Friday the 13th was a bad day. I was at fault in a stupid small accident. And I knew I was getting sick. Really sick, not just little-tickle-in-your-throat sick. It lasted for three weeks, until I finally went to the doctor. His only comment to me was, “Why did it take you this long to come see me?!” It was a full-blown sinus infection. Which is why it’s taken me a month to write about what I’m trying to write about. But I digress …

The day after I got sick, March 14, we had a Continuum Church outreach event called The Pen is Mightier than the Sword. Cool name. Adam came up with it. Which is good because we would have had an even harder time convincing people to come to Political Letter-Writing Night. But essentially that’s what it was.

A week before our outreach team had been to a training event hosted by Bread for the World. We had debated seriously about whether we wanted to take on a letter-writing event. We’ve all been working very hard, mentally, to broaden our ideas on all the avenues God has provided for us to do good in the world. But I was afraid that it wouldn’t seem valuable if we weren’t actually getting our hands dirty. But the team agreed that we should give it a shot. So we went to the training.

It was almost a full day of information on how to perform a Bread for the World Offering of Letters. I’ll let you check out the link for yourselves because it’s good stuff, but suffice it to say, we learned a lot. We learned about how much the U.S. spends on foreign aid each year (less than 1% of the country’s annual budget!) and how it is distributed. And we learned that it could be done more efficiently, even without spending any more money. We also learned about the horrors of malnutrition and starvation from a doctor from Doctors Without Borders, but really that was just to set the stage for the conversation about aid. We talked about the differences between “betterment” and “development” - development being the best option because the goal is to contribute to an infrastructure that will eventually empower people to care for themselves. (This is an idea that I’ve been grappling with for several months as I consider our domestic outreach projects.)

And then, after all that learning, we wrote letters. Hand-written letters to Senator George Voinovich asking him to work towards streamlining the U.S. approach to distributing foreign aid. (We hand-wrote envelopes too because that’s really what catches someone’s attention initially.) Even though this project was my idea, I was intimidated by actually writing the letter. But there we were with half an hour to do it, and as it was the culmination of the training, there really was no way out of it. And I am SO GLAD that I did. I had no idea what a sense of accomplishment it would bring just to write a letter. Elected officials really read those hand-written letters. Usually they read them personally, but at the least they are read by a high-level staffer. And for every letter they receive, they assume that there are hundreds more constituents back home who believe the same thing and haven’t bothered to write.

This IS a way to do good in the world. No one wants kids to starve. Everyone wants our tax money to be used efficiently. So our Glenn Beck followers were on board for more effective government. And our Obama-button wearers were stoked that we were doing something to increase assistance to struggling foreign countries. That’s the way it should be – with compromises, both sides should win. Until the day when we get some new sides, or get rid of them altogether.

So, that was the training. But then, on the 14th, our outreach team recreated it for Continuum Church folks and friends as The Pen is Mightier than the Sword. We had 11 more people show up to write letters. And we had a really good time. One friend, Chris, said to me, “This was very good. I expected it to be two hours of lecture.” No sir. We had videos, Chutes and Ladders board game, small group discussion, and plenty of visual aids. And everyone wrote a letter. And they liked it!

This is how we fight our own cynicism. This is how we refuse to be caught up in the powers, but subvert them instead. This is how we take small steps that add up to a great journey. As someone said on Sunday, you don’t have to be a soloist, but you should always be part of the choir. Because, as Lucas wrote in his letter, Spider-Man reminds us that with great power comes great responsibility.