Picking The Right Fights

​Thousands of my friends and colleagues across the state and country woke up yesterday morning having had their livelihoods threatened while they slept. A late-night executive order was issued from the office of the president that paused all federal funding that pays our salaries and supports the work we do for our youth, families, and communities.

The memo gave almost zero details as to what the pause would entail; even by the end of the day yesterday, none of us had been given any assurances that our jobs—or our opportunity to serve—were safe. The memo simply stated that funding would be paused while the administration assessed how the money was being spent.

I believe that's a good idea. Everyone in leadership at that level has a right—a responsibility—to assess how the money they oversee is being spent. There is, however, a good and a bad way of going about that.

I personally would probably say, "Let's take a look at how the money is being used and determine whether this is good stewardship going forward."

A bully, however, would take your money first and then make you prove you are worthy of having it back—while making you live in fear as he decides, without you.

This memo took the approach of the latter.

Of course, this is all illegal. A judge put a temporary pause on the pause yesterday afternoon. But this is the fight this president wanted from the start. Now, my colleagues, our programs, and I have been reduced to pawns in his battle.

In 2023, this president said he would fight the 1974 law that prevents a president from unilaterally sending out a memo in the middle of the night to immediately halt funding—funding that provides jobs, sustains communities, and supports families. Funding that enables a father to provide for his two teen sons.

And now, he has sent that memo. And now, he has the fight he wanted to pick.

Some have described the anxiety and chaos many of my colleagues are experiencing as a natural consequence of the memo. That may be true—but it was also premeditated.

The emotions were the plan. They were not an unforeseen outcome.

Because emotions fuel a fight. The outrage sparked by a memo only fuels the emotions of those who support it—emotions that serve to strengthen a man’s push for sole control over how every dollar is spent in this country. Sole control to take back money the moment he disagrees with how it's being used.

Even money that, through constitutional processes, was already promised to the people and communities who depend on it.

Yes, I am anxious this morning. Yes, it would have been easier to stay silent than to write this.

But there is great power in having the details. There is even greater power in withholding them. And yet, the greatest power of all is in sharing them. Not opinions about a man—but the truth about how his choices impact the people I care deeply about.

In the end, I may end up without a job.

But that will not stand in the way of my fight.

A fight I live to pick, even if imperfectly.

A fight commissioned by my God—not by anyone who pretends to be God.

A God who created diversity. A God who died on the cross for equity. A God who enters into the heart and soul of every human He has ever created with the same message: You are included.

No memo can stop that commission.

I am grateful to be surrounded by so many in this state and beyond who serve their communities with love, heart, passion, devotion—and fight.

Theirs is the fight that makes me most emotional.

A late-night memo may suggest you are expendable.

But I have been in your communities.

And your communities tell a very different story.

Thank you. To me not a one of you will ever be expendable.