If you are like me, you feel inundated with news about all the plans underway to alter the way our government - our democracy - works. What our funding priorities are, and are not. Who we care most about, and who we do not. Whose voices get heard and responded to, and whose do not.

It is overwhelming.

And if you are like me, you are reading posts filled with urgent pleas to DO SOMETHING! USE YOUR VOICE! MAKE THE CALLS! WRITE THE LETTERS!

It is paralyzing and feels like a recipe for despondency.

I am trying to find the space in my already full life to pause, to take a breath (or three), and to get grounded enough to know what it is that I want to speak up about. What it is that I want to use my voice to defend or to decry. Who it is I might want to call or send a letter to.

On the one hand, I do not want to remain silent. On the other, I do not have the time or energy to make protest my full-time job.

And so, in spite of all the URGENT demands that I do something NOW, I am keeping my powder dry until I gain a more internal sense of wisdom. I will keep doing all the things I am already doing to try to make my little mark on the common good, but I am not going to run wildly through the streets shouting about every new policy. At least not yet.

I am keeping my ear to the ground listening for the wisdom of the ages and the sages. For instance, here is a thought from a priest in Michoacan, Mexico, a state where the violence of the narcotics trade often leads to assassinations, kidnappings and extortion.

He writes:

"To me, the worst thing would be that out of naivete, or out of stupidity, or out of fear, you didn't know when to speak or you didn't know what to say. What I ask from God is that he illuminate me so that I can do what I need to do."

(Father Miguel Lopez)

Let's not be naive or stupid or fearful, ok?

Let's ask the Divine to illuminate each of us so that we can know - deep in our own bones - what we need to do.

And then let's do it. Our neighbors depend on us to speak up for them.

Photo by Andres F. Uran on Unsplash