Survival Strategies

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Melba Padilla Maggay

The great Italian statesman Camilo Cavour was once asked what he thought was the most essential trait needed by a statesman. He replied, "a sense of the possible." I submit that this faculty is needed just as much by people engaged m social transformation as by politi­cians. The ability to calibrate expectations to discern what could be pushed to the limits of the possible and what is best left to a more opportune time and circumstance, is a critical element in furthering the cause of the kingdom. We need to be able to make strategic choices, advancing the possible good even as we seek the impossible best.

In the rough-and-tumble world of politics we are confronted with the problem of mediating between a hard pragmatism and futile idealism, between what is possible and what is principled. The tragic nature of bringing about change in a fallen world grabs us by the collar and brings us face to face with the difficulty of maintaining consistency between ends and means, of the struggle to find a way of coming to terms with rough realism without surrender of idealism.

How can we be effective in a world that thwarts our best inten­tions? How do we make significant contribution in a society that marginalizes its best and most creative people and yet is disillusioned by its own aberrations? The answers to these questions are complex and deserve more lengthy treatment. For the moment, it is perhaps sufficient to arm ourselves with some survival skills that would en­able us and our ideals to withstand the test of realism. The following are some survival strategies I have found helpful.

1. Expect a self-developed opposition

Mao Tse Tung, the late great patron saint of socialists, once said that the process of change moves 'two steps forward, one step backward.' A nation or a cause that takes a giant leap forward usually suffers a backlash from forces threatened or displaced by the great effort. A movement develops an antithesis, a reaction that sets it back, but the resulting synthesis from the conflict is at least one degree higher in quality than where things were before.

The parable of the wheat and the weeds (Matthew 13:24-30) antedates this dialectical understanding of the process of change. We are told that for every advance in the kingdom of God, there is a corresponding advance in the kingdom of darkness. When the wheat shot up and bore gram, the weeds appeared also.

It is not surprising that the seeds of opposition and contradiction are usually seen within, and not outside, the forces of change. The demonic is by nature unimaginative; it can only imitate, and destroys by imitating the good work of God. Much hurt and damage is caused, not by enemies without, but by enemies within. This is what normally breaks up churches and movements. One can handle severe opposition from the world without, but not the heartbreak of bitter conflict and betrayal in the hands of one's own people.

Yet the Master tells us that we just have to learn to live so closely with the dark side of the work we do. "Let both grow together until the harvest," he tells us; the two kingdoms are so inextricably linked, it is not possible to uproot one without uprooting the other. We just have to be prepared to consolidate our gains in the face of internal dissension and the constant raising of contradictions, fighting off the erosion of the good that has been done by the steadfast application of grit and grace.

Scripture is clear that upsetting the existing order is dangerous business. "He who digs a pit will fall into it," says the Teacher, "a serpent will bite him who breaks through a wall" (Ecclesiastes 10:8). Taking action and initiative entails a lot of risk, and is liable to get us into trouble. Wisdom means that we learn to take calculated risks, knowing exactly what it will cost us to pioneer new ways of doing things.

2. Inspire and nurture a strategic minority

Students of social change tell us that it is better to aim at consensus within a strategic minority rather than to waste time and breath at soliciting the conformity of the majority.

Since a movement for change involves vision and sacrifice it is not possible to start with the many. Very few people can see ten steps ahead of them. Most are too enclosed in the realities of the present to be able to imagine an alternative future. It takes a lot of imagination to believe that with the coming of Christ, a new order has come into being. There is a new world out there, waiting to come to historical fruition for men and women of faith and vision who dare to believe that things can be other than they are.

Also, it is painful and hard work to invest in a movement in its infancy. People subject causes, like any other involvement, to a cost-benefit analysis. Since, in its incipient stage there is hardly any return, either in the form of psychological reward or visible success, a cause to begin moving needs John-the-Baptist types who are prepared to be lonely voices in the wilderness, able to subsist on rudimentary fare such as locusts and wild honey for the sake of a vision burning in their eyes.

This strategic minority needs to be nurtured into what sociologists call a 'critical mass': people of vision and sacrifice who in turn are able to influence a great number of people around them. Development strategists call them 'multipliers,' and they are not necessarily those who occupy top positions in organization or communities. They are usually natural leaders, with personality and functional gifts that draw people around them, a fact that sometimes threatens formal authorities or established leadership. While this minority is capable of great endurance to begin with they nevertheless need a great deal of cognitive support, a sense that they stand in the mainstream of the movement of God in history, even if in their time they are pushed to the sidelines and marginalized. They need to feel part of a great tradition, "surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses" as the writer to the Hebrews puts it (Hebrews 12:1). To support them, we need to articulate this continuity, this sense of being part of a long line of witnesses, like the prophets in Israel of old who were killed and stoned by their own people. Besides cognitive support, nurturance of this significant minority requires personal discipling, the sort of intimacy the disciples enjoyed in the life of Jesus. Movements develop because of a deep personal and relational pull at their centre. People, ultimately, do not relate to the abstract ideals of institutions; they relate to people, to the quality of leadership behind them. In a time when even church leaders have become as inaccessible as political big shots, with a cordon sanitaire that makes people feel they are approaching the presence of someone very nearly like God, we need to recover a capacity for intimacy with our own people. We need to take time for people who are perhaps as ordinary as the fishermen Peter and James and John but nevertheless have fire within them and the potential for turning the world upside down. Without this intimate shepherding interest in our people, we may become efficient managers of development organizations or successful executives of church institutions, but not leaders of movements whose ideals resonate within a larger and larger circle of what Tolkien once called 'the fellowship of the Ring' — a humanly vulnerable yet tight solidarity of people who are deeply attached to one another, drawing warmth and sustenance from the fierce fire of commitment and love that is at the centre of what binds them together.

Sociologists tell us that it takes only five percent of a country's population to turn society around and put it on course. Social renewal begins when a strategic minority hears the call of a new order, catches a vision of what is possible and gives their all to the birth of a coming world.

3. Watch your wineskins

A student of church movements once said that sociologically, a community of people with a cause moves from being a movement to a machine and from machine to a monument. The early stage where a movement generates excitement because its ideas are fresh, its leadership charismatic, and its mission sharp and clear, soon gives way to a stage where things get more efficient because routinized: charisma is ritualized, purpose becomes platform, and conviction is systematized into a creed. If this continues and no fresh element reforms or reshapes the institution, it hardens and petrifies into a monument, a sad relic of the days gone by when the Spirit blew and blasted to bits sacrosanct ways of doing things.

For a movement to retain its cutting edge, it is important to hold nothing sacred except its original calling. Institutions, programs and structures are only means; we must be ready, to discard them once they have outlived their usefulness. As a wise old man once said to me, "You should never be afraid to let anything die."

The media prophet Mcluhan, sensing quick obsolescence in the face of rapid advances in technology and material culture, once said that "if it works, it's obsolete". He means that once we have perfected a way of doing things it cannot be improved upon and is therefore on its way to becoming obsolete.

Mcluhan's remark is really only a modern restatement of Jesus' saying about wine and wineskins (Luke 5:37-39). Like Judaism, wineskins are going to age; in contrast, the new wine of the gospel is always new, bursting old wineskins that can no longer contain the force of its dynamic. Church structures, like fasting and Sabbath rules and other institutions of Jesus' time, are always on the way to becoming obsolete. They may have served us well in the past, like the cherished Old English words of a sixteenth-century prayer book or an old hymn that stirs memories of the religion of one's childhood or of the hardier, more uncompromising faith of our forebears. But like the way of all flesh, good things die or ought to be retired.

Like church structures, a movement's programs and strategies need to change as objective social conditions change. Much of the marginalization and perceived obsolescence of the hard Left, for instance, has to do with the inability to read changing historical cues. As people of the kingdom, we need to be able to always hear the changing context of our people along with the timeless imperatives of our text if we are to discern the movement of the Spirit in our time.

Besides the constant pressure of relevance, we also need to factor in the element of the demonic as the movement develops into a more organized institution. It is not an accident that our institutions tend to run away from us, developing distortions that are the exact opposite of the ideals they are supposed to serve. Without vigilant control, they soon grow into unwieldy monsters, a recalcitrance that resists prophetic critique, bidding us serve their own ends rather than the purpose for which they were established in the first place. Self-perpetuation of the system begins to override the original aims, something we see in many churches and non-governmental organizations which end up fighting, not for the vitality of the cause they . serve, but for the survival of their institutions in the name of such catch words as 'orthodoxy,' 'efficiency,' or 'sustainability.'

In the same way that Sabbath regulations, for instance, were dis­torted into tools for oppression rather than instruments of liberation and comfort from the pressing drudgery of human work, our institu­tions can became idols that bid us serve them rather than serve us or the ideals we mean to serve by having them. Lest they run away from us, conscious effort must be expended in seeing to it that our struc­tures remain leashed to our original purposes. There is a rebellious­ness intrinsic to structures that have managed to organize into systems or a self-sustaining force. This thrusting towards heedless autonomy is a mark of the demonic that needs to be carefully watched and sub­dued. Let us take care that our institutions do not develop a logic of their own, establishing a hegemony that is not only independent but destructive of the reforming impulse that gave birth to them, some­times even crushing some of the most creative individuals within or marginalizing and expelling them.

In this case, not only is the wineskin confused for the wine, but the new wine itself is refused. As Jesus warns, "no one after drinking old wine desires new; for he says, 'the old is good'" (Luke 5:39). We can get so used to the taste of the old that when the new wine comes we tend to spit it out.

4. Play the Pied Piper

Truly creative movements do not need huge organizations to carry out what they need to do. What is crucial is the ability to discern what God is doing in the world, and articulate it at certain critical junctures.

This is what I learned in those critical days at EDSA. At dawn Sunday morning we decided to risk adding ourselves to the body-count and rally those of our people who wish to do the same. We stationed ourselves at Gate Two of Camp Aguinaldo and issued an announcement through Radio Veritas and DZAS.

With adrenalin running high, I rattled off strategies of how to mobilize evangelical people together. The mood was upbeat, excitement was high, and we all felt the fire chat descends upon us when we know in our bones that we have been inspired. Then in the heat and flurry of preparations, someone interjected an observation that stopped us in our tracks: "Who are we anyway to mobilize the evangelicals?" There was a pause. I thought of the soldiers trapped like rats within the walls of the camp, and how it was so right simply to be there, even if we represented but a small minority of evangelical Christians. "Never mind," I said. "Let us issue a call, and let him who hears hear it."

The turnout was amazing. Churches from faraway places came, whole busloads from Bulacan, Batangas, Tagaycay and other nearby provinces. We had always thought that we had a following among more thoughtful and sophisticated churches, chose with fairly large contingents of professionals who, like us, trace their roots to Inter-Varsity or other student movements. Quite predictably, they all came. But it was a surprise to me to see so many other grassroots churches, simple folk who had come because they heard a call within them and knew it was right to come and be counted. As a mother cuddling a child said to me, "We just want to be here." The vast masses of the people who gath­ered at EDSA had no theology nor ideology behind what they felt they needed to do. It was enough that they heard a call somewhere in the depths of themselves, something deeper, higher and larger, some­thing to do with justice and freedom and other things they knew by instinct to be somehow related to God.

It is not necessarily a weakness that the events at EDSA lacked conscious theological or revolutionary premises. The mass of men and women do not need closely reasoned arguments in order to act. It is perhaps sufficient, chat a few should discern and articulate the moral imperatives of a critical time. Often, all that is needed is for someone to bravely raise a flag, to say 'here we stand; we can do no other,' and then everyone comes out of the woodwork, silent no more and unwilling to stand injustice any longer.

There are, of course, few causes as universal as the one fought for at EDSA, something big enough to resonate with large masses- of people. It is a rare moment in history when forces on the side of the good and the bad are so very clearly drawn. Still, experience shows that at critical junctures, there ought to be those who are alert enough to perceive a kairos moment, able to hear the thud of God's footfall when it comes as an accent to human history, articulating it for the vast masses of people who for the most part can feel it coming in the air but have no words for it.

To play the Pied Piper, to sing a tune that our people will recog­nize as their own, echoing their own longings and aspirations — this is the job of those of us who wish to see society transformed. "My sheep hear my voice," says Jesus (John 10:27). In so far as we are hearing that voice when it speaks, amplifying it for all to hear and allowing it to be at the centre of our loyalties, there will always be those who will hear us, people who are given to us to nurture and care for. There will be sheep who will follow.

Part of the discipline of being in community is that we do not expect that everyone should follow us or hear that part of the voice we are hearing from God. We cannot absolutize our vision, wanting everyone to take the path of obedience that we have taken. God speaks uniquely to different parts of his church. We should allow for plurality of agendas, and even plain narrowness, while expecting wide­spread consensus in those rare moments when the hand of God comes down decisively and overturns history.

God, ultimately, is able to speak and mobilize his people when necessary: "The sheep hear my voice." All that we are asked to do is to hear it ourselves and sing it for our people, sing it faithfully and sing it well so that they, too, may recognize his song and thus prove to be his own.

5. Protect your inner life

There is something about the daily exposure to poverty and other ills of society which tends to wear away faith and makes agents of change some of the most cynical people around. Poverty is evil; it grinds people down and distorts the best of us into churlish whiners or wooden prophets of doom and gloom in whose eyes the light has gone dead.

The Teacher gives us a curious piece of advice: "Be not righteous overmuch, and do not make yourself overwise, why should you destroy yourself?" (Ecclesiastes 7:16). There is more than a hint here that there is a seeking after righteousness which tends to get dispro­portionate, — perhaps the sort that borders on fanaticism, or, in some, the passion for perfection which cannot countenance frustration. The insistence on justice, the unwavering commitment to find redress for wrong, ought to remain unsurrendered. However, this should not mean the inability to rejoice at small gains, nor the incapacity to allow for failure and setbacks. At the heart of our faith is the con­sciousness that our work is fragile. "All flesh is like grass, and all its glory like the flower of grass; the grass withers, and the flower falls" (Isaiah 40:6-7). We cannot ask too much. As Luther once advised, "If you cannot move a stone, let it lie." We cannot be 'overrighteous' or 'overwise', banging our heads against the wall when the struggle for justice and insight seems a losing proposition. "Why should you destroy yourself?" asks the Teacher.

A critical skill we need to teach ourselves and our people is how to fail — how to learn our lessons from the experience of defeat and pick ourselves up again and start anew. This, according to Paul, is how we endure. "We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying in the body the death of Jesus so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies." (2 Corinthians 4:8-10) With readiness, we carry in our bodies the marks of the cross, but also the hope and power of Jesus' risen life.

Paul tells us to "put on the whole armor of God," and makes mention of the "shield of faith, with which you can quench the flaming darts of the evil one" (Ephesians 6:13-17). In our constant contact with the powers of evil, there is need to insulate ourselves, to put up a shield in such a way that evil and its canker cannot penetrate nor make an assault in our inner spirit. In this we need the ability to keep faith, to hang on to a basic belief in innocence and the power of goodness.

Protecting our inner life also means that we practice a certain amount of detachment. A contemplative once said that "the best way to care for the world is not to care." Involvement and the need to see some success can easily become idols, absorbing all our energies and devouring all we hold dear. To disengage, we need periodic flights of fancy that are just as absorbing, a strategic withdrawal into an en­tirely different world, where the dragon is slain and the prince rescues and runs off with the maiden. Like the poor who escape drudgery by retreating into fantasy, or the prisoner who likes to talk of the smell and colour of the world outside and refuses to dwell on the hum­drum dreariness of prison life, we should not fault ourselves for want­ing the fresh and free air of an imagination that brings relief from the pressures of a world that would not yield to our changing.

A sanity escape, at its best, is really a longing for Sabbath for that time and space when we can rightly disengage and behold the work of our hands as something removed from us. Seven times in the cre­ation narrative we are told that "God saw that it was good;" from time to time he would detach himself, as it were, and look over the thing that he had made, until, finally, he surveyed all that he had made — the whole, vast and intricate finish of it — and "behold, it was very good" (Genesis 1:4, 10, 12, 18, 21, 25, 31).

The Sabbath is an institution created to release us from a mono­maniac obsession with work, to allow us to reflect on it from a distance and cast a critical look at its actual worth and significance. Seen from the center, from the core of that which gives us ultimate meaning, our work gets relativized before the Creator and assumes its rightful proportion. Apart from the relief from stress that it affords, the Sabbath delivers us from the temptation to worship the work of our hands, from an uncritical and disproportionate sense of its importance. Messianism begins when we ignore the critiquing and proportioning element that use of the Sabbath brings.

It is also important to recognize that social transformation requires a long obedience, and there are times when we suffer what Alan Sillitoe calls the 'loneliness of the long-distance runner.' Changing structures is a marathon effort of long gestation; it is not a dash or a sprint with cheerers on the sidelines. This means we consciously develop endurance, the ability to outlast the opposition and prevail in a long war of attrition.

"If you faint in the day of adversity," says scripture, "your strength is small" (Proverbs 24:10). While this may sound obvious and even facetious, it wryly reminds us of the need to increase our strength so that we have sufficient reserves for days of extreme pressure and stress. As the Lord tells the prophet Jeremiah, "If you have raced with men on foot, and it has wearied you, how will you compete with horses?" (Jeremiah 12:5).

Let us remember that we are up against a foe that in many ways is bigger, brighter, brassier, with massive resources and access to technology that enables it to replicate itself. Beside institutionalized forces of evil, forces of good are usually ragtag bands of do-gooders hardly able to get their act together. It is an unequal contest. We are not competing with mere men; we are competing with horses.

Since our strength is small, we should learn to conserve energy. Strategically, this means we get selective about our fights. We must learn to pass up small provocations to conserve gunpowder for the big battles. An ancient Chinese general once said that the best way to win a war is to try not to fight. If we can skirt a skirmish we should. If we can manage to advance our forces without firing a single shot, then let us do so. Open confrontation decimates not only the ranks of the enemy but also our own.

Conserving energy also means that we move with the timing of the seasons; we should not force things to come to a head if they have yet to come to fruition. A sense of timing is important; much useless activity can be prevented by a simple sense of where people are at any given moment. Too many movements fritter away their opportuni­ties by getting caught up with scattered initiatives that are prema­turely launched, in the process failing to muster the necessary effort for a big challenge looming ahead.

Ultimately, transforming society is really the work of God; we can neither add nor subtract to what he is already doing. If it is a time for change, it is a time for change; if it is a time for war, it is a time for war. All that we can do is to discern the hand of God when he acts in history and respond accordingly. "Consider the work of God: who can make straight what he has made crooked?" (Ecclesiastes 7: 13). There is a mystery to the hard intransigence of evil; only God, ultimately, can make it straight.