04 Jul Is It Still Possible To Make A Difference? Yes! But Bad News First

When the world seems to be going backward, and humans seem intent on destroying themselves and the planet, our heart’s cry out: “Something must be done!” But it’s worth pausing to take a fresh look at exactly what.

It’s natural to take to the streets in protest. We often need that, to see and rub shoulders with those who share our vision of equal rights and protections for all. Yet these days that’s mostly for us, not so much for actual changemaking. With most urban police departments weaponized like armies, protests have become more lethal than ever while also curtailed to small numbers. Plus, once the venting is over, progress remains largely unattained.

It’s a reflex when injustice reigns to remind everyone of the imperative to vote. Voting matters, for sure, but the power of the vote is in greater peril than ever before. That peril here in the US is due in large part to Citizen’s United, the Supreme Court decision that led to unlimited campaign spending by hidden individuals and groups.

Alongside that development is the ever-greater refinement of gerrymandering, the practice by political parties of dividing up state and federal districts so that voting out incumbents is nearly impossible. If that weren’t enough, we’ve recently seen a repeal of voting rights protections that had served us well for decades, along with the enactment of new restrictions that make it harder for marginalized communities to cast a ballot.

What’s more, confidence in voting has been eroded due endless to attacks on our voting system that are unfounded but enormously polarizing. Even as I write this, state governments around the country are doing everything they can to deligitimize voting and to allow officials to override any results they don’t like. In other words, in many states you will soon be able to win the vote but still lose the election.

So vote, absolutely, but don’t expect voting to save us.

What about money? Should we donate to organizations, campaigns and candidates that share our values and vision? Of course, donate if you have the resources, but most people who are working to change our system of government from within are losing ground at a rapid rate. That’s because a small, disappearing minority of largely white privileged men refuses to surrender power and instead has commandeered political control over a huge but impotent majority.

If protest, voting and donating aren’t the primary way forward, what is?

To answer fully, we first have to remember that making the best possible difference in the world is part of a more comprehensive spiritual commitment. This includes, as often described by my late friend Terry Patten, as doing the inner work, the inter work, and the outer work.

Essentially, this means that personal healing, relationship to family, friends and community, as well as organizing for positive change are all part of an interrelated whole. One without the others is distorted and incomplete. One without the others will sabotage your potential in any of those realms.

Let’s take a quick look at what it might look like to bring those realms together in this moment.

On the personal level, you might be stunned and furious about the recent reversal of Roe v. Wade. Doing the work here means feeling all your feelings about this first, before talking about it with others and/or taking action. The aim is to move past unhelpful reactivity to access your truest heartfelt response. Along the way your heart may need to break, as the great Buddhist teacher Joanna Macy reminds us, but that heartbreak is bound to clarify your vision and strengthen your resolve. It will also render you ready to respond, and to increase your effectiveness.

On the inter level, you need to sit still and be quiet long enough before jumping into action, so that your contribution is as cleansed as possible from all the blaming, shaming, judging and othering that only ever perpetuates that which it seeks to change. Of course this is so much harder than it sounds, because many parts of us want to identify, vilify and then vanquish the “enemy.”

Our primitive brain is actually built on this approach, which is why it takes significant time to counteract. In doing so we don’t succumb to any kind of naive, pretend loving of our enemies. Instead, clearer than ever about who we need to fight, we do so without taking it all personally and in the process losing so much of our precious energy.

Think of civil rights marchers facing water cannons and truncheons as the linked arms and moved forward together. It was their love for one another, and even for their deluded opponents, that allowed them to keep their “eyes on the prize.”

One more crucial aspect of the inner and inter realms is the process of letting go of the outcome. We can never know if, how or when we mill achieve our political goals. In recognizing this we avoid the mistake of becoming bitter, resentful and cynical when things don’t go our way. We take the actions we do not because we know they will succeed, but rather because those actions represent who we truly are.

We come to understand that it’s a privilege to stand up for what we believe no matter the outcome, and with that understanding we are then free to make our greatest possible contribution.

And what exactly is our “greatest possible contribution”?

Stay tuned for Part 2.