One of my favorite moments each year is our Interfaith America staff Thanksgiving potluck. We share food, reflect on what we’ve built together, and celebrate the people doing the work of pluralism every day. I’m sharing the remarks I gave to our staff this year with you as well, in the hope that they offer some encouragement and inspiration.
Woody Guthrie had a guitar with the words: “This machine kills fascists.” What I highlight is that it was a guitar. It played songs. It elevated conversations. It was art. Civilization is living and talking together. That’s what we do. That is the revolution that we are returning to: living and talking together.
I was at The Art Institute [of Chicago] the other day, and I saw the students from Universal School, a group of boys and a group of girls [from a Muslim school], where Jenan [Mohajir] had her first job, admiring the statues of the Buddha. I saw a family speaking Spanish in the Modern wing, discussing a Picasso. I got in line behind a couple of African American boys for the water fountain. They let me go in front of them. I hadn’t asked. My tour guide — I took the daily tour — was a Turkish guy who showed me the genius of the lighting in Edward Hopper’s “Nighthawks”. The ultimate American painting. The ultimate American moment, when an immigrant who retains his accent and identity shows you the light. That’s America.
I took the long way back to the train. I walked along Michigan Avenue, took a left on East Upper Wacker Drive, and right there at Wabash is this monument. George Washington, Robert Morris, Haym Salomon, and the bronze plaque on that monument reads, this is a monument to unity, and tolerance and cooperation. And etched in the marble are the words from Washington’s letter to the Hebrew Congregations of Newport, Rhode Island in 1790: “The government of the United States, which gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance.” [Later in the letter, Washington writes,] let the children of the stock of Abraham sit in safety under their own vine and fig [tree]. Let there be none to make them afraid. That is from Micah.
We ask only that you deem yourself good citizens. Good citizens. Aristotle [says] a citizen is one who participates in the polity. If you care and if you contribute, this country belongs to you, and you belong to it. We live at a time when those ideals are being violated, when Halloween parades of children are tear gassed, when daycare center workers are removed in front of their children inside the daycare center. There is a chill in the air. There are people who are afraid to come to work, afraid to come here, afraid to make their contribution. There is a chill in the air.
Every generation revives and resurrects these ideals. In this city, in 1858, Abraham Lincoln says in a speech that the Founding generation — 80 years before — the Founding generation, those “Iron Men,” he says, believed in things and fought for things. And he noted that some gathered at this celebration in 1858, they were direct descendants of those “Iron Men.” You should be proud, Lincoln said. And there are others here, he said, and he named them, from Germany, from France, Scandinavia, from Ireland. You are new here. You are immigrants. He went on to say, if you read in that Declaration, those lines, that “all men are created equal,” and that these are truths we hold to. If you believe in those words, you are, and I quote, “blood of the blood and flesh of the flesh” of the men who wrote them. You belong to this country, and this country belongs to you.
I am proud that for 25 years we have been a non-partisan organization. We do not choose between political parties. It has been hard to maintain that. But between cruelty and kindness, we will take a side. I walked through this beautiful new exhibit at the Art Institute, an exhibit of Japanese art. And amongst the display were 35 pieces from a collection called, “One Hundred Famous Views of Edo.” Edo is Tokyo. As I was looking at these beautiful views, I was thinking of the thousands of beautiful views of Chicago and of America and of how all of these cultures contribute to the potluck of human civilization. And so here is a 5-7-5, for Thanksgiving:
In this cold cruel time,
for our circle of kindness,
let us give thanks.
Thank you.
