At the end of September, I drove up to Lake Superior for a long weekend. The Ojibway/Anishinaabe, who lived in the region long before Europeans arrived, call it Gichigami. It is monumental, the lake cut and filled with water by volcanic action followed by glaciers millions of years ago.
Along Superior’s southeastern shore, the cliffs of the Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore rise vertically from the water. The sandstone of which the cliffs are made has been – is being – worn away by the waves and winds that sweep across the lake. Natural springs send water trickling down the face of these cliffs, leaching iron, manganese, calcium, and copper in Jackson Pollock patterns of red/brown, black, white, and an occasional dash of blue/green.
The expanse of this largest lake on the North American continent and the work of water and wind on stone over eons – these are reminders of geological time and scale. Though we experience our individual lives in minutes, days, and years, we are also riding the currents of the millions of millennia of Earth’s being as well as the decades and centuries of human history.
I’ve been thinking this fall, as the November election approaches, about civity and scale. Civity operates most immediately at the level of human, person-to-person interactions. Relationships may last years and even decades, but they form by the accretion of moments. The micro is where we live our lives.
Civity animates my greeting to the unhoused woman who many afternoons sits with her dog on the steps of Calvary Church as I pass on my walk home from work. Conversely, I am on the receiving end of civity when two Spanish-speaking men pull up next to me in the auto parts shop parking lot and come over to help when they see me having trouble closing my car’s hood. (I had successfully replaced the headlight bulb all on my own!)
Civity was also present when I stopped last summer at the Dickeyville Grotto and Shrine on my drive from Omaha back to Milwaukee and ended up in conversation with one of the church elders there. I knew – we both knew – that our politics were different (probably diametrically opposed), and yet our conversation almost sparkled with shared appreciation for the passion that inspired and drove the construction of this local marvel.
Day-to-day civity is tangible and real – easy to see and feel. We experience how, in the moment, it nourishes and sustains us.
Because of civity’s systems frame, I am always mindful that individual civity moments, interactions, and relationships are creating culture – a macro-level, emergent pattern of how people live together, of the stories that create shared meaning.
This awareness accompanies my everyday civity practice. In my own sphere of influence, I try to contribute – I am contributing – to spinning the web of relationships across difference that make it possible for us – all of us – to live together and work through challenges together. If we all do some spinning, the web grows and grows stronger with more and more robust threads.
Sarah Lawrence-Lightfoot writes: “Respect breeds respect. A modest loaf becomes many.”
Mary Pipher writes: “Happiness and sustainability depend on everyone healing everyone else.”
A significant part of working with Civity, of our civity work, is connecting with other people who are out there working in their communities to make things better. All across the country. Everywhere. Inside offices, schools, libraries, and coffee shops. On Zoom calls. Outside on the street or in parks. It’s inspiring. They are inspiring. You are inspiring.
This election matters. Of course. Absolutely.
And…
Every-four-year elections are just one of the time cycles in which we live our lives. We also live our lives day by day. Day by day, we co-create the world we live in and the world our children and their children will live in.
For me, keeping the lake in mind helps me pay attention to the tiny pebbles on the beach. I hope you all find something that does the same for you.