To conclude this series exploring quotes that make up the foundational ethos of the mission, I want to highlight two, bringing the last two journal entries in this series into one.
Speaking of her time leading the Underground Railroad, Harriet Tubman said this:
“I never ran my train off the tracks and I never lost a passenger.”
What’s inspiring to me about this statement is that Harriet’s leadership included politics, civil rights, forward progress, the human experience as it should be, severe personal trauma, contemplative faith, leading teams—and physical endurance.
I started Liberatus in 2015 partly because it’s ambiguous what exactly we were fighting for in Congress. While we said we were fighting for freedom, in the words of former Congressman Raul Labrador, Capitol Hill “is a place that just sucks your soul.” But why?
“He’s a principled conservative.”
After working within the conservative movement, it’s not clear to me what this statement means.
But I think it means something like this: There’s a conservative view of things that is the truth, therefore, he stands on that truth no matter the costs, achieves top marks on legislative scorecards, and those who don’t hold to principles might be nice to people but they’ll never be champions.
Today, often the farthest we go with this advice is to say that we should “turn down the heat” when things get too ugly. But to govern the country well, we need constructive parameters for what it means to restrain partisanship, in the same way that Olympic athletes have constructive parameters for how to perform at their best, follow the rules of their sport, and uphold sportsmanship.
It seems that every election is IT. The last chance to save America. The final hour to “take our country back.” The ultimate moment to redeem the Republic. Even if the other candidate had won last night, this “last battle” narrative would still live on. But if it’s hope we need, maybe we start by identifying what actually is the consequential fight of our time. What deserves to be called the Last Battle?
The call to remember the beginning and the beauty of the beginning in The Magician’s Nephew could not be more timely for me. At the end of four years lobbying for various social justice issues in Washington, DC, I felt worn out and disheartened by the political system. But remembering the beginning shows us what joy we can look forward to in the end because of Jesus.
As I re-read The Horse and His Boy, I was drawn powerfully to the themes of power and poverty, slavery and freedom, insecurity and significance. At this point in my life, I see the story as a beautiful tale about the reversal of roles, the meaninglessness of titles, and the use and abuse of power. And there’s a place of profound freedom on the other side of contemplating the emptiness of the endless quest for power.
As I scroll through my Twitter feed, turn on the TV, or talk to people, I’m saddened to see ever more evidence that truth and beauty are absent from the American political discourse. What we’re witnessing today is the fruit of a body politic which has wandered from its foundation—we are a people in desperate need of healing.
The Silver Chair doesn’t just challenge us with the idea of causality, but with the idea of providence—causality complicated by intent or teleology. Aslan gave the children four signs, fully intending for our protagonists to follow all four of them. However, they were only in a position to obey the later signs because they had failed to obey the earlier ones.
Today we’re taking a break from our current series, Remember Your Fairy Tales, so I can share a personal note about the current and future plans of Liberatus, and what I’ve learned along the way. In order to continue publishing the journal weekly, build community with a writing team, and grow into phase two, we need ten writers to commit to 2017 and to raise $1,100 in new monthly contributions.
Reading The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, I found myself relating to Eustace during his dragon phase more than I wanted to admit. See, I recently moved across the country and as I sit here as far away from DC as I can imagine, I have a lot of questions. Why am I here? Am I sure this was the right choice? I’ve been searching for some sense of control.
Too often, work in American politics lacks vision and doesn’t value the creativity it would take to achieve that vision. How do we fix it? We can learn from other creators in other fields. Today we interview Noah and Nicole Stratton at The Academy of Arts. Their work overlaps with our vision of healing: in the coming months, they will perform “Prince Caspian” live on stage—for the first time ever.
Today, we’re stepping into the wardrobe. We’re returning to Narnia, to the land fallen under the spell of the White Witch, to the forest frozen by a hundred years of winter.
Here’s hoping we have grown old enough to re-read The Chronicles of Narnia, to step back inside the fairy tales themselves and explore once again.
