I’ve decided that I’m coming down off the fence. I realized not too long ago that I was sitting on a very tall fence, watching the world go by with some dismay (and often disapproval), and yet not finding my way clear to commenting on what I see around me. There are so many contentious issues that have garnered national, international, and local attention, and work that I do everyday on issues of racism and discrimination, power and privilege, and the many ways in which we interact with one another in negative, harmful, and destructive ways it seems that I would have something to say about it. I am a blogger after all. But I have been largely silent.
Fence sitting is an uncomfortable enterprise at best. Imagine what it might physically feel like to literally sit on a fence for days and weeks on end, not coming down, not making a decision, not commenting on the social ills happening around oneself. You can imagine that it gets pretty uncomfortable. But for some people climbing down off the fence and taking a stand is far more frightening and uncomfortable and sitting there. And so, we sit. I sit. But not for much longer.
I have watched various issues play out on the national news, social media, local and international scenes. Police shooting unarmed youth, rampant gun violence in schools and malls and movie theatres, warfare and bloodshed in Gaza, and around the world, domestic violence and brutality against transgender people, immigration and deportation, class warfare and the erosion of support for the working poor, unemployed (and underemployed). There are almost too many places calling for comment, for protest, for outcry. Who has time or energy for all of this? And so I have sat on the fence choosing not to engage in any public way.
I write about gratitude every day. But what about the other things that need to be expressed publicly on a regular basis? How do I engage those topics and share my thoughts more broadly. And who will listen (read)?
I have been sitting on the fence for a long time now. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t sit idly by and do nothing; much of the work I do involves working within an institutional system on issues related to social change and support for people of diverse backgrounds. At times I’ve had to be cautious in how I might publicly approach some of the problems and challenges facing people with less access to power and privilege; in some places in my life I too lack some privilege. The key is to use the privilege I do have, carefully–sometimes covertly–in service to the people and causes I support. Sometimes that means fence sitting in public while working behind the scenes in private.
The serenity prayer begins, “Lord grant me the serenity to accept the things that I cannot change; courage to change the things that I can; and the wisdom to know the difference.” This in part sums up the work that I do. It is part an assessment of what I think I can influence and move toward change and approaches and strategies for making it happen, and knowing when to fold up the tent and go home. It’s about knowing when to climb down off the fence and take action, take a stand, stand up and be counted. God grant me the wisdom to know which battles to take on and when and which ones to leave to someone else.
Tonight I am on the edge of action. I’m not quite sure what it is yet, but it’s coming and one of these days soon I’m going to communicate it “out there.” I’m grateful for the practice I’ve had writing all these 900-plus days. I am hoping it has prepared me for continuing to work toward social change and expressing it to the world. At the end of the day it’s what I’m here for. And so it is.
