The role of advocacy in our life

A Sister-friend who works in a Catholic health care system sent the following reflection to me earlier this week. For any of us who have family members or friends in any aging services community (nursing home, assisted living, independent living) we should consider seriously the primary role of advocacy our relationship with them imposes. This reflection sets advocacy in a broad context that I thought was worth sharing.



Reflection on Advocacy
• There is no reason to believe that advocacy belongs to specialists such as attorneys, educators, social workers, clergy and public officials. To advocate for someone is simply to speak out with strength, knowledge and wisdom on his or her behalf. We do that all the time, whether or not we are aware of it: in conversations at work, in our children’s schools, in our places of worship, in our neighborhoods. To advocate for another person is to know what you want the world to be like - and to be willing to stand by that.

• Advocacy misses the mark when it is not a course of action we have chosen consciously in order to make an explicit point. Busy, too attentive to long-range goals at the expense of the momentary opportunity, or afraid of the fallout from an unfavorable response, we give up too easily. Advocacy by default is weak, unclear, often misconstrued. You can’t advocate effectively for someone unless you are willing to take the time to know what he or she really needs. Many of the actions we do initiate lack focus, miss the bigger picture, and fail to communicate what we believe to be the valuable core messages of our lives. To advocate for someone is to paint with conviction, with a wide brush, on the canvas you have been given.


• When you advocate effectively for another person you are acting out of your deepest integrity and clarifying your sense of mission. The Sufi mystic poet Rumi, in speaking about the transformative power of advocacy, compared it to the single-minded quest of a wild animal for the nourishment to sustain life: Think that you’re gliding out from the face of a cliff like an eagle. Think you’re walking like a tiger walks by himself in the forest. You’re most handsome when you’re after food. Spend less time with nightingales and peacocks. One is just a voice, the other just a color. The safest and most reliable way to learn who you are meant to be is by finding your place in genuine community. To advocate for someone is to find your true voice and your true colors.

• You don’t think anyone wants to hear your opinion?
• 1. If you don’t express your opinion, it’s as though you don’t have it.
• 2. Be sure your opinion is worth being expressed – do you need to give it more time and thought to ensure that it won’t cause more harm than good?
• 3. If you have expressed your opinion clearly and respectfully - in the right place, at the right time and to the right person – you have begun to be an advocate.
• 4. The next step is to double-check how you are being perceived and understood. If you’re not sure, ask.
• 5. In general, try to avoid making assumptions about a person or a situation, because a wrong guess or poorly developed theory can end up invalidating the good points you are raising.
• 6. Taking the trouble to establish your credibility can give your advocacy a surprising influence. To advocate effectively empowers you for future service to others.

• American poet Emily Dickinson wrote: If I can stop one heart from breaking, /I shall not live in vain;/ If I can ease one life the aching,/ Or cool one pain,/ Or help one fainting robin/ Unto his nest again,/ I shall not live in vain. At its most basic, advocacy is the ability to recognize the worth of another person and act out of love for the sake of his or her well-being without counting the cost. To advocate for the healing of another person, even one, ensures that your life’s meaningfulness will contribute to the healing of the wider world. – Rev. Enid L. Ross
God is in the slums, in the cardboard boxes where the poor play house. God is in the silence of a mother who has infected her child with a virus that will end both their lives. God is in the cries heard under the rubble of war. God is in the debris of wasted opportunity and lives, and God is with us if we are with them. – Bono, lead singer of U2

The world is a dangerous place, not because of those who do evil, but because of those who look on and do nothing. – Albert Einstein


Only those who respect the personality of others can be of real use to them. – Albert Schweitzer



Thursday Reflection Service at University Medical Center Brackenridge
September 5, 2013