And with a pandemic, many opportunities to change the world.
I'm not ready to tackle a world changed with school going all online or only two days a week so come at me with that one later.
I'm not ready to tackle a world changed where Zoom is a good enough way to be connected, and we get lazy with the care and feeding of friendships... so come at me with that one later.
105 days ago, life got REALLY BIG AND HARD AND COMPLICATED AND UNCOMFORTABLE and there's no way to plan the next day or step or campaign or vacation or weekend.
So, when else is a better time to for all of us to change the world? Or at least, change ourselves?
It's not like we're going to be late to brunch.
I always saw myself as a bit of a world changer. Or someone comfortable with big changes and here to do what's right.
A bit of a goodie two shoes, virtuous complex.
I come by it honestly.
I mean don't I buy all the right books and make space for all the right conversations and say the right things and show up in the right spaces?
But, I'm not here to sit around, waiting for others to do what's right.
It's not ok to just dwell in the right spaces. To sit.
They aren't taking attendance here, counting the sitters.
A dear friend asked me a couple weeks ago, how do you know how to react, act, say, and be a meaningful and powerful ally in the Black Lives Matter? How do you know what to do or say? The spaces to go in and stay out of?
Well, first, I know we should all follow my Mom, who lives in the buckle of the Bible Belt, who has leaned in hard to some uncomfortable conversations with a bunch of small town Methodist church ladies, and has been a justice fighter her whole life.
She's always been a better human than the rest of us.
What I said to my friend, though, is I'm just trying to do the next right thing.
It seems simple and probably meaningless, but it is all that I can do when the world is swirling and changing in some wonderful ways and other really difficult ones.
And the next right thing isn't just to sit there in the comfortable spaces.
It's not okay to say the next right thing, if you don't do the next right thing.
Do I know what those next right things are? Some of then. I've done some of them. Some my whole life. Some in the last month. Some just this week. Some on a work call that made a few colleagues feel real uncomfortable.
There are more I don't know.
I'll make mistakes.
Mistakes are a thing I'm familiar with. Being a parent, after all.
One of those next right things was to accept an invitation to march with Jioni and Ashli and Middleton and Caldwell. They have been marching daily in our neighborhood, and opened an invitation to stand by their family
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| Photo Credit: Amanda Andrade-Rhoades https://www.instagram.com/moxie_manda/ |
It felt... small. Not enough. But it felt like the next right thing.
Where else would I stand than with a family who has walked parenting with us from day one?
A family who pushed through those hills on stroller walks in the Arboretum on that lovely maternity leave fall of 2011 in fierce booties.
To joke with Middleton who is as deliberate at tying his shoe mid-Black-Lives-Matter-march as he is in the middle of a soccer game and can teach Robbie how to burp with the best of a soccer carpool.
To feel Caldwell lean into one side of me while James leans into the other as both stand in the middle of the median on Rhode Island Avenue practicing chants about justice.
To know those tiny souls already know the next right thing.
The family has challenged us to all to educate our kids, and they've done it in meaningful and tangible ways. https://www.today.com/video/how-to-educate-your-kids-about-racial-activism-and-social-justice-85904965524
Palmers: we are here to run this relay race with you.
That feels powerfully like the next right thing.
What about you, friends? What's your next right thing?
