The Friends Committee on National Legislation (FCNL) is a nonpartisan Quaker lobby group. The following is from their monthly newsletter. I think it's a nice follow up to our previous conversation about feeling "helpless." There are many things you can do right in your own community to bring about change.
Conversations and Change
As you continue to work with FCNL for new policies in Washington, we offer some suggestions for effective conversations with your elected representatives or with people in your community who, like you, might be in a position to influence your elected representatives:
Begin at the center. Embrace the issue that you care about, ask yourself what are its most essential elements? Why? The answers to these questions will inform your conversations.
Make time for a conversation. Whether you are talking with an elected official, a next door neighbor, a classmate, or a member of your meeting or congregation, find a time when you can meet personally and hear the other person.
Ask. Maybe you know how the person feels about the topic that you are concerned about — but maybe you don’t. Expect to learn from the reasons or experiences that inform her or his ideas.
Offer. Contribute your own perspectives, worries, and experiences to the conversation — not as arguments for your point of view—but as simple human exchange.
Ask. Maybe the other person shares your sense that a solution is needed — maybe even the solution that you propose or support.
Stay in touch. You have begun a relationship that makes room for change. Find ways to keep the relationship open and lively.
Watch closely for change. Real change usually hides somewhere behind drama, beneath the headlines. Affirm the small changes you see in language, in acknowledgments, in understanding. You'll see the larger changes — like changes we've seen in Congress this year — built on the relationships you have created.
Reprinted from the Washington Newsletter (June 2007) published by the Friends Committee on National Legislation.
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