Preparing for the Road Ahead
On a bitter January DC day in 2009, Congressman John Lewis approaches Barack Obama, who moments ago was sworn in as President.
The Congressman holds out a commemorative photo to the new President. Would you sign this? he asks.
The President autographs the photo. First, though, he writes four words: "Because of you, John."
We do not know how the coming years will unfold. What I suspect, though, is that we will be flush with "because of you" moments. Those times when history asks us to muster the guts, the grace, the greatheartedness to move the world even half an inch forward. And because of us, someone in a future we don't yet know can start half an inch further along than we did.
Who knows when these moments will find us or what they will ask of us, but a bit of preparation strikes me as useful. Something like good vitamins for the spirit.
Good Grief
When you lose someone, you don't just lose them once. You lose them again the first holiday without them, again when you want their advice, again when you go to call them only to remember they aren't there.
This election isn't so different. There was the big November loss, but from it springs many other losses - each new round of nominations, pledged actions can reanimate our sadness, our despair.
So there will likely be grief, perhaps again and again. Letting it work through us is equal parts hard and healthy. Grief rips our heart open wider so it's big enough to hold everything. As Mother Teresa put it, "Break my heart so completely the whole world falls in."
We aren't meant to walk through this grief alone, which brings us to...
Good Company
Cynics and chicken littles won't make great fellow travelers on the road ahead. The times call for more vision than that.
I've been favoring standing dates with beloveds who, as Kurt Vonnegut put it, grow my soul. Who can co-hold our grief, co-celebrate our joy, who we can walk shoulder-to-shoulder with into this uncertain future.
Good Time
"We cannot have a meaningful revolution without humor," advised bell hooks. Too many great policies are in the dust bin of history because the advocate burned out, grew cynical.
Fun throws open all the windows, blows the roof off what's possible, draws energy to our work. We are building the world we want to live in in the building of it; why not build it with a few joyous bricks. After all, as poet Toi Derricotte reminds,"Joy is an act of resistance."
Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is fond of quoting Thomas Paine: "The times have found us." And they sure have. Let's take care of ourselves and each other. There is an uncertain road ahead. But sometime, maybe months or years down it, there will be people who can do incredible things. And that will be in no small part because of you.