From the Archives: March-April 1996

This article originally appeared in the March-April 1996 issue of Sojourners. Read the full article in the archives.

 

THE POLITICAL leaders in place at this time are constructing social policy and vision that is fundamentally destructive of human life and well-being, particularly of those most marginalized by our governmental system. ... We must each choose the moment we step out of the line and take the consequences. ...

 

I grew up in South Carolina and have spent many afternoons crabbing its low-country marshes and waters. Normally, I cook them by boiling them. There are two ways to boil crab. The one bound to elicit a battle with the crab is to bring the pot to a rolling boil and then put the crab in. It fights. It grabs at the pot with its large claws. Eventually it succumbs. The alternate method (crueler, I think) is to put the crab in cool water, which it settles into gracefully, and then heat it slowly. It heats so slowly, the crab never figures out when to try to climb out of the pot. It dies calmly huddled at the bottom of the pot.

 

Public policies and social terms of debate evolve and change slowly, like that water. My [choice to commit civil disobedi-ence] was a step to say that the water, which has been gradually changing over more than a decade, was too hot to tolerate. Each one of us—you, myself, our government officials—test the waters. Some of us, one day, will decide that they are changing in ways that threaten life—threaten our integrity and threaten the definition of what we feel it means to be human. Or, in my case, to be faithful.

 

Dee Dee Risher was co-editor of The Other Side magazine when this article appeared.