Public service and the power of faith

“We have to face the world as it is but commit ourselves to turning it into what it should be.”

We’re in the final stretch of an election that may be the most consequential of our lifetimes — an election in which our nation’s values are being questioned. I’ve laid out my vision and my agenda, but I also want to address something that doesn’t always come naturally to a midwestern Methodist: my own faith, how it has led me to public service, and how it will guide me as president.

Sometimes people ask me, “Are you a praying person?” And I tell them if I wasn’t one before, one week in the White House or on the campaign trail would have turned me into one.

But I had the great blessing to be raised by a family and a church that instilled in me a deep and abiding Christian faith and practice. I still remember my late father — a gruff former Navy man — on his knees praying by his bed every night. Seeing him humble himself before God made a big impression on me as a young girl.

My mother taught Sunday school in our church, partly, she said, because she wanted to make sure my brothers actually showed up. Her faith was rooted in gratitude for the love that helped her survive a painful childhood after her own family abandoned and mistreated her. She was sustained by the kindness of others, like the first grade teacher who saw she had nothing to eat at lunch and brought extra food to share. She was determined to pay that kindness forward and adopted the Wesleyan credo of our church, “Do all the good you can for all the people you can in all the ways you can, as long as ever you can.”

I was also blessed to have a remarkable youth minister who believed in that credo. He told us — these young white kids in a suburban area of Chicago — that it wasn’t enough to be satisfied in our own church and in our own middle-class lives. He took us into the inner city to meet other young people our age from African American churches and Hispanic churches.

He also took us to hear Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., speak downtown. I remember one of his well-known sermons about staying awake during the revolution. Afterward, I stood in line with everyone to shake his hand and look him in the eye. Dr. King’s words — and the power of his example — had a profound impact on me. And they reinforced my minister’s teachings: that we have to face the world as it is but commit ourselves to turning it into what it should be.

Thanks to my family and my church, I embraced an activist social justice faith — a roll-up-your-sleeves and get-your-hands-dirty faith. It’s why I went to work right out of law school for the great Marian Wright Edelman, the daughter of a Baptist minister and the founder of the Children’s Defense Fund. She sent me door-to-door in Massachusetts on behalf of children with disabilities who weren’t able to attend public school, to South Carolina to investigate the plight of 12 and 13-year-old boys imprisoned alongside grown men who had committed serious felonies, and to Alabama to expose the racism of segregated academies.

And thanks to my faith, I learned humility, which is something we don’t talk enough about in politics. I’ve learned to be grateful, not just for my blessings but also for my faults — and there are plenty! I’ve made my share of mistakes. I don’t know anyone who hasn’t. But it’s grace that lifts us up, and grace that leads us home.

And it’s our job to learn from our mistakes, to do all we can to do better next time, and to live by the “discipline of gratitude.” As President Obama reminded us, seeking high office is, by definition, an act of audacity. And yet, our greatest leaders are often the most humble, because they recognize both the awesome responsibilities of power and the frailties of human action.

I’ve sat in the Situation Room with President Obama, weighing conflicting advice and imperfect information, wrestling with the hardest choices a leader can make: whether to send our young men and women into harm’s way, knowing that some of them will never return. There’s nothing more humbling than that. Nothing that should drive you to your knees more than that.

That’s why in this time of both peril and promise, we need a president who understands that none of us has all the answers, and no one person can fix our problems alone. We need a president who understands we have to look out for each other and lift each other up — not tear each other down. And we need a president who will defend the dignity of every individual.

One of the greatest privileges of this campaign has been getting to know a remarkable group of women who’ve lost children to gun violence or police incidents. They’re known as the Mothers of the Movement, and their hearts may be broken, but their souls shine through. I’ll never forget listening to Gwen Carr, the mother of Eric Garner, describe the mission these mothers feel called to lead.

She recalled the pain of losing her son. She said, at first, she couldn’t even get out of bed. But then, she said, “The Lord talked to me, and told me, ‘Are you going to lay here and die like your son, or are you going to get up and uplift his name?’” She realized in that moment that none of us can rest as long as there are others out there to be saved. And that her voice could move people to action. And then she said this: “I had to turn my sorrow into a strategy, my mourning into a movement.”

Gwen hasn’t stopped working since, bringing more and more allies to the cause of peace and justice. She knows, in a way, that tragedy and profound loss can teach us that we are stronger together than we could ever be alone.

Gwen and the other Mothers of the Movement are living what the Scripture tells us: “Let us not grow weary in doing good, for in due season, we shall reap, if we do not lose heart.” Those are words we all should live by. And if I have the great honor of serving as your president, these are words that I will lead by.