It's what you do with what you've got

Crossposted at My Left Wing, ePluribus Media and Booman Tribune

I'd like to be able to let the blogroll issue go. That would be the more "comfortable" choice. I mean, this is shaping up to be everything I *don't* like to do in my free time. It's not fun to blog about, and it's not "nice". I open myself up to being trashed by people who will just *know* that this is about sour grapes or my nose being out of joint or heaven knows what else. It's the end of a long week, and I'd much rather kick back and relax a bit. Maybe play with my Sims, or watch a movie with the hubby. Or, short of that, work on some new designs that can generate some additional income--not "fun" in the traditional sense, but something I have a better shot at actually benefitting from in a "what's in it for me?" sort of way. This, on the other hand, looks like a great big bowl of no fun.

But I've seen enough arguments for why blogrolls do matter that I really don't feel like "letting this thing go" is an option.

At the end of January, I attended part of the Moving Faith Forward Leadership Retreat of We Believe. At the beginning of that first day, there was an opening prayer, and then a song. The chorus of the song (by Si Kahn) was

It's not just what you're born with
It's what you choose to bear
It's not how big your share is
But how much you can share
And it's not the fights you dreamed of
But those you really fought
It's not what you've been given
It's what you do with what you've got

This afternoon, I was thinking about those lyrics, and the idea of using the gifts one has been given. What are these "gifts" with which the Creator has seen fit to bless me? Well, the most relevant one to this situation would be my experience of being "on the margins" in one way or another. Being interracially married, homeschooling for a while, being the mother of a special needs/gifted child. Not gifts I would have *asked* for, but these experiences have made it a little easier for me to empathize with people who are disenfranchised in one way or another. People who are told by the power structures of society that they just don't matter in the grand scheme of things.

And those are the very people whose needs tend to be brushed aside as inconvenient or embarrassing when a blog like the big orange place becomes more aligned with the establishment. You say your vote didn't count? Sorry, we can't talk about that. People might call us crybabies. We'd better distance ourselves from you and call you a "fraudster". Concerned about issues of race? Gender? GLBT rights? Sorry, you're kind of inconvenient and embarrassing, so it's under-the-bus with you too. (But if you don't support us, and we lose, you are *so* taking the fall for it!)

Many bloggers have already posted about this issue. I agree with much of what others have already said, and linked to some of those thoughts in my earlier post. What I've tried to share here is why this matters to *me*, and why I feel compelled to renew my efforts to explore ways that the "little fish" can band together to make a difference.

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