My vision for Liberatus is not to create a personal brand. After a traumatic brain injury, I of course would like to go fast because I want quick wins, and the societal dignity that comes with them. But making our country more just and free is about going far together. Before she led free people away from the abusers who treated them like slaves, Harriet Tubman survived a brain injury too.
The participation by Liberatus stakeholders in the mission to inspire American unity over the last nine years made it possible to publish 19 writers, include 60 people in content creation, create and ship 215 copies of Volume One to people in 21 states so far, and contribute $666 in funding to three partner organizations to fuel their work to care for people who have been displaced or marginalized.
Craftsmanship in politics is about listening, asking questions and doing deeper research to search for wisdom, and it’s about creating new solutions for the next generation. We can also take David McCullough's advice to “learn to edit yourself” a step further, to its broader meaning: lead yourself.
Over the last nine years, more than 200 stakeholders have brought the mission to inspire American unity to life. Thank you to all of you for your shared passion! We all want leaders who make our country stronger. We want a basic sense of sanity and justice. We want quality craftsmanship, and we want to make the next generation stronger.
Part Nine: Endurance is the defining characteristic of Liberatus culture. For this journal entry in Issue 019: The Trailhead—Leadership for American Unity I want to articulate what it means to build endurance, what dysfunction looks like, and how we can create a culture of unity by moving the mission forward.
While we need leaders who embody the build endurance ethos, it’s important to note that anyone can build endurance, and in this journal entry I’ll lay out how so that we can continue creating a culture of American unity for the next generation.
In the past, we’ve settled for soundbites and party lines, but now it’s time to push for truth and honesty. In pursuit of authentic candidates, it’s often easy to run towards leaders who are brash in their honesty and at times even harmful, not always because we agree but because it’s refreshing to hear words that weren’t curated by political machines. We crave words that are one’s own.
As we reflect on what it looks like for beauty to come from ashes, I cannot imagine a better example. Although I feel certain that no one would have chosen this history for South Africa, the country has been a source of hope for the rest of the continent, as well as the world, because they chose the path of restorative justice based on truth and reconciliation.
We have come to believe that only one side can win the battle for the mantle of equality, liberty, or justice. It’s a perverse understanding of holiness: “If I can paint myself as a white knight while casting my opponent as the antithesis of everything I stand for, my side will win.” No mind for whether my political opponent actually opposes my values. She must appear to oppose them.
My hope is that in our work in politics, we will all be drawn to live greater lives, and walk away from the shallow stories of personal power and ideals that drive us to exclude half the country from our visions of a perfected America. As we tire of the silliness of the usual political constructs, we can draw inspiration from William Wilberforce.
Could it be possible that prayer and fasting were employed not because we were in a great fight against evil and needed deliverance, but because it was the most expedient way to agitate the populace towards revolution? I don’t think the end result of prayer can ever be anxiety, but rather a deeper knowledge of what we can do to bring restoration to the world.
“For 467 days during 1948 and 1949, the City of Berlin was kept alive by an Airbridge of Allied Aircraft bringing food and other essentials from the West.”
If beauty will truly rise from the ashes of dysfunctional, fearful, and angry politics, we’re going to need inspiration from great stories and even greater generations.
