[Today, I spent some time looking through my old writing files and found some things that I thought had been lost in the black hole that is my hard drive. It was fun to find reminders of who I was in the not-so-distant past and to see how my dreams and values have changed and how they have remained the same. Since this blog has mostly become a burial ground for my old writings, I thought I'd post this to remind you of (or introduce you to) Christine, circa 2008.
This is a speech that I wrote and presented at the 2008 Annual Meeting for the Friends Committee on National Legislation (FCNL) when I was a Field Intern there. My original ending to this speech seems to be lost to the ages, so I recreated the last paragraph to the best of my memory. You'll just have to believe me that the original ending was much cooler.
PS: I would be remiss in my duties as a former Field Intern if I didn't say that I highly recommend FCNL's internship program to all interested young adults. You can't do much better than working for Friends.]
November 2008
Like most of my fellow interns, my political views have matured during the Bush administration. In the 2000 presidential election, I was a 17 year old high school senior. I spent the fall of 2000 knocking on doors for a candidate that I wasn’t quite old enough to vote for.
I’m sure that I still don’t realize all of the ways that growing up during this administration and this war has affected me. But I can say that when I graduated from Earlham College in 2007 I found it hard to relate to that 17 year old that had spent her Saturdays knocking on doors for presidential candidates and registering voters. I was still committed to the ideas of peace and justice, but I had lost faith in our governments’ ability to promote those values.
In 2006 I was lucky enough to study abroad in N. Ireland. When I was in N. Ireland one of the things that I learned about was the concept of “little p” politics versus “big P” politics. Little p politics include things like community organizing, running a PTA meeting, working at your local soup kitchen. Big P politics involve elections, political parties and lobbying. After seeing how well big P politics seemed to work, both in Northern Ireland and my own country, I really wasn’t a fan.
As my political identity grew to relate more to small p politics, so did my spiritual identity. After studying in N. Ireland, I spent the summer living at the Los Angeles Catholic Worker, where I primarily worked at a soup kitchen on Skid Row. I got to know and care about people on Skid Row who had been totally betrayed and forgotten about by politicians on local, state and national levels. I came to believe that the political system was inherently set up in a way that would never benefit the most vulnerable in our society. I decided that I couldn’t successfully engage in politics while at the same time faithfully living out my Christian values.
And so, I applied to my job at FCNL not because I believed in politics, or in lobbying but because I believed in people. I knew that as the Field Intern I wouldn’t have to go on lobbying visits or meet with staffers. When I came to FCNL last January, I told myself that as long as I still believed in FCNL’s constituents who faithfully wrote letters, held vigils and educated their communities I could remain critical of the political system’s ability to bring about social change.
It didn’t take long to realize that I was wrong. There was no way that I could believe in grassroots organizing and not believe in our democratic system because grassroots organizing is the heart of our democratic system. That sounds really cheesy and obvious but it’s true.
From my desk at FCNL, I can see the Hart Senate office, but for a long time Capitol Hill somehow still felt really far away. What eventually changed that for me was getting to hear about how wonderfully approachable and real our democracy seemed to so many of you. FCNL’s constituents are great lobbyists because you don’t just send angry letters out to an empty void. You form relationships with representatives and their staffers by making frequent lobby visits, phone calls and writing letters. As if your representatives are real people who you can form relationships with.
FCNL has taught me that big P politics is not as separate from small p politics as I had believed. The education and organizing that committed groups and individuals do in small towns and inner cities can be channeled into better educating politicians.
While I still feel called to serve in the world of ‘small p’ politics after my term at FCNL, I am excited to use this new understanding of Big P politics in my work as an advocate for homeless and mentally ill populations. I want to help people that have been disenfranchised by our political system speak their truth to the politicians who make policies affecting their lives. What would it look like for one of my friends on Skid Row to hold a meeting with President-elect Obama? What would they say to each other? I hope to find out.
