Dear Mission Action friends,
We know that votes are still being counted, as they must, but we also need to prepare. If 2016-2020 was any indication, with the new presidential administration, we can anticipate turmoil and a rise of hate speech and hate crimes that will impact all of us on some level, not just the vulnerable populations Mission Action serves. We can also expect policies that directly hinder our work and endanger our communities.
Today, we are thinking of the words of Martin Luther King, Jr. when he said, “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice.” Especially when our political and social climate pulls against us and our values, it is the role of organizations like Mission Action—and those who share our vision for the future—to be the force that bends that arc back towards justice.
Both for our collective and individual welfare, in the weeks, months and years ahead, Mission Action will focus on the resiliency, compassion and hope which undergird our work and serve as the best countermeasures to confusion, fear, and despair.
Hope is not passive. It can be a radical act—it directly defies what oppressors need to survive and it empowers us to continue our work in the face of considerable challenges. At the same time the Reverend King was fighting for social justice in the United States, Guatemalan poet Otto Rene Castillo was fighting for justice in his home country. His poem, “Before the Scales, Tomorrow,” speaks directly to how being visionaries for a brighter future is essential for resistance. We share his words with you to not diminish the challenges we are facing, but to reaffirm our commitment to ourselves, to those who are suffering, and to future generations: we will do all we can to bend that arc.
Before the Scales, Tomorrow
by Otto Rene Castillo
When the enthusiasm
of our time
is recounted
for those
yet to be born,
but who announce themselves
with a kinder face,
we will come out winners,
we who have suffered most.
To be ahead
of one’s time
is to suffer much.
But it is beautiful to love the world
With the eyes
of those still
to be born.
And splendid
to know oneself already victorious
when everything around
is still so cold, so dark.”
