In an episode of the American version of The Office, Jim and Dwight, salesmen from the Dunder Mifflin Paper Company, square off against a rival Dunder Mifflin salesman, Harry, to try to secure a big client. After racing each other to get to the client first, they discover a different paper company beat them to the sale. Afterward, the disappointed trio have coffee together, when Harry asks, “So what would you do if you weren’t selling paper?” A serious Harry answers his own question: “I’d like to sell one big thing, you know? Like...a plane. One sale, I'm out.”
Harry’s answer always makes me chuckle, because his aspirations seem at-once small (he can’t imagine not selling something) and unrealistic (a plane salesman?). His response, however, perfectly reflects the daydreams of many of us. We think that if we could just do that one big thing, or if someone else or some other organization could execute that one big thing—be it in our jobs, finances, families, or nation—then we would be set. One sale, I’m out.
In the aftermath of the election, I revisit this sentiment, disabusing myself of the notion that one big thing—namely, a pivotal election—will save (or sink) us, and that once the big thing happens, I can check out, either because all is well or because all is hopelessly lost. Alas, political progress, social change, and life in general do not seem to work this way.
Certainly, elections matter—this election matters—to people’s actual lives, especially those who are not well-insulated by wealth and other forms of privilege. A ticket with concrete plans aimed at helping many older Americans—such as lowering prescription costs and expanding home care services—was defeated by candidates with designs on repealing the Affordable Care Act and further privatizing Medicare (to say nothing of their penchant for ridiculing vulnerable people). Lest we forget, the top of the winning ticket, during his first presidential term, dismissed COVID-19’s lethal impact, especially upon older populations—underwriting preventable mass death. His current approach to public health remains as reckless as ever. Rage, lament, fear, numbness, and despair are not overreactions to the election results. Big elections, however, are not the whole story. Not nearly.
In 1953, Dorothy Day, the founder of the pacifist Catholic Worker Movement, wrote, “The older I get, the more I see life is made up of many steps, and they are very small affairs, not giant strides.” Day saw these “many steps” and “very small affairs,” not as lamentable obstacles to progress, but as sources of power and change. Transformation, Day believed, comes through the everyday practices of showing mercy, seeking justice, making peace, and communing with others, especially the poor of the world. Day, who was born in 1897 and died in 1980, understood what it meant to live and work in dire times. Amid the Great Depression, she established hospitality houses and farming communes for the poorest of the poor. She protested world wars, rallied against nuclear arms, and was arrested five times. According to Day, for movements to endure, they must stay rooted in the power of ordinary acts performed by ordinary people. “[O]ne impulse of grace is of infinitely more power than a cobalt bomb,” she asserted, radically reframing power in terms of benevolence instead of violence.
Day’s wisdom seems pertinent for our moment. In the face of a dizzying array of threats, we, too, are wise to attend to the many steps and small affairs entrusted to us, cultivating the power found in each “impulse of grace,” especially within a political environment given to crueler impulses. We put to rest notions that we can be solitary warriors battling injustice, or hermits hunkering down trying to avoid all engagement. Opting for community, we focus on contributing to atmospheres of care, furthering good faith conversations, and positively influencing the culture in whatever venues, with whatever capacities, given us. The Gray Panthers and kindred organizations do well to focus—with care, clarity, and consistency—on the many small and not-so-small initiatives, partnerships, and programs in our respective purviews. Each meeting, gathering, action, and communiqué—whether formal or informal—is an opportunity to foster positive and inclusive communities, to demonstrate moral courage, and to contribute to the creation of a gentler world for all of us as we age. Such endeavors are more powerful than the “bombs” of brutal regimes.
The Gray Panthers have a special role in holding the line on countering ageism. Attacks on the president-elect’s old age are (and will continue to be) convenient tactics to discredit him and to express disgust with his leadership. The Gray Panthers will remain clear that ageism—no matter its target—is unwelcome. Age-based insults not only contribute to the dominant cultural stigma against the old, but they also distract us from focusing on the many real threats related to the administration’s policies, practices, and personnel. Staying laser-focused on substantive critiques of the president-elect—rather than making armchair diagnoses of dementia or resorting to stereotypes related to his age or appearance—demonstrates the integrity and broad humanity of the culture that the Gray Panthers and other justice-oriented groups wish to create.
The election exposes the common, ageist myth that “young people will save us,” because they supposedly possess more progressive politics than do older citizens. The data, however, show a rightward shift in this demographic, especially among young men. Moreover, pinning the nation’s hopes and dreams on any age cohort—or, conversely, blaming an age group for its failures—unfairly burdens and pigeon-holes segments of the population. By refusing to pit the young and the old against each other, the Gray Panthers offer a more joyful, hopeful, and realistic way forward, by seeking common cause and encouraging mutual respect.
The historian Timothy Snyder, author of On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century, says authoritarian power “wants your body softening in your chair and your emotions dissipating on the screen.” To resist such dissipation, Snyder recommends, “[being] active in organizations, political or not, that express your own view of life […] Then you will have made a free choice that supports civil society and helps others to do good.” Groups like the Gray Panthers provide vital outlets for people to express their view of life, support civil society, and do good. Such organizations engage in nothing short of tyranny-resisting work, through diligently pursuing the common good.
“You don’t need numbers. You need passion,” declared the writer and civil rights activist James Baldwin. We don’t need a large portfolio of highly visible results. We don’t need battalions of social justice warriors. We need steadfast contributors, who trust in the accumulative power of small steps and everyday affairs undertaken with passion and grace. The passionate and steadfast work of the Gray Panthers is pointing the way to a nobler nation. I, for one, am grateful to be a small part.
Lynn Casteel Harper is an essayist, minister, chaplain, and aging justice advocate. Her debut book, On Vanishing: Mortality, Dementia, and What It Means to Disappear (Catapult, 2020), was named a New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice and a Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circle selection. She lives and writes in Bridgeport, Connecticut, where she is the pastor of Olivet Congregational Church UCC.
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