A Moral Call in A “Moral Moment”

One Senator got the nation’s attention.

Senator Cory Booker called the political time we are in right now “a moral moment.” He said we are not in a “normal” time. And in such an abnormal time some moral choices have to be made. Therefore, the Senator issued a moral call to stand up, and speak out in stronger ways, higher ways, deeper ways, and more costly ways than we have done before in the midst of the terrible harm Donald Trump is causing for so many American people. This isn’t “left or right,” he kept saying. “It is about right and wrong.”

I have known Cory Booker for a long time, and worked with him on many occasions. But I watched an old friend go to a deeper place during his epic and historic speech on the Senate floor. In this moral moment, the senior Senator from New Jersey decided to do what he is now feeling called to do. He called his Senate colleagues to also stand up and speak out and then did that himself– for a very long time.

Booker’s twenty five hours and 5 minutes speech broke the record for the length of a Senator’s speech on the floor of the U.S. Senate. The press is going through all of those dates and times today and, ironically, the previous record for the longest speech was still held by Senator Strom Thurmond from South Carolina who, in 1957, was trying to stop the passage of the Civil Rights Act Of 1957–to prevent people like “me” from being in the Senate, Booker said.

Booker gave the credit for the motivation of his speech to his own constituents and other people around the country who have been sending messages to ask for his help as they find themselves in deep personal jeopardy. He cited the frustration, fear, disappointment, and anger felt by many who have reached out to him, demanding that the opposition Democrats say and do more. You could feel the Senator’s own frustration and anger too, but he warned about the dangers of hate and simply called us to love and be kind to our neighbors–deciding to do so when we wake up every morning now. The speech had a passion that the Bible would call prophetic while clearly being animated by love.

Telling many of those personal stories he had heard was the substance of Booker’s marathon talk. Numbers and votes are the usual subject on the floor of the U.S. Senate, but for 25+ hours people’s suffering and need for help were the subject of focus in the Senate–which almost never happens. After telling one painful story after another, in just reading the emails of those people and families who were pleading with him, you could feel Cory's growing emotion. “I see you,” he said with tears in his eyes, “I feel you!” he told them with a shaky but powerful voice. The lives of people being hurt were on display in the Senate which is a rare occurrence.

The personal and tragic stories Booker told lifted up many of the issues now at stake in America. Cuts in Social Security staff and offices, which are already impacting many of our seniors, were revealed. The cruelty of immediate and unexpected firings of federal workers with perfect performance records are being deeply felt– especially by tens of thousands of veterans still serving by working with the federal government but now being summarily dismissed without reason or thanks. Mass deportations without any due process, with even Trump’s system acknowledging “administrative errors,” but offering no commitment to fix them or restore justice to those deprived of their rights. The massive cuts to health and health services were perhaps the most emotional of all.

Booker’s reading a letter from a woman in Wisconsin, worried about losing any help for her growing Parkinson’s disease became especially emotive for Senator Booker; and we found out why when he shared how his father had suffered and died with the same condition with the high cost paid by his own family. Booker shared what the potential cut of 880 billion dollars from Medicaid would do to the the elders in our country and our most needy children.

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At the end of his dramatic speech, the breaking news was that all federal care for Alzheimer's patients may now be ended. And they’re also now hitting Meals on Wheels for many senior citizens who need both food and company. I had just spoken with one of my own siblings who told me how all this would impact her extended family. “They can’t just end all support and care for our elderly sick. Can they?”

Then the Bible came up. In Corey Booker’s speech he cited the 2000 verses of Scripture that bring up the poor, and our responsibilities to all the most vulnerable people mentioned in his 25 hour long testimony. There was an extraordinary exchange between Senator Booker and his fellow Christian brother, Senator Chris Coons of Delaware. It was a biblical exposition between two Senators about what the Bible says, and what Jesus clearly teaches about the “least of these” in Matthew 25, and in Christ’s opening address at Nazareth in Luke where he lays out his mission with a gospel that would be “good news” to the poor. Hear “the message,” Coons exclaimed.

I have never seen or heard as much of Cory Booker’s heart as I did listening to his long and strenuous speech over more than a day in the Senate. Time, endurance, and physical testing can always bring out more of the deeper heart that is within us. Perhaps the personal, mental, and emotional cost of such a physical and spiritual expenditure of energy and activity, can drive to one's very core. We saw Cory Booker’s truest and deepest self in his passionate longevity. The nation, and his fellow Senators, heard from both his head and his heart during this historic address. Apparently hundreds of millions of Americans have tuned into Cory Booker’s now legendary address. One Senator got the nation’s attention.

I noticed that neither the Senator nor his staff commented on what they thought might happen because of his speech. No political outcomes were suggested, except that “the people” have the power to speak and act to restore our compassion and our democracy.

That’s why I believe this was a call, not just to his brothers and sisters in Congress, but to all of us. No matter who or where we are, each of us can find the courage and the resolve that we saw in our brother Cory, to speak and stand in our own ways, and in the places where we find ourselves. And such decisions can lead to outcomes we cannot yet imagine.

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