Dreaming the World

A warm, dark, cloudy morning. We are told there will be sun and a breeze later. Maybe snow Sunday.

I keep finding myself fretting about things I have no control over. Lots of things. Then there are the middle of the night awakens, the revenge fantasies, and the moments of sheer hopelessness. Sound familiar?

I’m trying to remind myself that although change can come swiftly, often there are years of determined preparation proceeding it. We live in a culture that wants everything to be immediate, to progress at the speed of electronic communication. We are encouraged to be impatient which sets us up for endless anxiety, self criticism, and an intense sense of failure when the change we want take time, maybe a long time.

I was reminded of this yesterday when I sat in on a webinar with Scot Danforth, author of An Independent Man: Ed Roberts and the Fight for Disability Rights. The webinar was hosted by Post Polio Health International, an organization that has long championed the needs of Polio survivors and others with disabilities.

Scot underscored that the disability rights movement was a decades long project and remains far from complete. He encouraged us to be wily, cunning, determined, and playful as we push ahead, and to maintain the fierce spirit and inextinguishable joy of Ed Roberts (who lived most of his life in an iron lung).

Scot reminded us that the fight for disability rights is inseparable from similar struggles by a long list of marginalized and oppressed people. We can only make progress by working together and remembering that needed change takes as long as it takes. Frustrating? You bet.

We don’t have to be patient. We do need to be kind to ourselves and one another. We do need to protect and nurturing hope and community. We must keep our hearts set on creating the world we want to live in, while remembering this is a long term project and there will always be pushback.