Compassion Forum

I laughed out loud when I heard it. I love it when people dream big! So when I first heard that the tiny staff at Faith in Public Life - the resource center for justice and the common good whose board I chair - wanted to host a bipartisan forum for presidential candidates on issues of faith and morality, I laughed. I laughed joyfully and said, “All right! Go for it!” But I never thought it would happen.

At that time, mind you, there were about 27 candidates in each major party and a few more in the minor ones. That was the time when one party’s slate could barely fit on a long stage. But Katie Barge, communications director for Faith in Public Life (FPL), was serious. She began assembling a special advisory board of influential religious leaders across the ideological spectrum, and finding effective avenues for asking all of the candidates if they would speak. She, and the advisory board, worked and worked and worked.

First Clinton said yes. Then McCain, who had looked like a solid bet, said no, and everyone had to regroup. Could it be bipartisan if only one party’s candidates attended? The advisory board decided it could, and that if Obama said yes, they would still roll with it. Thankfully, he did!

It has almost happened twice before, first in South Carolina and then in Chicago. But now, unbelievably, it’s really happening! Sunday night, in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, the Compassion Forum will take place at Messiah College. You can watch it Sunday night at 8 PM Eastern Time on CNN (even if you’re traveling overseas—they’re showing it all over the world!) To learn more about it, go to www.FaithinPublicLife.org and look at information about the Compassion Forum.

Me, I’ll be grinning in the studio audience. Rob Keithan, director of the UUA Washington Office, and Rev. Howard Dana from the UU Church of Harrisburg, will also be there. So will Mandy Keithan. As far as I know, we’re the UU contingent, but we really have no idea who else might be there with us.

Meanwhile, I can’t stop beaming with pride for the tiny but mighty staff at Faith in Public Life. Dream big, work hard, pray hard, reach out—you never know what might happen!