People Can Change

(and other disruptive truths from my city council campaign)

{self-portrait}

When I was sixteen, I spent a week at church camp with a little hodge-podge youth group I joined as an escape hatch from the church my family attended. That one muggy week of camp, not even five miles up the road from my house, spelled freedom.

I had the time of my life organizing myself into an assembly of random friendship. We ate camp food and told camp stories and yes, of course, most of us fell in camp love (unrequited or otherwise.) I soaked up every second, staying awake late into the night with my buddies, vexing Janet, our counselor, with night giggles.

I wanted to stay forever. Which is why it’s still so strange to me that on Saturday morning, my best friend Sarah and I willingly left the campgrounds for a few valuable hours to “canvass” the local area with our beloved youth pastor, Dave. (For those of you lucky enough to not know, canvassing in the Christian sense was a sanitized term for door-to-door evangelism.)

I remember where I was standing when he talked us into going, but nothing else. Not a single door. Not a single conversation. I’m guessing I spent most of my time hoping hard that no one would be home when we knocked. (Back then, I convinced myself God wasn’t privy to my thoughts if I didn’t tack an “amen” to the end. I see this differently now.)

I lacked something - critical thinking skills? healthy imagination? agency? - that would have allowed me to understand the sheer absurdity of a sheltered child being tasked with “saving” a stranger. I didn’t interrogate the toxicity of my unspoken belief that knocking on “poor” houses was my safest bet. I didn’t question the guilt that rippled beneath my choices or acknowledge the relief I inevitably felt on the other side of earning God’s favor for doing something that didn’t feel right.

I only knew I hoped no one was home.

Fast forward 30+ years. I’m canvassing again, this time with a slightly different purpose - to encourage my neighbors to get out and vote - for me, please! - in November’s municipal election. Flexing my late-bloomer critical thinking skills, I can acknowledge that canvassing of all stripes is just a few degrees away from peddling a Kirby vacuum or a set of knives.

It takes some deep-down inspirational self-talk to get myself out the door. The latent church camp experiences definitely don’t help my cause but I’m also just a garden-variety introvert - we’re never going to be eager to knock on a stranger’s door. But just like writing or walking or waking up early to catch the sunrise, I never regret the effort on the other side.

Cory helped me reframe this complicated enterprise by reminding me I’m just introducing myself to more of my neighbors - no mental gymnastics or manipulation required. So, that’s what I do.

“Hi, my name is Shannan Martin and I live over on 5th Street. I’m running for City Council and I wanted to introduce myself.”

I haven’t met any meanies, though there was the man who calmly yelled, “Go away” through his open screen, and another who growled “I don’t answer questions like that,” then in the very next breath, softened. “You seem nice enough.”

The God’s honest truth is that I’m not convinced any of this will win the election. I’m not convinced it’s a winning strategy, or even that such a thing exists. There are “safe” districts in Goshen, and then there’s mine, where my opponent won his seat four years ago by 2 votes and where someone chooses to shingle their roof in an American flag after a vicious hail storm. We’re a mashup of worlds, mostly Latine and White folks, the vast majority of whom are struggling working class people trying to get through the day and land somewhere relatively soft. We all want a good life, though we might not agree on how to read the map that gets us there.

I hold no certainty that most care enough to vote on November 7th. It feels like a coin toss at best and a fool’s errand if I think about it hungry or in need of a nap. Most people don’t vote in local elections. Period. Compared to the rest of Goshen, turnout in District 3 is an abysmal half of an already miniscule count.

I am told I need 266 votes to win. There’s no sure-fire way to know if I’ll have them, or even to assume that I might. My soul is at peace with this, mostly because of Dan.¹

It was a Saturday when I knocked on his door with my trusty volunteer, Edward. Dan’s well-worn home was decked out in patriotic memorabilia, which signals something different than it used to. I took a gulp of air and knocked anyway. When he stepped outside I mentally logged my assumptions, rushing through my introduction because I was sure it wouldn’t matter.

At some point, I don’t recall why, he shared, “I’m a musician.”

Trying, as always, to connect, I answered, “My son is a musician!”

“Oh yeah? What does he play?”

“Mostly guitar.”

He turned abruptly and went back inside. I glanced back at Edward, uncertain about what I’d said wrong. Then, he stuck his head out again and simply said, “Follow me.”

One more uncertain glance at Edward, and then… we did.

We followed Dan past the kitchen sink, through the low-ceilinged living room with the Nebraska game blasting from an enormous television, and out into the garage, which he had converted into his “man cave.” Guitars were everywhere. A stuffed falcon and the head of a bear adorned the walls, along with Harley Davidson memorabilia and a surprising number of swords. A bloody Joker figurine sat perched on the kick drum of a kit positioned next to a full sized American flag. Across from that was a Confederate flag. At some point, he had taken the time to wind a colorful strand of Christmas lights down a support post.

Dan showed us a guitar he painted for his autistic grandson then sat at the baby grand piano swathed in mover’s blankets and played a few bars of a song he’s been working on.

All the while, I struggled to integrate my assumptions, my conflictions, my values and closely-held opinions about the boundaries of my personal grace. I struggle even now. Surface judgements aside, his red flag was orange. It is violence. A danger to precious people. Yet for most of my life, I did not understand it in that way. Regretfully, I had learned a different narrative that had to actively be replaced with the truth. Where exactly do you file a mess like that?

I am not the same person I was at age 16, trying to get people “saved.”

I am not the same person I was at 27, working at a political think-tank in DC alongside welfare “experts” who were paid to punish the poor through a veneer of helpfulness without knowing or loving a single person whose lives our policies would touch.

I am not the same person I was at age 35, moving into a complicated neighborhood, totally unprepared.

I am not the person I was at age 38, when I cast my first vote for a Democrat.

I’m not even the person I was at 46, when I registered as a candidate on the Democrat ticket.

What changed me over time were the people near me, the ones willing to get closer and be near, to listen, to walk through the humble hallways of my ordinary life and invite me into their sacred spaces. Our neighbors have the power to actively alter our relational and ideological DNA. As we allow our eyes to adjust to their lens on the world, it slowly changes ours.

I am my own living proof that people can change, if only we are open, attentive, and willing to take a chance on someone who might look or live or believe differently.

That late summer Saturday, we eventually made our way back out to Dan’s porch. He thanked us for coming in. He said he will consider voting for me.

Win or lose, this sort of canvassing is my reminder to keep finding ways to move toward my neighbor, as disruptive as it is sure to be.

Onward we grow.

Love,

Shannan

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Tell Me:

Where have you seen change in your life? Do you hold hope that change is possible, even (especially) when it feels murkiest?

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This + That

:: Cory and I are three episodes in on Amazon Prime’s Jury Duty, a documentary-style reality show about the inner workings of a jury trial through the experience of one “juror” who does not realize everyone else involved is a paid actor. It’s light and funny and compelling. Most of all, Ronald is already my hero.

:: September is apple season! I recently redeemed a bag of uninspiring apples by peeling and chopping them, then cooking them down a bit with brown sugar, cinnamon, a dash of salt, and some butter. I warm some up in the morning and top with plain Greek yogurt and this homemade granola (so easy! so delicious!) and tell myself it’s healthy. (LET ME HAVE THIS.)

:: I forgot to tell you - I was on Jen Hatmaker’s podcast! We had a ridiculous blast talking about friendship, ice cream, and other nonsense.

:: The garden is in her encore era and it always breaks my heart to watch her go. I will admire the Cosmos as long as I’m able.

:: I am working my way through Sacred Belonging,² a devotional for for people (like me) who feel itchy about devotionals. “Our world and everything in it tell a story of belonging - a belonging established at the very beginning, in accordance with God’s desire for all of creation to be in concert together.” (Author Kat Armas is one of my most trusted theologians. Find her Substack here.)

1. Not his real name.

2. Bookshop.org affiliate link! This means if you shop using this link it sends a few cents my way, at no extra charge to you. Bookshop is my favorite way to extract myself from that A-word while also supporting independent bookstores.