It's Time to Pick a Hill Worth Dying On

If your eyes are clear and open right now you can see it, can’t you? This is a pivot point moment for us.

It is the place we collectively turn toward our best selves or slide into the abyss of the very worst of who we are capable of being. We are now crafting our shared collective legacy in real-time, and the world is watching to see who we will be.

Our children are watching, too.

These are historic days and they will be recorded, and they will tell the story of this country, as either the time good people crossed lines of political party, faith tradition, and racial divide, and course-corrected us out of abject disaster—or the days we all stopped fighting and fully surrendered to the darkness for good. They will be marked as the moments we succumbed to a thousands small assaults on democracy that together proved fatal—or when we decided to stop the bleeding altogether.

There is no question anymore for those not deluded by cultism, supremacy, religion, or self-preservation: this thing currently steering us is an abomination.
It is an abandonment of empathy, a rejection of personal liberty, a human rights violation, a squandering of radiant lives.
There is nothing redemptive or life-giving in it.
The only question remaining is if you're okay with it—and you get to answer for yourself, by your movement or your inaction.

In these very seconds, you and I get to decide whether our children and grandchildren and those following us will inherit something beautiful or grotesque. It's really that simple, that elemental, that close.

This is not about waiting for God to do something, or for a political party, or a social media celebrity, or some faceless people you imagine will rescue you.

No, friend, there is no superhero flying in to save the day—you and I need to save it.

And the way you will save it, is by finding whatever it is that is that pulls you out of the paralyzing funk of grief and sadness and disbelief you've been in for the past few weeks—and into the jagged trenches of passionate resistance.

You’ll save it by deciding what matters most to you in this life, and whether it matters enough to do more than you're doing to defend and protect it right now. In the presence of such great hatred, you are either an activist or an accomplice, you’re the vocal opposition or a willing partner.

You and I need to pick a hill worth dying on right now, and we need to ascend it without delay. We need to speak and write and work and protest and vote, and do all the things we've been waiting for someone else to do.

This movement and volume may cause friction in our families.
It may bring turbulence to our marriages.
It may yield collateral damage to our careers.
It may cost us financially and personally.
It may alienate us from our neighbors.
It may push us from our churches.
It may cause us physical injury.
It may be inconvenient and uncomfortable and painful—but that is the price of liberty and you and I need to pay it because other people paid it before us.
No excuses will be good enough to the generations that follow us, about why we did nothing—so we need to stop trying to find them.

I don't know what matters enough to move you from complacency, indecision, selfishness, or apathy:
the human rights atrocities,
the perversions of Christianity,
the pillaging of the environment,
the Constitutional violations,
the cries of migrant children,
the Supreme Court hijacking,
the dismantling of healthcare,
the school shootings that go ignored,
the LGBTQ teenagers being harassed,
the assaults on women's autonomy over their bodies,
the malice of our public servants,
the twisting of truth,
the Nazis marching in our streets,
the dumbing down of our discourse.

Is it love or equality or compassion or diversity or humanity?

I don't know what is worth doing something right now to you—but you do.

So, rather than lamenting how horrible it all is, accept the invitation to make it less horrible.
Instead of looking to the sky and wondering why no one is doing anything, you do something.
Step out of the cloistered place of your private despair, and into a jacked-up world that you can alter by showing up.
Use your gifts and your influence and your breath and your hands—and fix something that is badly broken before it breaks beyond repair.
Do it in the community you call home.

This is not some fictional zombie apocalypse series you can binge watch, turn off, and walk away from into the radiant light of day. This is a coordinated group of flesh-and-blood human beings living among you, with dangerous agendas that they will not abandon unless opposed.

I'm not trying to scare you. What is happening right now to this nation should scare you enough. I'm trying to wake you up and ask you to see if your heart is still beating, and then to do something worthy of that gift.

Whatever hill is worth dying on for you in this life, take it now.

Affirm life, speak truth, defend the vulnerable, call out injustices—and gladly brave the criticisms and the wounds you sustain in doing it, knowing that they are a small price to pay for the nation that could be if you speak—or will be if you do not.

Chances are you won't actually be called to die for these causes and these people, but when you do eventually leave this planet you will have lived for them.

That in itself will be a beautiful legacy.

If you aren't finding your voice right now, don't bother worrying about it later.

You won't have one much longer.

So, now, today… ascend your hill.