Actually, We Can

by Chalice Overy
Associate Pastor, Pullen Memorial Baptist Church

Growing up, there was a short phrase that almost always drew my mother’s rebuke:  “I can’t!” Looking back, I imagine it frustrated her because she knew that, in most cases, it just wasn’t true.  She knew that most of these tasks I was giving up on before I even began could actually be accomplished with a little focus and some practice.  And she was right. How can anyone know whether a thing can or cannot be done if they have not made a serious attempt? And how many great feats have been accomplished through many attempts, and subsequent failures, that provided the knowledge to fine tune and keep trying until one day we discover that we actually can?

That’s been my big discovery in the US federal government’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic--we actually CAN!  We CAN find trillions of dollars. We CAN take drastic, culture-shifting measures. We CAN give people access to health care, and eliminate copays.  We CAN suspend interest on student loan payments. We actually can!  

This has been mind blowing to me because whenever someone talks about a living wage, universal health care, eliminating student debt or making college accessible to all, there are lots of people, on both sides of the aisle that say it can’t be done.  I saw it in the earlier stages of the democratic primary, where a voter may have liked a candidate, but refused to vote for them because they were convinced that candidate could not accomplish the things their platforms promised. “You know she can’t get that done”, someone told me. I pushed back, noting events in recent political history that had taken me by utter surprise because they happened in spite of my belief that they could not.  Yet, inwardly, I wondered whether it would ever be possible to see the shifts I believe we so desperately need to close the wealth gap, heal the planet and abolish systems of oppression. Maybe we can never reach the kind of consensus it would require. Maybe we really don’t have the money. Maybe trying to care for everyone would bankrupt us all. Maybe saving the planet would destroy our economy. Maybe we can’t.  

I’ll admit, I had my doubts, but after the passage of a $2.2 trillion bipartisan bill, my faith has been restored!  It turns out that we actually can! We can get consensus. We can find the money. We can provide cash payments to keep people out of poverty.  We can work from home. We can limit our travel and forsake our creature comforts for the greater good. We can, and that opens a world of possibilities!

Imagine what it might look like to bring financial relief to people who have been held in poverty by systems of pandemic proportion--not placing the burden upon them to earn it, but offering it to them as something their humanity merits.  Imagine allowing people the flexibility to work from home so that families could avoid the enormous costs of childcare, or eliminate the need for a vehicle (or second vehicle). Imagine what it could do for the environment if we stayed off the roads more, imposed sabbaths on production, and were satisfied with local, seasonal produce.  I can imagine it now because I know that we can!

Will it be easy to accomplish what we know is possible?  Not necessarily. The seismic shifts we’ve seen in the last few weeks have come because the threat was eminent and the powerful were vulnerable.  In order to build the kind of consensus it will take to get the job done for the poor and for the planet, we’ll have to shift the narrative a great deal.  Yet, during this holy week, I believe there is precedence that tells us we can.  

In the devastation that followed the crucifixion, the disciples must have had serious doubts about whether Jesus’ mission was worth pursuing.  I mean, if Jesus was killed for preaching good news to the poor and proclaiming freedom to the oppressed, what reason did the disciples have to believe that it could actually be accomplished?  But with each siting of the resurrected Christ, the disciples were emboldened to keep proclaiming and manifesting the good news. That narrative of redemption for all and the possibility of the impossible has been the hope that has sustained the church and ushered many marginalized peoples into newfound freedom.  Now that we’ve seen what’s possible, may we go forward in the confidence that ‘we CAN’!