This post doesn't really mean that I'm back. It means I am in the country again, but I have writer's block and am struggling to write what my publication needs right now. Not posting for so long has made me a little uncomfortable, too, as if I might begin to let this issue slip off the radar.
I've been wrestling with this thought: How do you keep going? When you're involved in a cause, how do you keep fighting for it passionately when the initial outrage wears off? When you're in the thick of things at home, at work, at church? How do you stay engaged?
Think about the amazing work that the Clapham Society accomplished. How did people like William Wilberforce keep it up year after year? Certainly they were all busy in politics, in church work, in their families and professions. Yet they fought seemingly unflaggingly for decades to see slavery abolished. When you read books such as Amazing Grace, you could get the impression that it was all abolition, all the time. But no one lives like that. What did they do to maintain that passion during the lulls of life?
So here's a question for the 10 readers out there: How do you keep the important things in your life from getting buried under deadlines from work, events at church and maintaining some sort of personal life? What brings you back to the most important things? And for those in the Carolina Clapham Circle, what can we do in our group to keep the fire burning when there's little action to take or we're pulled away by life's other demands?
Talk amongst yourselves. It could be a few days before I resurface again ...
5 comments:
"What brings you back to the most important things?"
The Circle of Life. Continue singing the Lion King and go about your day. ;) Seriously, I have no idea. Although I'd love to know.
Welcome back!!!
I knew I could rely on you to break the ice! Anyone else? : )
Well...that's a good good question. Anti-slavery is not my personal hot-button issue, so I will begin by saying that I think, for those of you that it is, it's doubly hard to keep going.
This issue is so big, with answers available. But the answers will require ideas and projects and people and money of such magnitude, that it seems to me like it would be harder to keep plugging away at it.
If this were my "thing," I think I'd start small. I'd break it down into small steps and put sunset clauses on each step. I'd say "by such-and-such month I will have done this specific thing for the cause." That would keep me busy, feel like I don't have more than one little person can do, and keep me focused.
My personal cause is short-lived. I want a library here in our community. It's been a defined need for more than a decade. It will open in November, 2008. I've done a lot, personally, to make that happen. There have been steps to take, and some backward steps have happened. There have been times when I've wondered how I, a fulltime mom and part time freelancer, can get a $2.2 million public building built. I've had support and I've had battles. I just keep gathering people around me that will encourage and work with me.
So. Bite off small chunks. Keep supportive people around you, and dump the naysayers.
It's a great question, Kristen. When we have a week like the one just past, where I was at the office past 8 pm four nights and past 10 pm twice, I come up for air and remember that there is this issue God has called me to do something about. One thing I try to do at times like this is to pray once again that God will free slaves and that he'll use us to do it.
Good advice!
We had a speaker at church tonight who said that we have to leave margin in our lives for God to have room to do new things. And those things that are important to us, we will make time for. The Clapham meetings are a good way to dedicate space to the issue. I'm thinking about ways to carve out a little time in my life to spend, whether through the blog or through looking into what we can do.
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