Four years ago, I was an intern minister at the ORUCC. On November 8, 2020, right after the national election, I addressed this congregation with a sermon called “Our National Temptation in the Dark Woods.” The ‘dark woods’ symbolize the societal challenges and moral dilemmas we were facing at that time. I said:  
“Of course, there are some standard ministerial things to say at a moment like this. A good minister would remind everyone that feelings can be hurt when you gloat. There are always two sides to any story. Compromise means no one is too badly damaged because everyone loses a little bit for the common good. Now is a time to heal wounds of divisiveness and rancor and come together as an American family.”

It was a heady time when many of us felt that we had dodged a bullet and might finally be free from the rancor and vitriol of the previous administration. About that administration and what we ended up with by 2020, I said:
“We accepted a president who operates from his basest instincts and feelings. For the first time in our existence, the GOP became a party that embodied the ego of one man and reflected that fact in their national platform. It was a platform of violated human rights, the celebration of white supremacy, and disregard for the health and well-being of the planet and all the creatures on it…

The myth of American’ Exceptionalism’ was the siren song of Trump. Its melody was hatred, and its lyrics were lies. Our seduction to its temptation took us on a spiraling circle to the basement of our weakened and now crumbled democracy. Our seduction flew on the wings of greed, xenophobia, racial and ethnic animus, homophobia, sexism, intolerance, religious cowardice, and hatred of the ‘other’. We feasted on lies, cruelty, indifference, and supremacy. We were lost. We are lost…”

I was taught you never leave a congregation without hope at the end of your sermon! So, quite dutifully, I did that at the end of my “Dark Woods” sermon. I wrote:

“We have proven we can endure the despots, racist administrations, and government by insults because we are good and decent people. We’ve earned a reprieve by electing Biden and Harris, but we still have a long way to go. We can’t sit still! But through all this, we’ve learned we are stronger than the temptations that seek to define us. We need to get out of the dark woods, but we are Americans. So borrowing words from some pretty awesome people on an airplane... ‘Let’s Roll!”’

Keep in mind that I wrote those words a little over four years ago. Since then, I have written and delivered many sermons about what was yet to come, even when it seemed our now President-Elect was in the rear view mirror. I talked about how we were not doing enough to guard against re-entering those dark woods. Then, writings and sermons with titles like “The Arc of Justice Up Close and Personal,” “Church 2.0”, “The Weaponization of Grievance,” and finally, “Change,” I warned about the Tsunami of radical change fueled by hatred, victimization, lies, mass coercion, white fragility, systemic racism, and cognitive dissonance that would envelop us. At the same time, we all sat around singing Kumbaya.

Since 2016, I cited solid research that shows that much of the extreme hardening of political ideology is a function of racism. For example, political scientists Steven Miller and Nicholas Davis of Texas A&M released a study in 2016 titled “White Outgroup Intolerance and Declining Support for American Democracy.” Their study found a correlation between white Americans’ intolerance and support for authoritarian rule. In other words, when many intolerant white people fear democracy may benefit marginalized people, they abandon their commitment to democracy. Study after study confirmed what social scientists call the “Trump Effect” of rising authoritarianism.
 
In the past four years, I have been screaming, “Hey ya’ll, we never left the dark woods. We’re now more lost than ever. Our monsters came with us, and they will eat us alive!”

In the last sermon I delivered in April 2024 to my home congregation in Lake County, California, called “Change,” I explained why my wife, Carol, and I had decided to immigrate to Panamá before the national election in November of this year. I discussed how the principles of evolutionary psychology were skillfully employed by the radical right to prepare an uninformed and pliable population to fundamentally change our system of government from a democracy to an authoritarian regime.   

Specifically, in the “Change” sermon, I explored how and why change can cause us to act or decline to act, especially when facing existential threats. Given enough time and the right conditions, I explained that even radical, harmful change may not be perceived as a threat because we are biologically wired not to act in those circumstances. I said:
“It is essential to understand that all these factors are arrayed against us now. Don’t think for a second that there are not very smart people at work who apply the principles of evolutionary psychology and its insights into human behavior to manipulate populations adversely. People armed with such knowledge exploit our biological limitations to subvert our society for their gain.”

To illustrate the point about radical change over time, I asked:
“Twenty-five years ago, could you imagine it possible that we Americans might reelect a twice impeached person convicted of being liable for rape and fraud and who faces serious and credible criminal charges ranging from leading a nationwide insurrection to election interference?”

Mind you, I asked that question before the twice-impeached person was found guilty of 34 counts of felony for election interference.

The nineteenth-century French philosopher Joseph de Maistre wrote, “Every nation gets the government it deserves.” The fact that Maistre was a staunch Monarchist aside, his words ring true today. Fifty-four days ago, our nation got the government it deserves. The fact that most of us did not bother to vote, and many voted against their own interests, is a testament to the brilliance of the architects of the demise of our democracy.

In April of this year, I wrote:
“I believe the pendulum of change towards a dangerously far-right ethos in our country is happening too quickly and powerfully for most of us to comprehend. Regardless, these changes are inevitable, and they will be as profound as any faced by pre-Nazis and pre-Fascistic populations in the last century. The people engineering this change have been at it for a long time. They have not merely hoped for this change. They have been seething in the background, planning, forming militias and think tanks; they have appointed judges, adapted their tactics, forced their way onto school boards, taken over state legislatures, and systematically subverted the liberal democratic intentions of our laws. They have promulgated messages of hatred and victimization. They have told the big lies because they understand the psychology of mass coercion works best that way. Cognitive dissonance matures into obedience when those big lies are allowed to metastasize. What can we do about this? 'How, Clovice, can we hope to undo the damage?' you might ask. Well, I think it’s too late to change the tide.”

Before I left in September, I told anyone who would listen, “If you have a closet to hide in, hide in it.” Unfortunately, my skin color does not provide me with any closets. From my perspective as a keen student of history, I determined that being a black intellectual, radical left social justice UU minister, artist, musician, leftist professor, atheist, and all-around pain in the butt, I had too many targets painted on my black back to stay in this country. Like many dissenters before me, I believe I can do the most good by continuing my social justice work where I can be safe.

So, enough of the doom and gloom. I told you I was taught to offer hope in a sermon, so here it is. I will now borrow extensively from my “Change” sermon to expand on a concept that I call LASTING as a way to navigate through the very difficult times ahead.

Here is something to consider: the people who have made these changes to our nation have done so because they are hateful. They wish people to be disconnected from one another. They adapted to the environment of liberalism, which they despised. They then set about systematically to subvert the liberal democracy they found so offensive. They have succeeded in creating a movement to fundamentally transform our society into one that will preserve their notion of white dominance.

My proposal for countering this anti-liberal, anti-democratic movement that is sweeping like wildfire across this nation and around the world is simple in concept. It is inspired by Christianity and is guaranteed to bring our planetary civilization into proper alignment. Back in April, I asked people to remember this acronym (because I was running out of time in the sermon): LAST
LOVE
ADAPT
SUBVERT
TRANSFORM

LOVE the people who hate you. Love all people through connection and work against forces that seek to disconnect us from one another. Love the planet and work against forces that seek to exploit it.

ADAPT to profound changes when they occur. Do not martyr yourself. Hide in whatever closet is closest. Get a flag and wave it proudly from your house. Change your party affiliation to the dominant party, but if it is possible, vote for liberal causes and candidates during an election, when that is possible. Blend in. You may need to go back to celebrating Thanksgiving with people who don’t understand the “fuss.” I’m not saying you have to eat meat if you are a vegetarian. Bring your own food and offer it in the spirit of celebrating differences among us.  

SUBVERT any system that seeks to maintain power through hatred and division. Undermine it in every way possible while preserving human life (including your own). Strive to employ art, beauty, parable, humor, reason, satire, and life-enriching technology. Promote messages of human connection, justice, and love. Provide education that uplifts the human spirit rather than that which promotes fear. Be constantly aware that your ideals now counter the power structures governing our nation. Go underground, maintain secrecy, protect the safety of others, and above all, do not underestimate the ferocity of the people intent on punishing you for what they consider your transgressions against them.  

TRANSFORM the society around you into one that celebrates freedom, promotes liberty, and honors the rights of all people as equal members of the human family. Work for diversity, equity, and inclusion for all people. Use the UU principles as a basis for everything you do in the public and private spheres. Speak your truth boldly while you continuously listen to the truth of others.

Now, to LAST, I add the following:

INNOVATE ways to engage people who disagree with you to find common ground. Always apply principles of critical thinking, invite reason and respectful dialogue, and be respectful of their humanity while gently countering the fears and misinformation that may guide them. Use any appropriate technology and method to persuade opponents to break the cognitive dissonant state that allows them to behave and believe in ways counter to their own moral or spiritual center. Always consider them an “opponent” because until they truly embrace the “interconnected web of existence” our UU principles espouse, they will be dangerous to our cause of Love, Adaptation, Subversion, and Transformation.  

NURTURE our fifth UU Principle: The right of conscience and the use of the democratic process within our congregations and society. You will undoubtedly encounter people in this new era who genuinely don’t understand how democracy works or the duty each citizen has to maintain it. What can you expect when civics is not taught in school for two generations? I call myself a Constitutional Pluralistic Democratarian, just to mix things up. I am “Constitutional” - because I believe in just laws instituted and upheld by a written document that guarantees how those laws are administered fairly and equitably in a society. I am “Pluralistic” because I recognize more than one ultimate principle and advocate for a system where two or more states, groups, principles, sources of authority, etc., coexist equally. I am a “Democratarian”… an admittedly made-up word… because I wish to be clear that I stand in direct opposition to the “Authoritarian” philosophy of government.  

GROW a more just, open, and equitable society based on humanitarian principles. It is possible to grow such a society amidst violence, hatred, inhumanity, cruelty, and indifference by transforming adversity into an opportunity for deeper connection and action. Growth begins with individuals and communities embracing the principles of inclusion and mutual respect. Networks of solidarity must be formed, even if clandestinely, that challenge oppression and injustice. Equality-based education, accurate portrayal of historical oppression, and narratives that address systemic inequalities will eventually lay the foundation for healing and the renewal of democratic principles. The most challenging thing will be establishing grassroots movements and visionary leadership in a time of governmental repression. The kind of subversion I talked about must be employed to foster a culture of accountability, where violence and cruelty are met with resistance through nonviolence, dialogue, and systemic reform. Such a society can shift cultural norms toward compassion and shared responsibility by amplifying the plight of the marginalized and celebrating acts of kindness and courage. That appeal to decency and kindness was done during the Civil Rights era in the United States and can be done again. Growth is achieved not by shirking the challenges but by actively confronting them in any way possible, with unwavering dedication to building a world that reflects every person’s inherent worth and dignity.

Do you want to know how to overcome the Tsunami of radical change that is upon us?

Then, practice LASTING through adversity. Keep this simple yet powerful acronym in your mind: to Love, Adapt, Subvert, Transform, Innovate, Nurture, and Grow against all systems based on hatred and oppression.

Again, I say to you, we can’t sit still! Through all this, we will learn we are stronger than the temptations that seek to define us. We need to get out of the dark woods because we are Americans – and not whimpering, docile, frightened sheep. So, borrowing words from some pretty awesome Democracy-loving people who died on an airplane on 9/11, and adding to that the voices of all the brave Americans who fought and died for this precious democracy that is our birthright… I say, “Let’s Roll!”

Namaste

My sermon today is about change. Specifically, I will explore how and why change can cause us to act or decline to act, especially when facing existential threats. A fundamental dynamic of change is how circumstances around us change. Given enough time and the right conditions, even radical, harmful change may not be perceived as a threat. There are several reasons why we humans struggle to perceive such harmful changes:

Sensory Perception: Our senses are attuned to detecting sudden changes. For instance, a loud noise is easier to notice than a gradual increase in volume. This evolutionary adaptation helps us avoid immediate dangers but not long-term, subtle threats.[1] This focus on the present can make it difficult to grasp abstract, long-term threats that don’t directly impact our immediate survival.
Mental Adaptation: Our brains adapt to our surroundings. As changes occur slowly, we adjust our baseline for what’s “normal.” This is known as the adaptation level theory.[2] The crab in the boiling pot adage is an example of this.[3]
Cognitive Bias: Confirmation bias can play a role in this. We tend to focus on information confirming our beliefs and then downplay evidence of change. This can make it challenging to recognize gradual problems, especially if they contradict our momentary beliefs or initial assessments.[4]
Present Bias and Discounting the Future: This is associated with “Cognitive Bias.” Present Bias happens because our brains tend to weigh immediate rewards or dangers more heavily than those far off. This Bias allows us to prioritize short-term benefits over long-term consequences, hindering our ability to address existential threats like climate change that unfold gradually. In our present sociological context, we do not perceive existential threats to one group as affecting us because… to put it simply... we are not affected yet.[5]
Psychological Numbing: Repeated exposure to negative stimuli can lead to psychological numbing. We become emotionally desensitized, making it harder to react to ongoing harm.[6]

It is essential to understand that all these factors are arrayed against us now. Don’t think for a second that there are not very smart people at work who apply the principles of evolutionary psychology and its insights into human behavior to adversely manipulate populations. People armed with such knowledge exploit our biological limitations to subvert our society for their gain. In terms of fomenting and maintaining racial hatred, they do this by a variety of means, such as:

Exploiting In-Group Favoritism: Humans evolved with a tendency to favor members of their own group (in-group) over outsiders (outgroup). Malicious actors can exploit this by:

• Fueling Social Division: framing issues in terms of “us vs. them” and creating a sense of threat from outgroups. This can be used to justify discrimination, prejudice, and even violence.[7] Here’s an alarming statistic: on April 13 of this year, a study by the Violence Prevention Research program at UC Davis published in the JAMA Network Open found that 56% of Americans who carry firearms in public believe violence is justified to advance political objectives.[8]

1. How is in-group exploitation for social division used? If you are a Democrat, you are actually a Communist, Fascist, sexual groomer in disguise. You love people of color because want to use them to replace white people in the United States.

• Another way to exploit in-group favoritism is through Scapegoating: identifying a specific outgroup as responsible for societal problems. This diverts attention from real issues and fosters hostility toward the targeted group.[9] As a result of scapegoating, nearly four in 10 Americans (38%) said they believed in the “white replacement theory”.[10]

1. How is scapegoating used? The people seeking asylum against oppression in their countries are actually rapists, murderers, and criminals who have been let loose to pollute the blood of the United States. They are vermin and not even real people.

Another misuse of evolutionary psychology is:
Manipulating Social Status: Our desire for social status can be used to control behavior. Techniques include:

• Appealing to Dominance: Framing messages to appeal to people’s desire for power and control. This can promote aggressive or domineering behavior, especially towards outgroups.[11]

1. How is the appeal to dominance used? The ruling power will promote and reward aggressive or domineering behavior towards outgroups. If your politics are liberal, there is something wrong with your brain. If you are a person of color, you do not deserve your place in society. If you are not Christian, then you worship the wrong god and are a danger to this rightfully Christian nation.

The final misuse of evolutionary psychology is:
Targeting Our Biases: Evolutionary psychology identifies various cognitive biases, such as confirmation bias. This can be exploited for manipulation through:

• Tailored Messaging: This refers to crafting messages that resonate with people’s pre-existing beliefs, regardless of their accuracy. This reinforces confirmation bias and makes people resistant to opposing viewpoints.

1. How is Tailored Messaging used: How about this for using pre-existing beliefs, regardless of their accuracy -–Critical Race Theory is teaching young people to hate our country and, more specifically, that white people are evil. Another way confirmation bias is reinforced is by stating over and over again that a person who is “woke” is not open to opposing ideas, which has the effect of… wait for it… making the target of their “wokeness” resistant to opposing viewpoints. Have you noticed how black academicians and leaders in Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion programs across the country are being systematically attacked for plagiarism? Or how about charges that a large number of high-tech companies are failing because of their DEI policies? These implications are carefully designed to subliminally reinforce a belief that people of color cannot be trusted with engineering or technology that puts white people at risk. In the case of black academicians, the belief is that their scholarship is always suspect because they were put in positions they are not qualified for because of affirmative action and not because of merit.

We need not look far into history to find the genesis of deep-seated stereotypes against people of color that present-day social engineers can easily manipulate to use in their toxic concoctions.

How does all this come together? The misuse of evolutionary psychology allows people to be pretty terrible to each other. We have seen how psychological theory has been used to change the very fabric of our democracy -—so strap in, my friends. We are in for a rough ride.

The first part of this sermon has been relatively dry... academic, even. I apologize for that. It is essential to lay the intellectual groundwork explaining what happened to our nation and why. Now comes the less intellectual part... the part about feeling what many of us have not allowed ourselves to feel and opening our eyes to what we have refused to see.   

Because I am a student of history, I believe our country faces a prolonged future of extreme political upheaval. This upheaval will include the normalization of political violence, wholesale disenfranchisement, attacks on LGBTQI+ people, more restrictions on women’s reproductive rights, more polarization and government gridlock, the rise of authoritarianism and White Christian Nationalism, and a concerted effort to eliminate gains made to address racial and ethnic inequities.

The fact that American democracy is fundamentally threatened would have been unthinkable a few short years ago. A few years ago, when I wrote my first historically-based “Harlem Voices” musical, I never dreamed it might be banned from school libraries in many places in our nation. The second musical, “Harlem Voices: Revisited,” will join it as being sure to be banned because they will now violate laws against making people feel “discomfort” in schools and private businesses when being taught about racial discrimination in U.S. history.[12] [13][14][15][16]

Twenty-five years ago, could you imagine it possible that we Americans might reelect a twice impeached person convicted of being liable for rape and fraud and who faces serious and credible criminal charges ranging from leading a nationwide insurrection to election interference? As I said earlier, my friends, this country has changed around us. For us, the change is so credibly threatening that we feel it is prudent to leave.

I believe the pendulum of change towards a dangerously far-right ethos in our country is happening too quickly and powerfully for most of us to comprehend. Regardless, these changes are inevitable, and they will be as profound as any faced by pre-Nazis and pre-Fascistic populations in the last century. The people engineering this change have been at it for a long time. They have not merely hoped for this change. They have been seething in the background, planning, forming militias and think tanks; they have appointed judges, adapted their tactics, forced their way onto school boards, taken over state legislature, and systematically subverted the liberal democratic intentions of our laws. They have promulgated messages of hatred and victimization. They have told the big lies because they understand the psychology of mass coercion works best that way. Cognitive dissonance matures into obedience when those big lies are allowed to metastasize.

What can we do about this? “How, Clovice, can we hope to undo the damage?” you might ask. Well, I think it’s too late to change the tide. For us, it is more dangerous to be here at this time than it is for most of you in this congregation. Carol and I will leave so we can continue the fight against the radical changes to come from a safer place, regardless of who wins the White House in November. We will join a nascent movement of people like ourselves described as “Blaxit”. These are people of color who are leaving the United States for the same reasons we are. Importantly, “Blaxits” are leaving for many of the reasons why James Baldwin and others like him starting leaving this country a century ago. Put simply, this has been a bad marriage for we “Blaxits”, and it’s not getting any better. It’s just time to go.

Here is something to consider: the people who have made these changes to our nation have done so because they are hateful. They wish people to be disconnected from one another. They adapted to the environment of liberalism, which they despised. They then set about, systematically, to subvert the liberal democracy they found so offensive. They have succeeded in creating a movement to fundamentally transform our society into one that will preserve their notion of white dominance.

My proposal for countering this anti-liberal, anti-democratic movement that is sweeping like wildfire across this nation and around the world is simple in concept. It is inspired by Christianity and is guaranteed to bring our planetary civilization into proper alignment. Remember this acronym: LAST
LOVE
ADAPT
SUBVERT
TRANSFORM

Love the people who hate you. Love all people through connection and work against forces that seek to disconnect us from one another. Love the planet and work against forces that seek to exploit it.

Adapt to profound changes when they occur. Do not martyr yourself. Hide in whatever closet is closest. Get a flag and wave it proudly from your house. Change your party affiliation to the dominant party while it is possible but vote for liberal causes and candidates during an election. Blend in.

Subvert any system that seeks to maintain power through hatred and division. Undermine it in every way possible while preserving human life (including your own). Strive to employ art, beauty, parable, humor, and life-enriching technology. Promulgate messages of human connection and love. Provide education that uplifts the human spirit rather than that which promotes fear.

Transform the society around you into one that celebrates freedom, promotes liberty, and honors the rights of all people as equal members of the human family. Work for diversity, equity, and inclusion for all people. Use the UU principles as a basis for everything you do in the public and private spheres. Speak your truth boldly while you continuously listen to the truth of others. And listen to me...…you put this collar on me so I can say the hard things. So, I am only going to say this one time. The transformation I’m talking about means this congregation needs to sign on to the proposed 8th UU principle. Start from there and work towards a truly multicultural world. Make ourselves accountable to dismantle racism and all other oppression in ourselves and our institutions. If we don’t see the need for this kind of self-transformation, then we don’t deserve to be here. There are bigger fish to fry!

Do you want to know how to overcome the tsunami of change facing us?

LAST to Love, Adapt, Subvert, and Transform all systems based on hatred and oppression. If our nation can manage that, Carol and I might be able to return someday. In the meantime, we’ll be fighting for diversity, equity, inclusion, and basic human rights in our nation from the safety and peace of another country.

Namaste
Clovice A. Lewis, Jr.

Lessons in Courage From My Father

    Last year I delivered a sermon honoring my mother on Mother’s Day called “Honoring My Mother, who Raised Me in the Shadow of Segregation.” When I told Carol, my wife, that I intended to write another sermon for Father’s Day about his courage, she remarked that it would probably sound like the previous one about my mother. I told her there were similarities, but I learned different things from my parents. The courage my mother exhibited in raising me during that long terrible night of segregation was different from that of my father’s.

    While my mother faced prejudice with a measure of indifference (much like the way a teenager dismisses an adult with a shrug of the shoulder and an icy “whatever”), my father carried a somewhat heavier burden. He came into a world far less friendly to black men than the one I live in, and the lessons he learned molded his behavior and outlook on life.

    My father, Clovice A. Lewis, Sr., was one of eleven children growing up in a too-small house in Mobile, Alabama. He has been described to me by all of his siblings as “the tinkerer.” He was infamous from a young age as the person you go to first when you’ve lost a watch. If he had it, the watch was likely to have been carefully dismantled and examined, along with other pieces of 1940’s technology that miraculously made their way into the shoebox he kept under his bed. It is not surprising that I have developed a life-long love affair with technology. My father infused his six children with a passion for gadgets. We all suffer from the disease to one degree or another. My brother and I exhibit the most pronounced symptoms, but our sisters are also keen technologists.

    He went to Catholic seminary to study for the priesthood during ninth grade. Although he is a deeply spiritual and contemplative man, my father realized that marriage more suited his vision of the future. Soon after he left the seminary and met my mother at the Most Sacred Heart High School, she became the central figure in that vision. My mother says she didn’t like the young Clovice because he was a little arrogant. She changed her mind, which is something I am most happy about.  

    After high school, my father began what was to be a 20-year long career in the Air Force by way of volunteering in the Army in 1953. He and my mother married in 1954 and moved away from Mobile. The Armed Forces offered him opportunities he could not easily take advantage of had he stayed there. He always wanted to get into electronics. His test scores in the Army indicated strong aptitude for administration, mechanics, and electronics, in that order. The Army placed him in the motor pool, which he thought would be fine. He was under the impression that he’d work on engines, rebuilding and repairing various motor vehicles. He discovered that the Army only allowed white soldiers to do such work. He and other black men were permitted to pull batteries and change the oil. My father had enough after ruining fatigues with battery acid for 18 months. The base drum and bugle corps were looking for a few good men, so he auditioned and got assigned to play double B flat bass horn, but it disbanded before he could join the band. Temporary duty in personnel turned into a more permanent position, and that’s where he got stuck until he joined the Air Force.

    When he was in the Air Force, my father was known as the “Singing Sergeant” because of his gorgeous voice. I did not appreciate his gift as I was growing up. I recently heard a recording of his performance on the very last nationwide Ted Mack Amateur Hour show, which brought me to tears. “I left My Heart In San Francisco” was sung by my then 32-year-old father with a voice that was as elegant as Johnny Mathis with phrasing as sophisticated as anything Nat King Cole ever sang. My father was phenomenal. I often wonder what his life would have been like if the Ted Mack show had not gone off the air immediately after. What if all those postcards that were never tallied could tell who won the competition that night? What if my father could have been signed to a record contract?

    So far, he doesn’t sound extraordinarily courageous, does he? There are millions of men in the world like my father. They wake up every morning and work hard for their families. These men struggle against benevolent oppression, men who sacrifice their dreams so that their children can live their own, and men who endure hardships so the future can dawn on new vistas of possibilities. Well, the story of my father’s courage, indeed most men’s courage, is not best told by recounting significant events. It is measured by telling almost insignificant events that form a larger picture. It is described by character, integrity, grit, strength, experience, and stamina. These are the things that tell you about a man, and if he’s a good man like my father, you will learn about them long after the fact. In fact, I did not truly understand the sacrifices and hardships my father endured as a black man in the Air Force of the 1960s and 70s. He faced racism and humiliations in the service of his country. Click here for an interview I did with him as he described a horrific racist incident at his workplace at Dyess Air Force Base.

    I told you that my father grew up in what I described as a “too-small-house” as one of eleven children. His father, John Lewis, finished eighth grade and worked the rest of his life as a carpenter, handyman, and janitor for the Catholic diocese in Mobile. He met and married my grandmother, Anna Mary Lewis, and started on that large family right away. They and their children lived in three separate houses before settling down on Spruce street in Mobile. The other three houses burned down because of substandard construction. My father’s family had to start from nothing each time. He says that his father’s Catholic rectories and convents helped them tremendously. He says that Catholics in the deep south at that time were treated better than non-Catholic blacks by the white priests and nuns who worked with them and lived in their parishes. They were simply better educated and provided with more opportunities. My father says they didn’t know they were poor because Catholic charities always provided them with work, clothing, and toys. At times, 15 people lived in the four-bedroom house on Spruce Street. There were three beds in a room with three kids in each bed, sleeping head to toe. So my father’s shoe box had a lot of company.  

    I told you my father desperately wanted to get into electronics from when he first joined the Army. After entering the Air Force, he got stuck in personnel for years. He wanted electronics training so badly that he lost rank by switching. Still in personnel after returning from assignment to England in 1961, my father was stationed at Hamilton field near Vallejo, California. My father described personnel as a closed field, meaning there was no possibility of promotion or transfer. His commanding officer forbade him from putting in for transfers. He repeatedly pleaded to be let go but was always denied. In the early 1960s, the Strategic Air Command of the Air Force was developing a new, ultra-sophisticated command and control system using computers. Because he worked in personnel, my father knew about the requests and orders going out all over the Air Force for training on the new system. He asked his Commanding Officer (CO) again for a transfer and was denied. It was then that my father decided to apply to SAC despite his orders to the contrary. He knew he could be demoted for doing so, but he tested for and passed the preliminary exams. He then got a friend of his at the base headquarters to submit the paperwork for him. SAC cut orders for my father to report to Keesler Air Force Base in Biloxi, Mississippi, to train on the new computer system in early 1963. He describes his meeting with the commanding officer as not pleasant. The CO had no choice but to let my father go... the orders were signed and irrevocable. As a result, my father spent the next few months doing unpleasant guard and kitchen patrol duty. But he was happy to do this because he was finally on the way towards his dream.

    Much later, when my father was the NCO in charge of maintaining that ultra-sophisticated computer system for the Strategic Air Command at Dyess Air Force base in Abilene, Texas, he faced another career-ending decision. For several days he heard a noise coming from the communications equipment where he worked on the upper floor of the base headquarters building. He recognized the sound coming from the crucial air conditioning that kept the huge vacuum tubes, capacitors, and other electronic equipment cool enough to operate. Anyone who’s been to Texas in the summer can attest to how scorching it can get long before noon. The temperature rose more with each passing day. My father had called for several days to have air conditioning engineers fix the problem, but no one would come. Finally, one morning he got to the site at 7:00 A.M. and found the air conditioners completely inoperable. He immediately called his commanding officer to appraise him of the situation and told him that the system might need to be shut down.

    The CO gave my father a direct order not to do so. My father made calls to other Air Force bases, air conditioning engineers, and other officers in the network. At 8:30, my father warned that he would need to shut down by 10:00 A.M. Again, his CO told him not to power down the equipment under any circumstances because he did not yet have permission and could not reach people authorized to give consent. My father told him it would take six months and millions of dollars to repair the potential damage, but the officer would not budge. So, at 10:00 on a blistering Texas morning, my father shut down the Dyess Air Force base node of the international SAC command and control system and refused to turn it back on until the air conditioners were repaired enough to allow proper operation. The fate of the free world rested in the hands of an Air Force technical sergeant from Mobile, Alabama, but not one newspaper picked up the story! My father stood his ground for an hour and a half until the repairs were made. He said the engineers miraculously appeared shortly after he pulled the plug.

    I heard this story before, but not in the detail my father offered this time while I was preparing for this sermon. I asked him why he didn’t simply follow the officer’s orders. I thought he could not be blamed for any damage that might have occurred. I asked him if he was afraid to do what he did and about the repercussion of his action. He told me he was responsible for that system and would not permit it to be damaged, no matter what happened. He said that he never thought what it might cost him because it was the right thing to do. It turns out that the commanding officer never said a word about the incident to him afterward. He did not hear from anyone about his potential court martial-able actions. It’s as if the incident never happened.

    My father was a member of the Air Force, but that did not make him a warrior. While he served during the Vietnam war era, he did not go to Vietnam. He was against the war from the beginning. He agreed with Muhammad Ali when he said, “I ain’t got no quarrel with them Viet Cong.” I did not know how dangerous it was for my father to hold these views until later when I won a Veterans of Foreign Wars speech contest for the state of Mississippi in 1973. The very proud leader of the post that sponsored me assumed that my father favored the war and against any pullout from Vietnam that was being discussed at the time. I remember the man became enraged when my father told him the war was wrong and we should have never been in Vietnam in the first place. The VFW post leader almost came to blows with my father. I watched in amazement how my father handled the situation. He simply asserted his right to speak his mind in a respectful but firm way. The situation was diffused, but I learned a valuable lesson about my father and how to stand up for myself that day.

    My father taught me, by his example, to stand up for myself in any situation I find myself in. Visitors to our household are sometimes taken aback by how my family members debate with each other. We have raging discussions that, others tell me, would be the fuel for weeks of resentment and hurt feelings. Those visitors will look on with amazement when we all hug each other at three o’clock in the morning good night, and go to bed with the same satisfaction derived from a good fight with your pet cat. There have been times when I am on the verge of intimidation or self-doubt in my professional and personal life.

    There have been times when I have dreaded going into an abusive manager’s office. There are times when I need to marshal my courage and defend my rights, even when it costs me to do so. At those times, I think about my father. Forget about “What would Jesus do?”... I ask, “What would my father do?”. Then, suddenly I always realize that the only man who has ever had the right to intimidate me is my father and that he gracefully relinquished that right years ago. As I walk down corporate corridors towards paneled board rooms, I am aware of the powerful gifts of validation and self-worth my father has given me. The man who wishes to intimidate me from behind a big desk is often surprised as hell to find out that it cannot be done. That man cannot know that the son of Technical Sergeant Clovice Lewis, the keeper of the keys to the Strategic Air Command and the devourer of commanding officers, is in the house. 
 
    Like other proud sons, I can go on and on about such stories about my father. However, the most fantastic thing about Clovice A. Lewis, Sr., is that he is even with us at all. I have just recounted a few stories from what I consider a courageous man’s life. However, over the past 25 years, I have come to understand that his courage is tested every day in ways that most of us can scarcely begin to phantom. Since then, he has been diagnosed with degenerative disc disease. His choices are to endure major surgery that has only a 30% chance of success, which may leave him unable to walk or endure a life of intense pain. Over the years, I have watched a man with the sharpest mind — a skilled writer, an incredible vocalist, a brilliant organizer, and a leader become someone barely capable of writing a cohesive paragraph. Even more potent drugs are used to combat his pain, to no real or lasting effect. His neurological system has been impaired to the point where he sometimes falls and hurts himself. Extremely violent myoclonic seizures, the worst seen by anyone at the UCLA Pain Center, did not allow my father to sleep for more than a few minutes for years. Thankfully now, newer medicines lower the constant pain enough so that he can sleep, but they leave him unable to function. He is now officially disabled but still must battle ineptitude and indifference at the VA hospitals he must go to.

    I have had frightening and heart-breaking talks with him about his desire to end his life because the pain is so great. He and my mother have suffered tremendous financial and emotional setbacks. I have watched him fail to deal with challenges from dishonest automobile dealers to hospital administrators that would have been easy for him to overcome in the past. I have watched my father, now in his mid-sixties, become swallowed by life like the biblical Jonah, but unlike Jonah, my father is not likely to emerge from the great fish’s belly.

    Yet, if you were to meet my father on his good days, you would probably not recognize anything too out of the ordinary. You would not know that for every day of escaping his bed, he must pay with another three days in it. He will appear alert and present, but that is at tremendous cost, which he will inevitably and dearly pay.

    You would not know these things about the singing sergeant. But I do. I see a man whose body suffers tremendously every day, but whose spirit is dancing and singing in the belly of the great fish, thanking God for every precious moment of life, thanking God for his wife, and thanking God for his children; even the ones who have betrayed him the most. When I recently asked him what he considers his life’s greatest challenge, he surprised me. I thought he would talk about his pain. He told me, instead, that it was being an entrepreneur! He said that the pinnacle of his career was when he was called back to consult with a company that made printers for the Army. His technical skills allowed them to meet requirements and sell their products. He reminded me that our name is on the plaque attached to the Voyager spacecraft that is now hurtling through the vastness of deep space because he was on the team of people who helped create it at the Jet Propulsion Laboratories.

    Every time I get into the cockpit of an airplane, I think about the fact that my father would have been prohibited from doing what I can now do when he was a young man. I am amazed that he did not infect my siblings and me with resentment and distrust of white people. When I practice my consultation business specializing in multimedia, I often think of my father, who started me down this path so many years ago. I think about the many people he so selflessly gave his time and energies to help over the years. I believe, like my father before me, and his father before him, that a man must improve the world by his progeny and his works... that each generation is not beholden to the previous one, but is expected to stand on their backs to achieve greater things. It is men like my father — proud, capable, committed, intelligent, devoted, and fierce — who will stop an advancing army in its tracks and say, “Nuts, I will not surrender, and you will not pass.” It is men like my father, who have no desire for accolades, who will not be praised for the greatness within them, who are both gentle and strong, who raise sons and daughters of integrity and intelligence, who are just and wise, those are the men who are makers of worlds. So, on behalf of my father, whom I consider to be the finest of all men on this planet, I honor all men who are fathers today and thank God for them.


6/13/02

"Ego quasi mulus equitare illum”

He carries my tools easily.
He never tires in service to me.
He is vacuous, empty of empathy,
And devoid of feelings…
My perfect vessel.

Did you see my tells?
The upside down Bible,
The little dance I make all of them do,
The angry puffed out lower jaw…
The confessed thrill of domination.

My tools are chaos, anger,
Corruption, deceit, victimization,
Pride, greed, envy, lust, gluttony,
Sloth, avarice, and many more.
I made him tap the storm to test the nation.
I have not had so much fun in millennium!

"Nullae leges nos continent”

Who dares to speak?
They who profit from the lie?
They who supplicate themselves at my altar?
They who seek only the corruption of power
For the craven joy of grievance and untethered
Hatred of all who do not drink from my cup?

Oh, so many times I have tested you!
The highest lawmakers of the land
Twisted like rotted grapes in our gale of fury.
Afraid, they were, of multitudes of faithful
Made mindless by insentient fear and hatred.

Come I to speak at your funeral.
Come I to ride all of you through him.
Come I to your temples of law.
Come I to your fatuous sanctuaries.
Come you unto me.
Ahh… come unto me!

"Conteram gentem tuam”

When he pardoned war criminals
And separated children from their parents
And lied about a worldwide pandemic
And laid down with white supremacy
And banned immigrants from seeking asylum
And encouraged insurrection from your highest office.
And you did nothing of substance…

Your enemies knew you.
They saw you.
They listened to you.
They watched you.
They are among you.

I have you.

"Et ascendam super te donec clamas”

Clovice A. Lewis, Jr.
April 4, 2020