Power
Rev. Jennifer Brooks
July 10, 2005
Benjamin is from the Bronx . He is 11 years old. He has always dreamed of being a martial artist, but he never had the opportunity until he came to Nantucket two weeks ago as part of Project Discovery.
When I picked him up from camp that first day he was walking on air. “I did karate!” he said. “The teacher told me I was good. He said I was a natural.”
Someone spoke with me recently about one of her grandchildren. She said, “It’s wonderful to see her coming into her own power.”
Power. That’s what Benjamin felt when he realized that he was a “natural” at karate. Although he’s from the Bronx and his family has never been able to afford martial arts lessons, Benjamin now knows what he can do. He knows not to dismiss his dream as unrealistic or impossible. He feels his own power. I believe he will find a way to be the person he wants to be, the person he dreams of becoming. Now that he feels his own power, he is self-determining.
Project Discovery is the brainchild of Benjamin’s school and the Nantucket Aids Network. As host for two of the visiting children, I saw first-hand the blossoming of individual spirits as children emerged into the liberating environment here. The object of the program was to give the kids a variety of experiences they could not possibly have at home, under the leadership of wise and committed teachers to help them understand what it means to live a safe, healthy life, and with the opportunity to develop themselves in many ways.
It let them glimpse, for a week, what it means to come into their own power.
One of Faith Oldham’s friends told me recently that Faith’s mother used to pull up the weeds that grew between the cracks of the bricks that pave Martin’s Lane. The persistence of dandelions is apparently not equal to the persistence of the Oldham women.
 Consider the power of nature—the way weeds grow in the most unlikely places, straight through concrete sometimes. That’s what these kids from the Bronx are like. Strong and tough and persistent, at 11 and 12 they are still willing to hope and try and grow.
With any encouragement at all, with just a little empowerment, they will blossom despite their setting. With programs like Project Discovery, and the help of their year-round school that charges families only $25 per month, they will not only survive, they will thrive.
Power.
We use the word in so many ways: personal power; the power of nature; military power; the power grid; “overpowering,” and its opposite, “empowerment.”
Empowerment is the process by which people come into their own power. Empowerment leads people to self-determination, self-sufficiency, self-reliance: traits that develop as a consequence of inner knowledge. Power that results from empowerment is the light of self, shining—not an abusive, controlling, overpowering self, but a self that invites others to come into their power, a self that welcomes the range and diversity and richness that develop when people empower each other.
Communities, too, have power. It can be abusive—one group forcing another to its will—but there is also a communal power that is healthy and empowering. It is the power that comes when people who share a common vision work together to make it real.
One example is Portland , Oregon . It’s a city of more than half a million people—big by some measures, modest by others. Over the last decade its population has been growing steadily. We all know the consequences of urban congestion: traffic, air pollution, a declining quality of life.
But a few years ago the residents of Portland decided that they wanted their city to be a model, locally and globally, for the feasibility of reducing the greenhouse gas emissions that contribute to global warming and give kids asthma. In 2003 they decided to create a long-term environmental plan.
I don’t know—I can only imagine—the brainstorming and research and conversation that must have occurred in their community to develop the plan in the first place. But now they have literally a hundred separate initiatives to make Portland green. Some of these are ten years or more along. And despite Portland ’s population growth, its emissions are below the levels of 15 years ago. If every city on earth did the same, the goals of the Kyoto convention on global warming would be met.
This is a story of power.
Like personal power, community power grows from an understanding of what is possible—a kind of self-knowledge—and a commitment to self-determination. Portland decided to move forward without waiting for other cities to act. It decided to weave the values of its citizens into the daily fabric of city life.
Perhaps the most remarkable thing about Portland ’s engagement with its own power is the multitude of small and unexpected ways the city found to turn the clock back on emissions. Any one of these might have seemed too minor and relatively useless: Planting more trees. Building more bike paths. Making electricity out of its garbage. Using a wind turbine to power the machinery at its concrete recycling plant. Changing the default setting on government copy machines so they copy on both sides.1.
In combination, these many little efforts added up. Even Portland ’s traffic lights were changed from the regular incandescent bulbs to LEDs. This small adjustment used 80 percent less electricity and saved the city half a million dollars.
I guess changing the bulbs in traffic lights won’t help us here on Nantucket . And I don’t propose adding traffic lights. Although there are times…
The changes that have taken place in Portland over the last decade illustrate the power of small actions taken in concert. But that is only part of the story. Those many actions would never have occurred without the vision of energy self-sufficiency and a safer environment. How did the citizens of this community empower each other? How did they create the public consensus that energized their work?
Self-determination and self-sufficiency are not only goals for the individual but also for society. Why should our country be so beholden to power based on fossil fuels when there are many technologies to create power from renewable sources? When will we decide to stand on our own two feet as a nation, rather than relying on power from foreign oil?
To what kind of power do we aspire?
Benjamin came back from his first karate lesson. The 11-year-old boy who had until then simply floated along the current of everyone else’s decisions had seen inside himself and had a revelation: he was a natural.
So are we all. We are all “naturals” in some way. Each of us has the power to be self-determining, self-directing: to see ourselves as we truly are and to move forward in the direction of our aspirations. And each of us can empower others to do the same.
When there are enough of these self-determining, healthy, empowered people in a community, the community is transformed. When enough communities are transformed, the nation is transformed.
And this is power. This is how we change the world.
1. Other changes: Recycling—and city offices USING items with at least 30% recycled products; bike parking; changing the ratio of car parking to dwellings while increasing public transit and expanding the central “no fare” zone; purchasing city power from renewable sources. City of Portland , OR , Global Warming Progress Report (June 2005). Source: www.sustainableportland.org.
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