A Note to Myself: Be Mine in a Changing World

Writing this month, it can appear that things are changing fast at the beginning of a new national administration less than a month in. So this short article may become dated more quickly than most. Ah well, few things are long lasting. Nevertheless, it’s helpful to chart a course forward to the best of the ability, and then adjust one’s thinking as new information comes available, so that is what I’ll plan to do.

Last year I wrote twice about disasters and I want to come back to the individual disaster that seems to be befalling friends and colleagues in development both international and domestically on behalf of communities. When the world turns upside down from a disaster it strips away that sense of the familiar on which so many of us build our conception of how life will go. For those facing furloughs, job cuts, or reduced hours/work, it seems like a fairly stable public-interested career is not there in the same way.

That change can make us question ‘what is the meaning of our work?’ when that familiar structure is stripped away. On one hand, there is acceptance that our expectations do not always turn out. On the other hand, we may want to advocate for ourselves, our friends, and our communities in an energetic way.  

First, acceptance, if for perspective only. All the human society we have constructed is based upon expectations. If things don’t work out, and we cannot provide as well for ourselves and for our communities and our families, the way we imagined, it is a bitter but true pill that the world will go on. Yet if a person raises healthy children, no matter their wealth, and these children grow up interested in the world, confident in their abilities, with enough joy and enough skepticism to navigate the world, they will make the world a better place just by being in it and perhaps raising a generation behind them with those positive qualities.

That is one way to think about things, but another is to be angry and resilient to advocate for ourselves and for protecting from the potential harm to our quality of life. With all these executive actions in the face of Congressionally-appropriated funding and policy, people are worried about their futures, and also may worry about the breakdown of checks and balances that protect the republic (See The Wall Street Journal, “This Spending Fight Is Actually About the Constitution - With unilateral freezes and cuts, Trump is testing how far he can encroach on Congress’s power of the purse.”) As will now be familiar from news story civics lessons reminders, Congress is supposed to make the spending decisions and has the “power of the purse”. Yet we are seeing cuts or “impoundment” of funds appropriated by Congress, by the executive branch, which is leading to the firings. Clients and friends are telling me that their funding is frozen, executed contracts are being canceled, and they cannot be in touch with anyone about it.

Budget and spending is policy. Yet as of this writing, Congress does not act, perhaps because the party that controls may want many of these changes but do not have the power to pass them through the body. Perhaps Congressional majorities are making a choice to sacrifice their constitutional power for immediate policy goals.

Congress has appropriated funding and directed it be spent in certain ways, and the executive’s duty is to faithfully carry that out. The mass layoffs seemingly without reasoning attached except for a general “the people voted to cut the federal workforce” will likely receive even more scrutiny from courts in the context of the Supreme Court’s 2024 Loper Bright decision, which overturned the Chevron Doctrine that gave deference to administrative agencies to interpret their statutes. It is likely that the courts, who are slower and reactive by nature, will continue try to stop the executive branch from policy that contravenes Congress.

And the question perhaps is, will the administration listen to the courts? We don’t know the answer or what can happen. From our history books, there are executives taking actions like the forced march of American Indian residents to the Oklahoma territory, where many died from disease and exposure. Or the internment of Japanese Americans in World War II. Either are among the saddest and most regrettable moments in our nations’ history. When an executive is empowered without checks and balances, such decisions happen more easily. As much pain and suffering as may happen with cutting off investments for what people need in communities, believe that it can be that bad, and worse. It has.

And so, the question becomes whether and what action to take as a patriotic American? People are figuring that out now. There are many Americans who have wanted lower costs and immigration reforms. Some minority even voted to take a wrecking ball to our national institutions; and the US Forest Service reportedly laid off 3,400 as of yesterday. But most I think did not vote for that wrecking ball. And many benefit from the Small Business Administration helping a new entrepreneur, or a visit to our national parks, or the assistance of the Department of Agriculture in providing technical assistance and funding for that new town fire station. And many Americans did not vote to ignore our constitution and its checks and balances. What new ways will people advocate and collaborate together to protect their quality of life and the country we want?

In a sense, this month’s entry was foreshadowed by my fall article on individual disasters and watching God, and I come to the same lesson that Zora Neale Hurston, who was no stranger to adversity, comes to for her heroine and protagonist. We have to find the truth for ourselves.

One of my courses forward is to collaborate with leaders and communities trying to figure out this new world. The work to make our communities more loved homes does not go away with a change in administration, elimination of long-expected government programs, or even a change in our constitutional system of government, however unwelcome. The work on the ground is still there to be done. If anything, there is more need for a partner who can help groups navigate and figure this out. Organizations that want to stay relevant want to be more efficient, better able to connect the strategic to good implementation, and able to communicate their value. They will benefit from an advisor who is comfortable in changing political circumstances and has the perspective from working with people of all groups. Given that the needed work to realize the promise of our communities is not going away, leaders who are able to pull things together and create value in their communities will thrive and make their communities more loved homes.

How else I will Be Mine in the world I am working on. 250 years after Concord and Lexington in Massachusetts were part of birthing our nation, may we all find our ways in this 2025.