot. 

And yours too. 

We are talking about fear today. What to do with it. Perhaps I am being presumptuous in assuming that you’ve been feeling as much fear as I have around the results of the Presidential election. If so, my apologies. But if it’s not that, it’s going to be something else. From the environmental crisis to threats that hit us closer to home, like prejudice towards some identity we hold or that a loved one holds, or dealing with bullies, or vulnerability to illness of all kinds, or not enough money and all the bills to pay, or relationships that are hurting, or trouble at work, and on and on. 

What to do with it. 

“To fear is one thing,” says author Katherine Paterson, “but it’s another thing entirely to let fear grab you by the tail and swing you around.” 

And so it is. 

Sometimes the best thing is to take comfort in history–to know that our ancestors felt pierced by their fears too, even if the causes might be very different from the ones that trouble us now. We’re just not alone. 

Take Adam and Eve. Do you know how the first ever conversation between them began? “My dear, we live in an age of transition.” 

From their lips, to our ears today. 

And so today, as we stand in the long line of all the human beings that have ever existed and all the human beings that will exist long after we are gone, we take our turn learning how to face our fears. But we will do this while drawing on the ancient wisdom of the 23^rd Psalm. “The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.” 

It’s one of the most famous scriptures from the Hebrew Bible, beloved by Jews and Christians and others around the world. Say it with me, if you like:  

The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.
He makes me lie down in green pastures:
he leads me beside still waters;
he restores my soul.
He leads me in right paths for his name’ sake.

Even though I walk through the darkest valley,
I fear no evil: for you are with me;
your rod and your staff, they comfort me.
You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies;
you anoint my head with oil;
my cup overflows.

Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life,
and I will dwell in the House of the Lord forever. 

Let’s see what we can learn from this profound voice of the ancients.

Part of the challenge of understanding the 23^rd Psalm (or any other piece of scripture) is achieving a historical grasp of what’s really going on. The past truly is a foreign country—they do things very differently there—but too often we forget this; too often we can find ourselves rejecting something because it does not make instant sense to our modern American mind. Bring an intolerant, snap-judgmental attitude like this to the Hebrew and Christian scriptures, and we’re always going to miss the good stuff.    

So, with openness we turn to the 23^rd Psalm. The interpretive key is found in an unlikely place: how sheep behave, and how shepherds in the Middle East fulfill their duties. Take, for example, that evocative line, “You anoint my head with oil.” Writer W. Phillip Keller, who is very familiar with the ways of both sheep and shepherds, says that in the summertime in the Middle East, hordes of insects emerge with the warm weather. “Sheep,” he says, “are especially troubled by the nose fly…. For relief from this agonizing annoyance, sheep will deliberately beat their heads against trees, rocks, posts, or brush…. In extreme cases of intense infestation, a sheep may even kill itself…. And so, at the very first sign of flies among the flock, [the shepherd] will apply an antidote to their heads…. Once the oil is applied, there is an immediate change in behavior. The sheep will start to feed quietly again, then soon lie down in peaceful contentment.” 

Or again, consider another line of the psalm: “He makes me lie down in green pastures.” W. Philip Keller explains by saying that “Sheep are notorious creatures of habit. If left to themselves, they will follow the same trails until they become ruts; graze the same hills until they turn to desert wastes; pollute their own ground until it is corrupt with disease and parasites. And so, the greatest single safeguard which a shepherd has in handling his flock is to keep them on the move.” 

Now press pause for a moment. We have before us the image of flies crawling on sheep and driving them into destructive behaviors; and we also have the image of sheep stuck in a rut, following the same trails and grazing the same hills until the land is ruined. Both are powerful images of what happens when human beings skip a step in awareness and go straight from the experience of fear to reactivity. Fear thoughts swarm like a horde of insects and human beings, like sheep, will beat their heads against anything solid–anything to deaden the fear. 

Fear thoughts swarming–and it means that perspective is lost. The fact that global trends see the rise of authoritarianism everywhere drops off our radar. The fact that global trends see incumbents thrown out of office (whether they are on the right or the left) drops off our radar. If these facts stayed on our radar, maybe what happened with the election would have seemed less scary and more predictable….. 

But fear thoughts swarm and perspective is lost. I’ve heard some folks heatedly condemn all 76 million people who voted for Trump (50% of all voters) as perfectly hateful. As directly motivated by misogyny and all the other bad things. But is this truly fair? For one thing, think of the entire Trump voting population as a bell curve: 

Now, Donald Trump’s own behavior is admittedly extreme. But that doesn’t immediately translate to all 76 million Trump voters thinking that he’s a respectable guy and wanting to act just like him. Some do. Some are wannabe mini-me Trumps. Most of his voters, however, are definitely not. Most were simply in the mushy middle of trying to figure out how best to leverage the power of a single vote. We were all in the same boat. You’ve got one vote, but it touches on hundreds of separate issues, and in different ways too. What a headache! So you have to prioritize. You have to simplify. You have to base your vote on what you think is fundamental. Not that other issues are unimportant. But fundamentals are fundamentals. And they heard something in Trump’s message that spoke to their chosen fundamental. They did. 

Take an even closer look at voter behavior. Look to Arizona. People in Arizona voted overwhelmingly to make abortion a constitutionally protected right, and many of these same people also voted for Trump. They did not perceive a serious conflict between their two votes. What they did perceive was a Democratic message that repelled them. They heard the Democrats saying just look at how good the NASDAQ and Dow Jones Index are doing; it doesn’t matter that the economy feels bad to you–your feelings are wrong; it doesn’t matter that you’re overeducated yet drowning in debt and living in your parents’ basement; it doesn’t matter you’re paying for groceries with your credit card; it doesn’t matter that rental costs and housing costs are out of this world; it doesn’t matter what you’re feeling–the status quo is just fine as it is; let’s have even more of it. In other words, Trump voters heard status quo boosterism from the Democrats, and they wanted nothing to do with it. Their fundamental was the economy, not hate. This was so in Arizona and everywhere else. So they rallied around Trump, and it was an honest-to-God multiracial, working-class majority that did so with surging support among Black and Hispanic workers. He’s the first Republican to win a majority of votes in 20 years. He’s headed into at least his first two years with a Republican majority House and Senate. He’s been given the keys to the kingdom. 

And for Democrats, the thought of this only generates even more fear. It only leads to them saying even more terrible things about Trump voters. But what I want to know is, where is the self-awareness in Democrats? How is this political party bungling things all by themselves? 7 million Democrats didn’t even show up to vote! In 2020, Biden won with 81 million Democratic votes. Harris received only 74 million. The Democratic Party, in other words, was a big turn off for Democrats themselves! Again–where is the self-awareness? 

But fear thoughts swarm. A larger perspective, humility, and nuance are the predictable victims. 

And for myself, all I can say is, I relate. I have myself thought and said all the things I’m calling out here. I have an inner sheep. And I admit this sheepishly since fear is not supposed to affect the so-called mature, the so-called rational. Fear doesn’t seem to have the same dignity that grief has, or anger. 

All I can say in response is … BAA. 

I’ve got an inner sheep. How about you? 

Let’s give voice to the inner sheep together: BAA!

I

Life puts a big target on our foreheads. Bad things could happen any time to us, to our families, to anyone and anything we love. And in case we happen to forget, the media dutifully reminds us about all the dogs, coyotes, cougars, bears, and other things that are out there, out to get us. So our poor inner sheep: constantly on guard, constantly ready to run, constantly ragged and worn down, not fresh like they need to be if in fact they do encounter adversity and hope to have a truly creative, effective response. 

The 23^rd Psalm is powerful because, in part, it helps us own up to the fact that we have an inner sheep that needs intentional tending. Without that, it can act destructively, towards others and towards itself. It needs oil rubbed on its head; it needs to be led to new pastures; it needs soothing to release it from constant free-floating anxiety. That’s what it needs. 

And so we turn to the figure of the shepherd. The shepherd who does all this for our inner sheep, and more. Who is this shepherd? 

“Even though I walk through the darkest valley,” says the psalm, “I fear no evil: for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me.” The shepherd is whatever goes with us into even the scariest places—and note especially the image of the rod and staff. W. Philip Keller says that for practicing shepherds, “The rod is a symbol of [the shepherd’s] strength, his power, his authority in any serious situation…. If the shepherd saw a sheep wandering away from its own, or approaching poisonous weeds, or getting too close to danger of one sort or another, the club would go whistling through the air to send the wayward animal scurrying back to the bunch…. [In addition to this, the] good shepherd, the careful manager, will from time to time make a careful examination of each individual sheep. As each animal comes out of the corral and through the gate, it is stopped by the shepherd’s outstretched rod. He opens the fleece with the rod; he runs his skillful hands over the body; he feels for any sign of trouble; he examines the sheep with care to see if all is well. This is a most searching process entailing every intimate detail. It is, too, a comfort to the sheep for only in this way can its hidden problems be laid bare before the shepherd.”

Who or what plays this role in your life? Helps you know what the safe boundaries are, so if you go beyond them, they let you know in no uncertain terms and call you back. Our children need this desperately—all ages do. Thoughtful mentoring. Safe and empathic space in which there can be honesty—hidden problems laid bare—your fleece opened up and searched for signs of trouble without you being shamed for it.

Unitarian Universalists, we need to know who or what the shepherd is in our lives. The wellbeing of our inner sheep needs it. 

One answer is this: the shepherd is a relationship in your life that’s healthy–healthy because it’s covenantal in nature. I’m talking about people who hold themselves accountable to the discipline of compassion. It’s the exact opposite of what you see in couples playing the game of Marital Mortal Combat. Know what game I’m talking about? “Why can’t you listen to me?” one partner cries. “You must want to hurt me!” The other counters, “Why can’t you accept me as I am? You are so cruel!” Portrait of a couple each of whom feels completely free to assume the worst about their partner; portrait of a couple arguing the same argument for what seems like forever. 

Inner sheep, stuck in a rut. BAA! 

But what’s beneath all the angry words? Fears. Only if you feel them can you heal them. To the couple playing Marital Mortal Combat, what if we said, If you could just pause when you are about to say something angry and search deeper to see the fear beneath. And then—give voice to that fear instead. Share your fears. Say, “When you don’t respond to me emotionally, I feel afraid that you aren’t there for me, and it makes me feel all alone.” And to this, reply, “When you criticize me, I’m afraid that you’ve lost all respect for me, and the thought of this is unbearable.” 

Share fears with each other, rather than go for the throat. The good news is when couples and people in all kinds of relationships—married or not—learn to do this, hearts that are hard begin to soften. Speaking our fears directly to each other can lead us beside still waters, restore our souls, help us find the right paths. This is one way in which the shepherd can come into our lives: as a quality of relationship that we actively nurture with key people, a safe space we can rely on to give voice to our fears and see what’s at the bottom of them. 

If I could wave a magic wand, this is what I would hope for the relationship between Democrats and Republicans today. Talk about a couple caught up in Marital Mortal Combat! Right? 

But what if each could stop assuming the worst about each other? What if each could share their underlying fears to the other and experience the healing in feeling heard? The vast, vast majority of Republicans might have had the economy in mind as their fundamental when they cast their vote, but this doesn’t automatically extinguish all the fears that Democrats have about Christian Nationalism, Project 2025, transphobia and the roll back of rights for LGBTQ+ folks, the fate of Ukraine, the impact of tariffs on the economy, the future of American democracy, what it means for our nation to be led by a rapist and a convicted felon, and all their other very sincere concerns….. 

“Even though I walk through the darkest valley, I fear no evil: for you are with me.” May the shepherd come into our lives as a healthy relationship, governed by the discipline of compassion. And, may the shepherd also come into our lives as a healthy religious community. Think about it: Here in this place we can experience oil rubbed into our fleece which repels the anxiety flies that get in the way of clear thinking. Here in this place, we can remember what’s called the “parable of the choir,” which is that a choir can sing a beautiful note impossibly long because singers can individually drop out to breathe as necessary and the note goes on.” 

What we can do together, people, far exceeds what we can do as single, solitary individuals. 

Yet I must say something. It’s that we must strive to be a truly religious community and not merely a wing of the Democratic Party. To be completely honest, it’s been a longstanding problem for Unitarian Universalist churches across the board. How UU churches stop being just involved with politics and become completely identified with politics instead. 

Now, don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying we should stop talking politics. This very sermon right here would make no sense if I was saying that. Fact is, to avoid all discussion of politics is really to cast a vote for the status quo. Not to talk politics is, in fact, quite political. We must be a faith that is relevant to the economy, to democracy, to human dignity. We must! 

But what I am suggesting is a need to put our Unitarian Universalism first before political affiliation. To remember who we fundamentally are. We are a people of Love. Love is at our center. Of course people can be confused about what Love calls for, so that definitely opens up a need for critical conversations and soul-searching. But no matter what political party comes out on top, our church needs to be a place where anyone who seeks Love is finding it. Our church needs to feel like a place where “we’re all ultimately in this together, with all our strengths and weaknesses together with all our differences of opinion including different political priorities.” 

Come into this space, and we need to know: “We are all sinners, but we are also all potential saints.” 

The worst thing is to be seeking healing and wholeness but what you encounter is a holier-than-thou attitude. A holier-than-thou attitude that feels entitled to impose its own ideas with no discussion, no disagreement allowed. A holier-than-thou attitude that makes others feel shamed and terrible and the natural reaction to that is to strike back. 

Love must be at the center, not a political holier-than-thou. 

This really is its own kind of separation of church and state. We will know how inclusive we truly are by counting the number of Republican voters in our midst. Oh yes. And if that seems incomprehensible to some, well, we just aren’t being imaginative enough. 

Trump campaigned effectively. Clearly. But now, let’s see how he governs. With a Republican House and Senate behind him, he’ll have full sway, and his supporters will finally see the reality of what they bought into. I think there will be lots of disappointment. I really do. I think there will be lots of dismay. But where will they turn if Democrats are still on their critical high horse and caught up in holier-than-thou judgmentalism? Democrats and Republicans will need to come together and take the country back from the rich just getting richer. 

This can be one of the spaces where people who voted differently can find common ground. Right here. 

Let this place bring the shepherd to us. Let it be so. And maybe–just maybe–what might come through is God. The shepherd as the Divine, the Goddess, the Tao, the Great Healer. Whatever words you prefer. But the varying words all give way to the main event which is an experience of true Grace. We will be led, as writer Elizabeth Gilbert puts it, to “take a breath.” To know that “Forces bigger and older and wiser than you are operating in this universe. It’s not your world to run. Let yourself be a part of things for a moment, instead of grinding yourself ragged in the pursuit of control. Unclench your fist. Drop the knife you’ve been holding. You are loved.” 

The shepherd whispers this to our hearts. And the shepherd is good, for this is what Psalm 23 says he does: he “prepares a table before us in the presence of our enemies.” Now just listen to that. Isn’t this an amazing image? Perhaps an odd one, for in the face of the enemy (who might jump up and grab us anytime) how can we eat? How can we actually put food into our mouths and swallow? Yet the good shepherd knows something—the good shepherd that is a close relationship, a religious community, or a God. This: That life is abundant when one learns how to dwell richly in the midst of one’s worst fears. 

You can’t get to joy in life if you can’t feel the fear. 

The truly good shepherd teaches us that. Not escape. Doesn’t smooth away the wrinkles of our lives. Doesn’t solve it for us, doesn’t dumb down the complexity. It can’t do that anyway. But what it can do is invite us into a deeper relationship with our world, and it does this with a sense of wonderful flair. Lays out the finest tablecloth and china. Polished silverware, napkins folded into swans. Pours the drinks, serves the food. Says, I know you might feel totally out of control right now. I know all about the election. There’s all sorts of other dogs, coyotes, cougars, and bears out there too, just licking their chops. I know that. The world is scary all over. But it’s not going to help to just thrash about and hurt yourself and others. It’s not going to help to get into a rut, or hide out. Sit down. Relax. Continue the small sustaining rhythms of your life. Sustain that which sustains you. Take breaks from social media periodically. Rediscover a sane routine. Find your center, be at peace, and then: accept your fears. Let them come. You can’t bypass that. The only way out is through. So let your fears wander over. Let them find their own seat at the table. Look them square in the eye, and let them talk to you. 

Share in the hospitality of the table, 

your fears and you, 

and that’s how you will find your cup overflowing. 

That’s how your cup will overflow. 

Goodness and mercy will follow you 

all the days of your life, 

and you will dwell,

dwell you will

in the House of the Lord forever. 

That’s how. 

That is how.