by Grace Elena Woods
I’ve been an activist all my life. As an infant born into abuse, I learned that everything was a potential threat. I learned to watch my back, to listen and observe and question everything. I learned to fight. The seeds of revolution were being planted deep within and I was on a trajectory of spiritual activism that would guide me my entire life.
Fast forward to 2007. Anytown USA. In my 60’s, the blood burning in my veins, demanding justice, had cooled somewhat and my attention was on the cell towers. We were out there active and powerless as we watched each tower gain their permit and get built. It was devastating, illegal and protected by BIG money.
One day, they turned their eyes towards my neighborhood and gained access through a well-known Burger Chain. It was practically on top of my house and adjacent to an elementary school. I was in a panic, along with my neighbors, the small businesses, the parents, their children and the faculty of the target school. We sprang into action. We made our picket signs and submitted our editorials, which included appeals from the kids, begging them to protect their school. We appeared before the city council, who whined and lamented again! “Our hands are tied.”
We planned the march and invited the newspaper and local TV station. I’ll never forget that day, it was sleety, windy and cold. Our large group, children included, started our peaceful protest. Cars honked and people waved, MEDIA arrived, and our spirits were lifted. Until the next day. The promised coverage, only a few lines, “Children and parents protest cell tower!” was buried in an obscure place in the middle of the newspaper, and nothing ever appeared on TV.
It was then that my passionate and naïve heart realized that the game was rigged, and no amount of protesting was ever going to fix it. I turned in my picket signs and went home, sat on my bed and began to pray. I prayed for our poor lost world and her people, and for a country that refuses to change. I began the long journey of giving up the fight. “There must be a different way to activate the healing, in my own heart and in those who act without it.”
I sent courage to my neighborhood and to the kids. I wondered if anyone would buy my house with a cell tower on top of it? And wouldn’t you know, somehow, someone found out that a tiny arm of the All-Powerful Historical Preservation Society extended all the way to our ‘hood’ and miraculously covered the proposed cell tower site.
We immediately went to their offices and told our story and voiced our concerns and they listened and expressed their outrage, since, of course, they hadn’t been notified.
Well, that was the end of that. We never heard another word about THAT cell tower. And to this day, I’ve never carried another picket sign.
Grace Elena Woods describes herself as living the dream as a writer, poet and Gramma in the Southwest, USA.