Monday August 24, 2020
Martha Byam
Persevere
When first asked to reflect on perseverance, what came immediately to mind was the phrase to “keep on, keepin’ on” in the face of the twin pandemics of COVID-19 and structural racism. How the dynamic of the unknown, underlying anxiety and inability to have the “normal” human contact most of us desire affects me.
When I find myself being tired of it all and longing to return to ‘normal life’ - teaching my students face to face rather than this intimate relationship I am developing with my computer screen, having informal yet important conversations in the halls with my colleagues, spontaneously seeing friends and family without having to be sure the weather will cooperate so we can be outside, and joining with my faith community in mutual reflection and prayer, I try to remember that my despair comes from a place of wanting security, predictability and control, and that much of that control is illusive in the best of times. When I am at my best, I remind myself to stay in a place of curiosity, rather than judgement or despair.
An important teacher for me once said, “ Be open to outcome, not attached to outcome.” Initially, I had a hard time with the concept, having been raised to be goal directed and achievement oriented. However, this concept has become critical to my life – the mystery is at work in and around all of us and I want to be open to its teachings and direction. For me, when I find myself gnashing my teeth over making some aspect of my life work in a way I seem to want it to (some could call that perseverance, but I suggest that energy expended on something over which I have no control is distracting at best) I have to step back and review my attachments. What am I not considering? How else could this unfold? What am I grateful for right now, in this moment? How does this disruption transform our world? How can I surrender to and be inspired by the possibilities? These questions help me to clarify whether my perseverance is comprised of right action.
Like many concepts, this one is multi layered – there is the perseverance that gets a parent up several times in the middle of the night to feed a new baby, or the essential worker, working yet one more shift in a row despite being bone weary, and then there is perseverance that works on a larger scale. Perseverance has been essential to social justice – think about how we are celebrating the 100th anniversary of the 19th amendment this year, for women’s suffrage. Only one of the women who signed the “Declaration of Sentiments” at the 1848 Seneca Falls Convention was alive in 1920 to witness the passage of this amendment. Women advocates were arrested, imprisoned, beaten, and force fed yet they persisted and the franchise for women is the result.
The work of advocates such as Ida B Wells, in the late 19th century, a young black woman in Tennessee, who used her journalism skills to expose the evils of lynching, even traveling abroad to draw attention to the market relationship between the purchase of cotton cloth and the conditions of post-Reconstruction African Americans who raised the cotton for their markets, is another example of perseverance – despite having her home burned and being threatened, and having to flee to Chicago, her work was crucial to the anti-lynching movement. I think of John Lewis, recently deceased and an icon of perseverance for racial justice. Certainly, the quest for justice of all kinds requires perseverance - the work is a marathon, not a sprint.
Lastly, I am aware that my thoughts on perseverance come from a place of privilege. I am fortunate to have a good job I love, a safe home, food to eat, family whom I love and trust and a community with whom I feel connected, all of which afford me a level of repose and rest. For my brothers and sisters who do not have these basic needs met, perseverance, has another meaning of dogged work to meet basic needs, often with very little hope of the situation improving, and no rest as the needs are life sustaining and constant. So, when I get tired of my own challenges and the confinements that COVID has brought to my life, I seek inspiration of those before and around me, who despite all odds and often at great personal sacrifice , persist to meet basic needs and to those who persist to move the needle for justice. When I think of them, I am renewed and humbled.
“You are a light. You are the light. Never let anyone—any person or any force—dampen, dim or diminish your light. Study the path of others to make your way easier and more abundant. Lean toward the whispers of your own heart, discover the universal truth, and follow its dictates. […] Release the need to hate, to harbor division, and the enticement of revenge. Release all bitterness. Hold only love, only peace in your heart, knowing that the battle of good to overcome evil is already won. Choose confrontation wisely, but when it is your time don't be afraid to stand up, speak up, and speak out against injustice. And if you follow your truth down the road to peace and the affirmation of love, if you shine like a beacon for all to see, then the poetry of all the great dreamers and philosophers is yours to manifest in a nation, a world community, and a Beloved Community that is finally at peace with itself.”
John Lewis, Across That Bridge: A Vision for Change and the Future of America