Just Do the Things

wisdom for post-election life

I wrote in Hope: A User’s Manual (and shared here at the Blue Room awhile back) about an interview with Lin-Manuel Miranda and Thomas Kail, the creative team behind the musical Hamilton.

They talked about the early days of working on the musical—writing, editing, and refining it—and how overwhelming it seemed. They adopted a motto, co-opted from Jerome Robbins when Fiddler on the Roof was in previews in Detroit. Things were not going well for the fledgling production. Kail says: “There’s this moment when Fiddler is really struggling, and Austin Pendleton, a young actor at this point, said, ‘What are we going to do?’ and Robbins said, ‘Ten things a day.’”

The cast, in early rehearsals. Seems like a long time ago that this was the scrappy upstart musical.

“Just do the thing,” Kail continues. “Do the stuff that’s in front of you: ‘What can we accomplish today?’ We would come in after a show, and Lin and I would talk to each other . . . and we’d say OK, what can we accomplish at this time. And you just start chipping away.”

Fun fact: I recently made a list of absolutely every large and small task that needed to be done before the book deadline, and guess how many it was?

Ten things a day.

There’s still a little magic in the universe, friends.

~Record scratch here~

I started putting together the above post before the election.

Since Tuesday, ten has been too ambitious a number for me, unless those ten things include things like feeling your feelings without covering them over with purposeless activity, brewing a comforting cup of tea, or asking a loved one “how are you” and actually listening patiently for an answer beyond “OK” or “fine.”

Still, when the work feels overwhelming, even impossible, the practice of ten things remains useful, even if you need to reduce the number, and/or expand and soften your idea of “work.” As pastor of our little Blue Room community, I sign your permission slip to do so.

I concluded this section of the book, called The Practice of Ten Things, by saying:

We live in chaotic, perilous times. Regardless of our particular convictions and beliefs, numbing out is a luxury we cannot afford. [The MAMD of 11/8/24 says: For those who are in deep grief—and I know many of you are, though not all—numbing is OK for right now.] No one can do everything, but everyone can do something. At times, the “something” is to pull back and rest—but always in the service of a deeper engagement, one small act at a time.

My children are taking the events of this week pretty hard. Setting aside a number of personal reasons that Tuesday’s outcome was tough, the fact is that the incoming administration has promised it will do nothing around the existential issue of our time, which is climate change, not the price of eggs, nor the presence of undocumented people in our country, nor whether two people in our federal prison system received gender-affirming surgery… which incidentally was the practice in place during the first Trump administration as well.

Since my kids are literally spread out all over the world right now, with one studying in Ireland, I had to share these thoughts via text:

I normally close these messages to you with “steady on.” This week, it’s just:

Steady.

~

What I’m Up To

I remain active on Substack Notes, where you get the somewhat less filtered me.

And a couple weeks ago, I sent this to supporting subscribers, with a good bit above the paywall if you’d like to check it out.

The Power of Ritual

Rituals feel really important right now. What’s feeling important to you?