I was recently reminded about a story from 2017 where two little boys were caught in a rip tide and swept out to sea. Their entire family and four woud-be rescuers tried to swim out to save them but ended up similarly stranded. Officials on shore stood, helpless, waiting for a rescue boat while the family and would-be rescuers floundered.
But then the people on the beach did a remarkable thing. People from all walks of life, across every possible difference or division, linked arms together and formed a human chain stretching out into the ocean until they reached those stuck and and then passed them person to person, beginning with the little boys, Noah (11) and Stephen (8), and ending with their grandmother who had tried to save them, back to safety.
Stories like this don’t get a lot of press. But it’s why we’re here.
One of the greatest frustrations of life is not being able to change the past, whether it is to remedy that stupid thing you just said or the larger elements of fractures in society leading to war. The only things we can really do with the past are to live with it, learn from it, and figure out how to move forward. For those who study history, seeing ugly patterns reemerge and take shape can be horrifying.
And yet, it is not all gloom and doom. Indeed, we are not helpless:
One of the curses of history is that we cannot go back and change the course leading to disasters, no matter how much we might wish to. The past has its own terrible inevitability. But it is never too late to change the future.”
― Heather Cox Richardson
We can learn from history what it takes to resist. We can remember who the real heroes were in dark times and emulate them. We can draw on community and coalitions to fight for the common good. We can continue to believe that integrity counts, that honesty and fidelity and honor matter, that kindness will always heal, and that love is, not only good, but the answer to any question.
We can fight. With whatever tools we have: words, money, presence, we can take a stand, doing our little bit of good.
As Desmond Tutu said:
Do your little bit of good where you are; it’s those little bits of good put together that overwhelm the world.
Life is full of hard choices. Particularly when you aren’t the one in danger. Making those tough choices, entering the fray, speaking truth to power, defending the defenseless are vital actions for our collective survival.
As Brené Brown says,
Integrity is choosing courage over comfort; it’s choosing what’s right over what’s fun, fast, or easy; and it’s practicing your values, not just professing them.
Practicing our values, not just professing them. What are your values? How can you bring that to bear in the choices confronting you today?
Many of us have opinions and desire to help in difficult situations but are afraid to raise our voices. We worry about alienating others or of seeming strident. But if not now, when?
Maybe we can start in small ways and exercise our courage muscles.
Consider these words from Maya Angelou:
“I would encourage us to try our best to develop courage. It’s the most important of all the virtues, because without courage, you can’t practice any other virtue consistently. You can be anything erratically — kind, fair, true, generous, all that. But to be that thing time after time, you need courage.
We need to develop courage, and we need to develop it in small ways first. Because we wouldn’t go and say, ‘I’ll pick up this 100-pound weight’ without knowing our capacity. So we need to say, ‘Oh, I’ll start by picking up a five-pound weight, then a 10-pound weight, then a 25-pound, and sooner or later I’ll be able to pick up a 100-pound weight.’ And I think that’s true with courage.
You develop a little courage, so that if you decide, ‘I will not stay in rooms where women are belittled; I will not stay in company where races, no matter who they are, are belittled; I will not take it; I will not sit around and accept dehumanizing other human beings’ — if you decide to do that in small ways, and you continue to do it — finally you realize you’ve got so much courage. Imagine it — you’ve got so much courage that people want to be around you. They get a feeling that they will be protected in your company.” — Maya Angelou
Look for ways to test your voice and develop your courage muscles today. Perhaps it’s in saying you disagree, perhaps it’s posting something to show solidarity with those going through difficulty, perhaps it’s speaking truth to power. Today, a five pound weight of courage flexing. Soon, you will develop the courage you need for the big battles ahead.
Do not lose heart. The challenges you see today are the ones you must face. You are strong enough to do your part, and you will find allies everywhere you look.
Do not be afraid.
You may feel you are riding on stormy seas, but look around you. In the words of Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estes:
Look out over the prow; there are millions of boats of righteous souls on the waters with you. Even though your veneers may shiver from every wave in this stormy roil, I assure you that the long timbers composing your prow and rudder come from a greater forest. That long-grained lumber is known to withstand storms, to hold together, to hold its own, and to advance, regardless.
In any dark time, there is a tendency to veer toward fainting over how much is wrong or unmended in the world. Do not focus on that. There is a tendency, too, to fall into being weakened by dwelling on what is outside your reach, by what cannot yet be. Do not focus there. That is spending the wind without raising the sails.
We are needed, that is all we can know. And though we meet resistance, we more so will meet great souls who will hail us, love us and guide us, and we will know them when they appear. Didn’t you say you were a believer? Didn’t you say you pledged to listen to a voice greater? Didn’t you ask for grace? Don’t you remember that to be in grace means to submit to the voice greater?
Ours is not the task of fixing the entire world all at once, but of stretching out to mend the part of the world that is within our reach. Any small, calm thing that one soul can do to help another soul, to assist some portion of this poor suffering world, will help immensely. It is not given to us to know which acts or by whom, will cause the critical mass to tip toward an enduring good.
You do not need to do everything. Do what you can, where you can, with what you can. Your actions combined with actions from millions of like-minded individuals will make a difference for good.
As I write this, Los Angeles is burning. Many have lost their homes, their lives, their livelihoods. Many are displaced. All of us who live here are afraid, as near 100 mile per hour winds buffet our homes and render firefighting difficult if not impossible. All of us are thinking about the possibility of losing the security of home. We are one turn in the wind away from being displaced. We didn’t do anything to deserve this any more than any victim of natural disaster.
And perhaps, like me, we look around at what is happening and see people making choices.
Heroic firefighters and first responders rushing into danger.
Churches opening their doors to accept the displaced.
Grassroots attempts to collect funds and supplies for those hardest hit.
People praying and reaching out to comfort and shelter their neighbors.
And yet, we can’t help but see the others.
A suspected arsonist arrested.
A politician lying to cast blame on his enemies, making light of human suffering.
People mocking those who have lost their homes if they are rich or famous as if the wealthy can’t suffer.
People making things better and people making things worse. Isn’t that always the way? People who help and people who hurt.
And on behalf of people in the middle of this crisis, bags packed, waiting to know if they will have to flee their homes and lose everything, trying to decide what to bring or maybe not even having time for that, I will say how the actions of people out of harm’s way makes a tremendous impact. Calls and emails from people checking in and expressing concern, offers of help and sanctuary, heroic actions on behalf of others, fills us with hope and community in the midst of the darkness. Thank you to those people.
This time it is we who live in Los Angeles suffering, but tomorrow it could be you. No one is immune from the possibility of loss.
The question in all of it always is, what kind of difference will you decide to make with your life, for most assuredly what you do will make a difference. So which is it?
The new year brings with it an expectation to reflect and set intentions for how to perhaps improve from the last. Often these reflections result in an examination of all the ways we’ve fallen short and a profession to do better, eat better, exercise better…be better. Often the premise unspoken is that we’re not enough, we must improve, be different.
I wonder if there is a better way to start a new year. Perhaps in astonishment that we have made it through a year filled with so many challenges and yet we persisted. Perhaps filled with gratitude that our opportunities to contribute and bring joy to others continues. Perhaps thinking about all the small wonders that make up our life and rejoicing.
Each new year is an opportunity to wake up with the enthusiasm of Scrooge after his ghostly visits and realize that here we are, in the thick of it, able to love and be loved, able to contribute, and make a difference, filled with delight:
“Running to the window, he opened it, and put out his head. No fog, no mist; clear, bright, jovial, stirring, cold; cold, piping for the blood to dance to; Golden sunlight; Heavenly sky; sweet fresh air; merry bells. Oh, glorious. Glorious!”
When he finds out from a boy outside his window that it is still Christmas Day, Scrooge says, “I haven’t missed it. Yes, the spirits did it all in one night—they can do anything they want to do.”
Then his thoughts turn, with glee, to anonymous giving, saying to himself, “I’ll send [a turkey] to Bob Cratchit’s! rubbing his hands, and splitting with a laugh. “He shan’t know who sends it. It’s twice the size of Tiny Tim….”
“The chuckle with which he said this, and the chuckle with which he paid for the Turkey, and the chuckle with which he paid for the cab, and the chuckle with which he recompensed the boy, were only to be exceeded by the chuckle with which he sat down breathless in his chair again, and chuckled till he cried.”
Chuckled until he cried. How thin the edge between joy and grief. What a gift it is to be here. How precious in its finiteness. But here we are, dancing, able to bring joy to others. Here now, but not forever.
One of my personal heroes, Jimmy Carter, 100 years old, has passed away, and the world is a bit darker without his light. He has been such a wonderful example of walking the walk. He said:
“My faith demands – this is not optional – my faith demands that I do whatever I can, wherever I can, whenever I can, for as long as I can with whatever I have to try to make a difference.”
What a wonderful way to look at our possible impact. Using what we have, not waiting until we have more or better resources or to be older and wiser, or wishing we were younger and stronger. Right now, with what’s available.
And wherever we find ourselves, adopting a bloom where you’re planted attitude. Even if we are in our own harsh spot. Considering what can we do here.
And always looking for opportunities to do good. Not necessarily solving the world’s problems, but doing your own little bit of good. Right here, right now.
Let’s go.
Thank you, President Carter, for this reminder. You will be missed.
How do we make sure we aren’t just staying alive but staying vibrant? Making our moments count? Making an impact and difference in the lives of those we care about? Making our lives matter?
Consider Virginia Woolf’s words:
Whatever happens, stay alive. Don’t die before you’re dead. Don’t lose yourself, don’t lose hope, don’t lose direction.
Stay alive, with yourself, with every cell of your body, with every fiber of your skin.
Stay alive, stay alive inside you, stay alive also, outside, fill yourself with colors of the world, fill yourself with hope, with Wow Scenery.
Stay alive with joy.
There is only one thing you should not waste in life, and that’s life itself.
How do we become hard-hearted as we age, focused so much on ourselves and our own needs? How do we deaden ourselves to community and lives being lived around us, turning inward and reclusive, dying really to the fabric of life?
I just watched the muppet version of Christmas Carol which did a great job of capturing Charles Dickens’s classic story about the transformation of Ebenezer Scrooge, first his turning in, the selfishness, the greed, the callousness to those around him, his miserliness in spirit and deed.
But then, with the spirits’ intervention, Scrooge has an epiphany and realization that life is a looking out, a contributing, a generosity and an overflowing of joy. His life becomes filled with vibrancy and exuberance and a realization of the difference he can make in the here and now. At that moment, he becomes part of something larger than himself, alive with possibility and connection.
Each of us faces Scrooge’s dilemma. We may not be miserable misers, but perhaps we have turned in to focus on ourselves. Perhaps we’ve become callous to the suffering around us and blind to the good we can do. Perhaps we’ve lost the joy.
Scrooge’s story reminds us all that it isn’t too late to turn over a new leaf, to reach out to those around us, to wear our love and concern on our sleeves, to care. And by spreading joy, we find ourselves drenched in it as well.
There is something about an anonymous gift that brings special joy to both the giver and the receiver. For the person getting the gift, it makes you feel like the whole world cares, that around any corner is the person who cared enough to make your life special. And to the giver, it strips off all the status and pride and self-satisfaction you may get from a public gift and, with the lusciousness of a secret, fills you with love and gratitude that you are in a position to make a difference.
Consider this delightful story about a somewhat anonymous giver, call him George Walker, and his gift to a young boy in the Philippines.
“Dear Timothy,
I want to be your new pen pal.
I am an old man, 77 years old, but I love kids; and though we have not met I love you already.
I live in Texas – I will write you from time to time – Good Luck. G. Walker”
Now, after President Bush’s death, we have learned that George Walker was President George Herbert Walker Bush, but look at how much joy is in his writing when it is semi-anonymous. He is embracing the true spirit of giving.
For more on anonymous giving, take a look at this feature I wrote on anonymous giving filled with inspiring stories.
What are some things you might do anonymously to spread your love?
What is worth fighting for? Sometimes a battle is won in a courageous show of strength and derring do. A fireman runs into a burning building to save a child. A passerby stops to help victims of an accident. A pilot steers a damaged plane to safety.
But sometimes the battle requires showing up time after time with love, kindness, and patience. Not giving up on someone. Having faith that love will win. Believing that relationships can be salvaged.
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