(A Sunday Sermon, of sorts – even though it’s not a Sunday…)
To refuse to participate in the shaping of our future is to give it up…Each of us must find our work and do it. Militancy no longer means guns at high noon, if it ever did. It means actively working for change, sometimes in the absence of any surety that change is coming. (Audre Lorde, Sister Outsider)
Mmmmm. This is relevant, yes?
It is far too easy – and tempting – to not be militant; to let minutes, hours, and days pass with a wish and a prayer that things will get better. But to intentionally choose to shape our future? Militancy, indeed, is required.
Militancy PLUS every bit of the courage, strength, heart, wisdom, passion, and tenacity we possess.
Here’s the good news: we have every bit of these things in endless supply! It’s what, and who, we are at core as women. (Don’t let anyone – especially yourself – tell you otherwise!)
And because we possess all of this and then some, there is hope.
Hope for change.
Hope for justice.
Hope, period.
I’ve had acquaintances over the years who have critiqued me for holding on to hope – as if it’s somehow too whispy and whimsical, not practical enough. I completely disagree. Clinging to hope is what turns our eyes and heart toward what can be, what must be, and everything that we desire. And desire? Don’t get me started…
Well, ok, just this: if I know anything it is that a woman’s desire has the capacity to change the trajectory of the entire human race! It’s that powerful. You are.
So pursue desire (no matter who you upset along the way).
Choose hope (and defy anything that would influence you otherwise).
And be militant (on behalf of the change, the future, the world we long for and deserve).
Practically speaking, in the very near term, this means voting, advocating, speaking out, showing up, and doing everything in our immense-and-unstoppable power to actively work for change, yes, “sometimes in the absence of any surety that change is coming.”
And just because: one more worth-repeating quote of Audre Lorde:
When I dare to be powerful, to use my strength in the service of my vision, then it becomes less and less important whether I am afraid.
May it be so.