Happy New Year and welcome to our month of resistance! Throughout January, we’ll be exploring together the question: What does it mean to be a people of resistance?
It is a rich topic for a month in which we often both make and break our New Year’s Resolutions—first committing to resisting temptation, and often ending up resisting change. It is a rich topic for a month in which we celebrate the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., one of the great prophets of non-violent resistance in the 20th century.
What both of these examples of resistance have in common is the act of looking at the world as it is, and realizing it is not the same as the world we would like to inhabit. It is the act of looking at the world we want, and recognizing the vast difference between the world of our dreams and the world of our reality.
Being a people of resistance is about saying no to complacency, saying no to inertia, saying no to business as usual, and saying yes to a better tomorrow. In the words of Marge Piercy, “it starts when you care to act, it starts when you do it again after they say no, it starts when you say We and know who you mean, and each day you mean one more.”
Blessings,
Allison