What can I do?

I often feel overwhelmed at the problems of the world: continued economic and environmental exploitation of developing countries, poisoning our air and water with our cars and streets and parking, human trafficking, wars and rumors of wars. I have mentioned to friends that I wish we had a non-political leader like Dr. King who could inspire millions to demand the injustice stop, so this recent feature on civil rights leaders really hit me:

"One thing that I think the history books, and the media, have gotten very wrong is portraying the movement as Martin Luther King’s movement, when in fact it was a people’s movement," Diane Nash, a founder of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, said. "If people understood that it was ordinary people who did everything that needed to be done in the movement, instead of thinking, I wish we had a Martin Luther King now, they would ask, 'What can I do?'"

When he was 26 years old, Dr. King reluctantly agreed to lead the Montgomery Bus Boycott. He became the public face of the movement, but he was speaking for millions who were already acting. As the late June Jordan said, "We are the ones we have been waiting for".

Update

We've lived in SLU for almost four months now. Here's what we're up to:

-developing a website that helps families connect with families in and around the neighborhood

-working with the Cascade People's Center about the prospect of reviving the after school program, with a new twist--include homeschoolers and set it up to function democratically

-saying hi to people on the street--construction workers, neighbors, workers, etc.

-showing up at neighborhood planning meetings and with stakeholders along with our "indicator species" (aka--children)

-going to Cascade playground frequently and asking people, "do you live around around here?"

-devising a way to help connect Union with the needs of the neighborhood

-walking down ugly streets and imagining how they could be nicer

-reading Blomberg's Jesus and the Gospels (+ accompanying scripture) and having folks from Dust (and hopefully some from Union soon, too) come over weekly to discuss/unpack/fellowship

-wondering how we could welcome the stranger (literally, into our guest room) in a way that works for everyone

-visiting neighborhood churches with an eye for church unity

-shopping at local businesses and asking things like, "How long have you been here?" and "How's business changed over the past few years?"

-frequenting our (awesome) hardware store (to make our apartment more functional)