Leadership through Trusting the Trustworthy

Community organizers are taught that power is the ability to get what you ask for. Power is generated by organizing money or organizing people, often both. Power in itself is morally neutral; but what we’re asking for — how we use our power — is morally weighty. As Dr. King said, “Power at its best is love implementing the demands of justice, and justice at its best is power correcting everything that stands against love.” Power gathered and wielded in this spirit generates trust and builds community.

Opponents of Equity, Compassion, and Generosity, motivated by fear of the worst human qualities that their own leadership incites, organize money by stealing it. They organize people by lying to them. Their power is real, but they are fundamentally untrustworthy. Anything they create with their power will lack the life and love of Community. Their hateful actions will never satisfy the human spirit of those they’ve tricked into following them, and their own humanity is shrieking deep inside them. Vast damage is wrought while they fail repeatedly to learn this lesson.

Ours is a leaderful movement, woven through reciprocal relationships rather than knotted up by coercion. And I believe in our collective decentralized power to resist and release our opponents. And so, when I got a text from a friend about the Economic Boycott scheduled for February 28, I forwarded it to a bunch of contacts in my phone. A good friend who is a UU community organizer – somebody I trust immensely – wrote back right away. 

“Wow,” she texted. Then, “Do you know who’s organizing this?” 

“No,” I responded, “ but I can’t see it being a bad action.” 

“Totally,” she replied.

I’d received the original text from someone I appreciate and care about and whose identity puts them just one or two rings out from the epicenter of those being targeted by the new administration. I wanted to follow their lead in responding and resisting. It also felt good to page through the many names and numbers I’ve saved on my phone over the years. In the moment, I didn’t have the bandwidth to reconnect individually with each person, but I am pretty confident that everyone I selected feels similarly to me about the abhorrent behavior of our executive branch. Forwarding a text about something we could do together gave me a sense of belonging.

In the few minutes that followed, I got a few positive responses, and then, from a distant connection: “Stop.” This person probably didn’t have my name saved with my number, and took me for a stranger, or worse, a bot. She didn’t trust “me,” couldn’t even perceive me behind the text. I realized that I had missed an opportunity to use my own voice. This led me to wonder about the experience of the other people I’d forwarded the text to. Did they trust me? And who did I trust? Were the organizers of this action trustworthy?

The next day, the friend who’d sent me the original text forwarded me an article about the action. The article was published in my community organizer friend’s city, and yet she hadn’t known about the action. The text had not been signed by anyone, but the article named an organization, The People’s Union USA, and shared its web address. The only person identified on the website was a 50-something white guy with woke ideas, but no clear connections to communities directly affected by Trump and Musk’s attacks. I realized I had no foundation of trust in the leader and no confidence that the action would be successful. I wondered if I’d made a mistake when I’d shared it with my friends.

The UUA’s Community Resilience Hub has a great article about Spiritual Preparation for Collective Action Here are the questions they offer for people discerning whether to engage in an action:

• Is this action visionary and reducing pain for people?
• Does this action help us vision the world we want while also caring for people who are in pain because of systems of oppression right now?
• Does this action have moral authority? Moral authority comes from personal experience and proximity. If you do not have the moral authority to be shaping an action, are you responding to the moral authority of those who do?
• Is this action filling a gap in the justice ecosystem? If there are many marches or many vigils, it may be less useful to do another vigil or march and more useful to do an office takeover or organize a boycott.
• Is this action building my own and others’ capacity? If I’m really good at making phone calls to my legislator, maybe it’s time for me to train others to host the phone-a-thon events and for me to try helping with jail support or planning a creative street theater action.
• Consider who will bear any backlash, increased vigilante or police violence, and surveillance after the action.

The 24-hour economic blackout met some of the criteria. But just from the information I had at the time, it hadn’t earned my trust. Yet. And so I set aside some time to write again to each of the people I texted, in my own voice, in the context of our relationship. I let them know that on February 28th I would be taking a break from economic activity (or, if necessary, buying locally with cash only) as a spiritual practice to remember that relationships matter, even if I’m not aware of them all. I told them I was grateful for our relationship, I apologized if the original text had been irritating, and I let them know I would be glad to hear about meaningful actions they believe in. I’m so glad I did this. I want to share some of the responses I received:

Yay! Hi Isabel! I didn’t recognize your number. The boycott feels like a good step, and I’m trying to use it as an ongoing experience around my values, not just one moment in time. Thank you for reaching out, that really helped me to remember that I’m not alone at all.

Thanks for letting me know you are that Isabel. (I have several in my phone.)  😃. Yep, boycotting tomorrow.  

Good call! I am heartened to see loved ones from different sections of my life rising to and amplifying this particular call to action. I hope you are well, and I’m grateful for you, too! 🌻

So wonderful that the boycott will usher in Ramadan, which begins that night! Thank you, Isabel, for this message. So glad to be part of this effort!

As of this writing, I don’t know how much power will be generated by the organized people and money of the boycott. But I do know that it deepened healthy trust. I almost missed this, the real fruit of the action. I’m so glad I followed up with my friends.

This month, our Soul Matters small group packet includes an exercise to identify who you trust, and why. We are all leaders and followers. How are you learning to lean into trust and trustworthiness as you stay active in the fight?