Being Militant

To refuse to participate in the shaping of our future is to give it up … Each of us must find our work and do it. Militancy no longer means guns at high noon, if it ever did. It means actively working for change, sometimes in the absence of any surety that change is coming. (Audre Lorde, from her book Sister Outsider)

I came across this quote yesterday and looked at it repeatedly throughout the day. It’s beautiful. Powerful. Poignant. Perfect. It makes me want to be militant.

It can be so easy – and tempting – to not be. To not be. To let minutes, hours, and days just pass – with a wish and a prayer that things will go our way. But to shape our lives, our future, our relationships, our beliefs? That’s a whole different deal. That means intentionality. That means work. That means blood, sweat, and tears. That means setting expectations. That means the potential for disappointment. Over and over again. To use Lorde’s language, it’s finding our work and doing it – certainly at the high altitude, but perhaps more significantly, down on the ground, day-in, day-out; over and over again. And I agree with her: we have to be militant about it.

I once wrote a paper in grad school that considered church growth through the lens of Che Guevara. And a couple years later, a blog post on Che Guevara as a model for women in leadership. The applications are legion. Hardly orthodox (maybe renegade), it made sense to me. It still does – in lots of contexts.

This is the basis, the essence of guerilla fighting. Miraculously, a small band of men, the armed vanguard of the great popular force that supports them, goes beyond the immediate tactical objective, goes on decisively to achieve an ideal, to establish a new society, to break the old molds of the outdated, and to achieve, finally, the social justice for which they fight. (Che Guevara)

Miraculously. Beyond immediate tactical objectives. Going on decisively to achieve an ideal, to establish a new society, to break the old molds, and to achieve, finally, that for which we fight. If that’s militancy – and/or guerilla warfare – sign me up!! That is the stuff for which I’m willing to fight – over and over again.

But that’s not the hardest part. Lorde hits the nail on the head: It means actively working for change, sometimes in the absence of any surety that change is coming. I don’t know about you, but I want the guarantees. I want the promises. They are not forthcoming. They are not there. Nor will they be. Now, being militant – fighting for a cause, a future, a person, a system – matters even more. It takes perseverance. It takes hope. It takes faith…

Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see. (Hebrews 11:1)

Full circle, Ronna. (My parenthetic processing…sorry.)

I’m stunned by how certain themes carry such impact and power in my life. Militancy. Renegade. Passion. Desire. Hope. Faith. I cannot escape them. And maybe that’s what Audre Lorde is calling forth and naming:

To refuse to participate in the shaping of our future is to give it up … Each of us must find our work and do it. Militancy no longer means guns at high noon, if it ever did. It means actively working for change, sometimes in the absence of any surety that change is coming.

Thanks, Audre.

Being militant…maintaining and protecting hope in a passionate, hold-on-even-if-it-kills-me, intentional way…without any surety that change is coming. That’s my work to do.

And yours?

Until victory always. (Ernesto Che Guevara)

Tagged as: change, Che Guevara, desire, future, hope, militant, passion