Speaking Through the Super-Storms (and the Droughts and the . . . )

IMG_0116

This is an entry about leadings. This is an entry about discernment. This is an entry about process—so this is an entry about bumbling around:

In the odd way these things happen, sometimes, the day after way opened* for another leading (my role vis a vis Opportunity Knocks, an exciting, greater-Boston re-entry initiative for ex-offenders became clear), I met with the incomparable Vanessa Rule of the Better Future Project, who’s working on another exciting initiative: Mothers Out Front.

As my sister would say, “I was torn.” Mobilizing mothers in Massachusetts to become a political force around climate change is a terrific idea. Yet who’s the most stretched-to-the-max group there is? Mothers.

What to do?

Well, the first thing I did was talk about this idea with a young mother—who also happens to be a daughter. “Sure, Mom,” she said. “Send me more information.” So I did. And to 4 other mothers, too.

Guess what? Only one mother responded. But then she had to beg off our scheduled lunch date. And still hasn’t gotten back to me to . . .

So, apparently, this is also an entry about Having It All and about the scarcity of time for most mothers and about how incredibly challenging it is to have “come a long way, baby.”

This morning, however, in the wonderfully odd way these things happen, sometimes, I woke up  thinking maybe I’d direct some of MY time towards developing a curriculum for parents and children that addresses climate change. Or as the wise Maggie Edmondson puts it: “Deicide.” A curriculum that acknowledges, as the wise Joanna Macy puts it: “We are our world knowing itself.”

BTW:  As a brand-new member of my Quaker meeting’s First Day School Committee, I’d decided to work on such a curriculum TWO YEARS AGO! But in the way that these things happen all the time, I never quite got around to it. Because although passionate, I was working solo, disconnected and overwhelmed. But now, I’m sensing, there’s energy around such an idea. Resources.

I’ll let Quaker poet John Greenleaf Whittier have the last word:

Breathe through the heats of our desire

Thy coolness and Thy balm;

Let sense be dumb, let flesh retire;

Speak through the earthquake, wind, and fire,

O still, small voice of calm.

 

* “The old Quaker expression ‘Way Opens’ describes the serendipitous unfolding of God’s will for a person or community.” —Alex Levering Kern—

Leave a comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.