Agency

We plant seeds that one day will grow. We water seeds already planted knowing that they hold future promise. We lay foundations that will need to further develop. We provide yeast that produce effects far beyond our capabilities. We cannot do everything, and there is a sense of liberation realizing this. It enables us to do something and do it very well. It may be incomplete, but is is a beginning, a step along the way, an opportunity for grace to enter and do the rest. We may never see the end result, but that is the difference between the master builder and the worker. We are the workers, not the master builders; ministers, not messiahs. We are prophets of a future not our own.

~Bishop Oscar Romero

Human agency. I’ve been thinking about this a lot recently. Often it gets defined as “the capacity of individuals to have the power and resources to reach their full potential.” Something about this has never felt all the way true to me. The power of individuals? This doesn’t feel empowering to me. However, when I think of human agency as the ability to act, to take the wisdom and resources I found or been give, and move forward, I sense that I can do something, and perhaps even do it well.

I prefer, then, the definition of human agency as “an individual's capacity to determine and make meaning from their environment through purposeful consciousness and reflective, creative action.” My recent grounding practice each morning is allowing me to do just this—to experience meaning through conscious, reflective action.

At the start of the Easter (the word’s origin meaning dawn or sunrise) season, I began a practice each morning of remembering 3 moments from the day before in which I experienced a sign of hope. And then, no matter how tired or grouchy I might feel, I recall the best choice I made in the day.

These two simple acts are rewiring my brain, writing into it a story that doesn’t have to be perfect, but is whole. There is hope and there are good choices in each day. Noticing this reminds me that I can move forward, I can act. It reminds me I can bring the seeds I have, lift them up, and allow grace to come along and do the rest. It’s not all up to me, but I am able to see and trust in my choices.

I could choose to focus on the myriad poor choices I made, too. This is, after all, the way a human brain is wired—to remember more often that which has been negative or hurtful. But I am not. Instead, I sit with hope and with my one choice (often remembering that one helps me remember another one or two) as my morning companions, and in this I find a sense of fullness. I am seeing the story of my days with these two companions.

So I found myself wondering—what if I were to recall other times in my life in this way? As my daughter’s graduation approaches in less than a week, the lead up has been filled with emotions. Many days I’ve spent remembering the choices I’ve made for her with disdain, regret, sorrow. All the what if’s, all the ways that I failed her. And maybe some of this is true. However, there’s another, more creative possibility. What happens if I see this story of us through 3 moments of hope? What if I remember the best choice I made for her education? How might this allow both of us to trust not only the past, but the future?