I am sharing my little story of a moment in October in 2008 because I have a sense there is something in there for us in this moment when we are weary of endless campaigns, lies, testing of children…..
In 2008, millions of us pinned our hope on a person who we believed stood for a vision of a better, kinder, more peaceful and just world. Perhaps we were right. Perhaps not. Yet with that belief and hope, we experienced joy, community and determination to work beyond our usual limitations.
“Let us not become weary in doing good” Galatains 6:9
This morning, my lifelong friend who has been a constant long distance companion on this new journey into political activism wrote me, “I am weary.”
“I am weary too” I replied. “It took me by surprise and I don’t know where it came from or what to do about it.”
Volunteering at Michelle Obama’s rally at CU this week, patrolling on the edges, not in the midst of the excited cheering crowd, experiencing the calculations and controls of the national campaign, hearing my own son not read the speech he had prepared but rather the one they gave him while nonetheless trying to slip in some of his own heart in a booming voice, in the sun for hours, I got so tired.
Or was it my attempted conversation with the guy wearing a McCain cap? Was it his condescending dismissal of the students’ enthusiasm as coming from them being clueless?
Or is my weariness an accumulation of maintaining my equilibrium in all the encounters with all the volunteers, young and old, and the young field organizers, whose hopes make them so vulnerable and make me so worried for what will happen?
By letting ourselves hope, suspending our cynicism and believing that our efforts can make a difference, we are taking a big risk, one many of my friends have not been willing to take. What if we don’t win? What if I give my heart and my time for nothing? What if our reward is in heaven and not here right now? Well, as a teacher, I should be used to that, right? If I am used to it, that doesn’t mean it is easy or right or that I like it at all.
A couple months ago, I made a pledge to be bold in asking people to act on their beliefs, to vote and to volunteer. After all, I have worked in professional development with teachers for years, I should know how to motivate people to join my cause, help them move through resistance to action. People who refuse usually say they’re too busy. Or they would be too uncomfortable knocking on doors and making calls to strangers.
A lot of people, even those who are getting swayed, confide they are afraid of the potential disappointment. One young woman who came in to register to vote said that her dad doesn’t vote because then he can’t be blamed for how bad things are.
An eighteen year old was pushed by his friends to register and as he sullenly filled out the form, he told me, “I really don’t care but my mom said she’d pay me $50 to vote.” I asked him, “Why don’t you care? Do you think it won’t make a difference…or what?” He said, “I just don’t care.” It was hard for me to let that boy walk away without getting him to care. I spend my work life getting them to care, to believe what they do matters. Yet, I was not at work. I let him walk away.
I am weary. I am going to keep going. I’ll do what I’ve learned to do in schools. I dragged myself back to the Obama campaign office that evening after the rally. I knew the young field organizers would still be there till 1:00 in the morning, as they are 7 days a week (not so different from many of my teacher colleagues).
My son came over to the desk where I was entering volunteer data with news that his uncle, my former brother-in-law who has stayed like family to me, had lost his mother to cancer that day. I couldn’t stop crying later that night when I got home.
This world can be harsh. With tender hearts, we strive, we aspire, we persevere and could use a little tenderness.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P29E7YYMD7o
Otis Redding A Change is Gonna Come
Rosa Alchemica
W.B. Yeats
“As I thought of these things, I drew aside the curtains and looked out into the darkness, and it seemed to my troubled fancy that all those little points of light filling the sky were the furnaces of innumerable divine alchemists, who labour continually, turning lead into gold, weariness into ecstasy, bodies into souls, the darkness into God; and at their perfect labour my mortality grew heavy, and I cried out, as so many dreamers and men of letters in our age have cried, for the birth of that elaborate spiritual beauty which could alone uplift souls weighted with so many dreams.”
Chuc Mung Nam Moi, Cung Hy Fat Choy
I hear the year of the sheep is liked by many.