Hewing a Stone of Hope

Ours is No Caravan of Despair

“When I despair, I remember that all through history the way of truth and love have always won. There have been tyrants and murderers, and for a time, they can seem invincible, but in the end, they always fall. Think of it – always.” — Mahatma Gandhi

“Ours is no caravan of despair.” — Rumi

“We will be able to hew out of a mountain of despair, a stone of hope.” — The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

We interrupt today’s scheduled programming of billionaires and grifters and pomp and circumstance to announce there are people, regular people, still here, still witnessing everything that is happening. We are smart. And we will figure out the best way forward. We may feel beaten and bowed, but we have not given up. We, the people.

There is an old Aesop fable called, “The Bundle of Sticks.” It goes like this. An old man despaired because his three sons always fought with each other. They were good sons and hard workers, but they just could not get along.

Finally, as the father neared the end of his life, he tried one last time to teach his sons to get along with each other. He bound a bundle of sticks together. Then he handed the bundle to one of his sons, saying, “Break this bundle of sticks in two.” Try as he might, the son could not do so. So, the father passed the bundle to the next son, saying, “Break this bundle of sticks in two.” The son could not do so. So, the father passed the bundle to the third son, saying, “Break this bundle of sticks in two." The son could not do so.

The father then untied the bundle of sticks and handed each son a single stick. “Now,” he said, “break this stick in two.” Snap! Each son quickly broke the stick he was holding.

“See?” said the father. “Just like the bundle of sticks, you will always be stronger if you support and help each other. But, alone, you will be weak and easily broken. Work together, my sons, so that you remain strong like the bundle of sticks.”

My favorite good thing to offer in this critical, concerning, and agonizing moment is this: We are powerful together. We will get through these cataclysmic times by building and sustaining community together.

Here’s the thing about creating community: You can start small and let things grow organically. In fact, that’s how community is usually built.

That picture above? We got invited to a firepit gathering the other night. For an hour or so, we strengthened the bonds of friendship. Yes, we commiserated about the terrible direction in which our nation seems to be heading. We laughed over a recent headline in The Onion (“Michelle Obama Confirms She Will Skip Rest of Decade”). We scoffed about billionaires and tech bros. Mostly we just enjoyed one another’s company, hearing the news of our days, telling stories about winter camping (imagine!), building guitars (don’t ask me; I don’t know how), playing Mahjong (don’t ask me; I don’t know how), and just, you know, the stuff of day-to-day living. We passed snacks around the circle and enjoyed the warmth of the fire and each other’s abiding company. That’s how people build friendships. That’s how community forms.

Today many are ruing the irony of inaugurating a deceitful, self-absorbed, selfish, racist, cruel man — a convicted felon, grifter, and insurrectionist — to the presidency on a day when the nation is, at least in theory, also commemorating and honoring the life of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., a hero, a stalwart civil rights leader, and an unceasing champion of the most oppressed people in our nation. The differences between the two men could not be starker.

So, let’s give our attention to Dr. King in this moment. On August 28, 1963, Dr. King gave his famous “I Have a Dream” speech at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington DC. An estimated 250,000 people gathered to march on Washington that day and to hear him speak.

I have listened to that speech many, many times over my lifetime, and I never fail to be moved by it. In fact, I just this moment listened to it again so that I could get a good dose of inspiration. (You can listen to the full speech here. The video is 17 minutes long, but that is time well spent: Bing Videos.)

As I watched the video this time, however, I found myself wondering about the thousands of people who were there listening. Who were they? What brought them there? Each one of them had a unique story, but I am pretty sure of one thing: Nearly all of them — and maybe even every single one of them — traveled to Washington DC that day on the wings of community of one kind or another.

Probably in most cases their commitment to civil rights started in a small, personal way. They experienced something or witnessed something and shared it with their family or friends. They grumbled to companions while waiting together at the bus stop. They shared a cup of coffee with a few people and talked about their concerns and heartache. They bonded with someone they met in a jail cell after being arrested for some stupid indignity that violated their civil rights. They heard their preacher talk about civil rights violations in church and talked with people after the service. They suffered the brutality of racism themselves and joined with a community of people who shared their frustrations and hopes. They felt shamed by unwarranted privileges they enjoyed and found communities where they could share their hopes that they could work to create a better world. Fueled by small connections, they joined local protests and marches, and their commitment grew. However it happened, the people in that crowd did not arrive in a vacuum. They arrived there because various communities propelled them there at that moment in time.

The same could even be said of Dr. King himself. He was a 26-year-old pastor at Dexter Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama, when the Montgomery bus strike erupted. His ministry had already put him in a leadership role in the community. When he emerged as the leader of the bus strike itself, his trajectory to national fame as one of the greatest civil rights leaders of our times was launched. But he did not arrive in that position all under his own power. His community carried him there every step of the way. The Atlanta community that raised him up from a child. The college and graduate communities that trained him. The congregations where he served. His colleagues, his family, his friends. So, so many communities, who made him one of their bundle of sticks, who kept him strong.

In his “I Have a Dream” speech, Dr. King urged his followers to “hew out of the mountain of despair, a stone of hope.” I can hear his voice thundering down the decades to us today, urging that of us now. Hewing a stone of hope out of a mountain of despair is hardly something you can do all alone. All alone, the magnitude of the work can break you. You need to be part of a bundle of sticks, made stronger by those gathered together in support. You need others working at your side.

And I am here to say the bundle of sticks is already there. It’s there in the neighborhoods, in the programs put on in the public libraries, in the coffee shops. It’s there in the book groups you can create for yourself if they don’t already exist. It’s there in the firepit gatherings and the coffee klatches you can set in motion yourself. It’s there at the League of Women Voters and at the Adult Education center. It’s there in the community choruses and in the local branch of your political party. It’s there in the churches, temples, and mosques. It’s there in unlimited and innumerable places, ready for all of us to discover and explore, to create and develop, to celebrate and strengthen. It’s there.

Marge Piercy’s poem, The Low Road, describes what it means to me to be part of a bundle of sticks. Here is what it means to me to choose not to be part of a caravan of despair. Here’s how we hew out of a mountain of despair, a stone of hope:

The Low Road, by Marge Piercy

What can they do
to you? Whatever they want.
They can set you up, they can
bust you, they can break
your fingers, they can
burn your brain with electricity,
blur you with drugs till you
can't walk, can't remember, they can
take your child, wall up
your lover. They can do anything
you can't stop them
from doing. How can you stop
them? Alone, you can fight,
you can refuse, you can
take what revenge you can
but they roll over you.

But two people fighting
back to back can cut through
a mob, a snake-dancing file
can break a cordon, an army
can meet an army.

Two people can keep each other
sane, can give support, conviction,
love, massage, hope, sex.
Three people are a delegation,
a committee, a wedge. With four
you can play bridge and start
an organization. With six
you can rent a whole house,
eat pie for dinner with no
seconds, and hold a fund raising party.
A dozen make a demonstration.
A hundred fill a hall.
A thousand have solidarity and your own newsletter;
ten thousand, power and your own paper;
a hundred thousand, your own media;
ten million, your own country.

It goes on one at a time,
it starts when you care
to act, it starts when you do
it again and they said no,
it starts when you say We
and know who you mean,
and each day you mean one more.

Or, put a bit more gently perhaps, here is Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer’s poem today. (Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer writes and publishes a poem every single day, which, to me, is proof of miracles. Me? I write a poem every single year. Sometimes.)

Steadfast, by Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer

Though a cold
wind is howling,
we’re not birds
without wings—
and as long as we
have voices
let us sing together,
sing of freedom,
sing what’s true,
let us sing.

Start by saying We. We will lift our voices, together. We will sing what is true, together. We will sing of freedom, together. We will hew out of a mountain of despair, a stone of hope, together.

We, the people.

Love,

Sylvia