by Rev. Sandra Brown
I’ll admit it: POWER makes me tired!
Not a week goes by when I don’t attend at least one POWER meeting or event, and most weeks are more than one. If I am not attending meetings, I am making phone calls, having one-on-ones, making signs, or doing something else to push POWER’s work for economic and racial justice in our city forward.
And I must say that sometimes when I am supposed to be at a meeting, I have to drag myself out of the house to get there, because I am just too tired. But then, I arrive at the meeting and the energy in the room wakes me up.
Whenever Moses held up his hand, Israel prevailed; and whenever he lowered his hand, Amalek prevailed. But Moses’ hands grew weary; so they took a stone and put it under him, and he sat on it. Aaron and Hur held up his hands, one on one side, and the other on the other side; so his hands were steady until the sun set. And Joshua defeated Amalek and his people with the sword.
Exodus 17: 11-13
When I get to that meeting, I may be weary, but others are not. Like Aaron and Hur we hold each other up, and are able to stand because we stand together. When I cannot hold up my own hands, someone holds my hands steady, and we prevail.
Action helps re-energize me too. At our Voter Engagement Launch two weeks ago, with 170 people present we made 340 phone calls in just ten minutes, beginning the outreach we will be doing to voters about jobs and education over the next 6 months. 340 calls in ten minutes!
This is just the beginning. Before the May election, when there will be a ballot measure to raise wages for airport workers and other subcontracted workers, we will contact 45,000 voters and talk to even more before the Gubernatorial election in November.
When I am discouraged, when I wonder if I am making a difference, I pay attention and see that all the time I put into POWER is not wasted because we are a real agent of change in Philadelphia and beyond. Together we have our hands to the plow. Together we are engaging people, and we do it togetherbecause we are people of faith. Together we are making a difference.
And when I wake up to that, I am no longer weary, because we are walking TOGETHER. Let’s remember that in these upcoming months of hard, and yes, tiring work. Walk together children, don’t you get weary.
