Parker Palmer, in his insightful book, Healing the Heart of Democracy, quotes from Howard Zinn:
The essential ingredients of all struggles for justice are human beings who, if only for a moment, if only while beset with fears, step out of line and do something, however small. And even the smallest, most unheroic of acts adds to the store of kindling that may be ignited by some surprising circumstance into tumultuous change.
Hope in the future of the United States is the large store of kindling piling up. The kindling is coming from millions of people who are stepping out to do hundreds of different acts that represent the essential love and care for humanity. It is coming from churches and people of faith who have always advocated for social justice, holding onto the tensions of what scripture means when it declares we are "made in the image of God." Kindling comes from the "long arc of justice" that Martin Luther King, Jr emblazened for voting rights for all. The kindling piles up when high-conscience people witness the cruelty and deaths of good trouble-causing, compassionate people like John Lewis, Renee Good, or Alex Pretti, and then respond to protest. Simple emails, letters, calls to government offices and representatives, and even prayer requests or study groups at your church raise awareness that lays the fire for social change.
Parker Palmer speaks of the catalyst suffering supplies when hurting/broken hearts are embraced by a community with the capacity to embrace and bring compassion, understanding, and comprehension to transform pain into the power to create and generate solutions and resolution.
For far too many years, the United States has worshipped the idol of the "rugged individualist." This insanely silly notion has left large swaths of our population as abandoned, broken orphans. The suffering of racism, sexism, classism, and militarism, to name just a few mega-causes, has left untold suffering, grief, and sorrows to foment into anger and rage that have only spurred retaliatory and vindictive - often violent - responses that have driven crime, gun deaths, stress, depression.... Much as the authoritarian government now in power is utilizing those very dysfunctional tools to control us, it is in no way spawning a future of anything but more of the same. We cannot continue to abandon the Images of God to solitary coping but must begin activating the social animal instincts that humanity bears. Together, we must be caring for people in our communities- claiming and sharing the gifts and talents everyone brings to the table. In that sharing, the fire is laid for a closer step into the Realm of God.
