Think Tank recently lost our dear friend Marilyn Demma after her long battle with cancer. Marilyn was a member of the founding team that established the first Bridges out of Poverty steering group in our nation. She also helped to establish Circles in Southwest Ohio. Think Tank Executive Director Marlo Fox reflects on Marilyn’s unifying presence as an example for fostering greater unity and justice in the world around us.
I've always been intrigued by the quiet ones. You know, those that take up very little airspace yet have a gravity and strength in their words and presence.
Marilyn was one of those people. I first met her when I was in my mid-twenties. Being green and having taken on a significant leadership position, I was keenly attentive to the leaders around me.
While Marilyn had served her community in many capacities, at the time she was essentially a professional collaborator. She facilitated and participated on numerous councils working to help families and children facing poverty and inequity. Among these groups were representatives from government, nonprofits, the faith community as well as health and education. They brought to the table issues of social justice, bureaucracy and resources, as well as stories of human tragedy and resiliency.
As you can imagine, the parties around these tables came with differing opinions and sometimes conflicting agendas. Some were competing for resources. They found themselves at different locations across political, economic and religious spectrums. Marilyn, however, had a graceful way of navigating all of this diversity.
She understood that we each came in with our baggage: Selfish motives, judgment, bias. Yet she didn't use these weaknesses as weapons to show herself superior or win an argument, as I had seen others do.
She would simply remind us of who we are and why we were there, and push us towards our collective aspiration. It was a form of advocacy that I observed among several quiet leaders of her generation, as they patiently and diligently worked to move mountains through relationships.
One of the things I've missed the most in this painful year is the ability to physically sit around tables with people. There's something special about coming together with people from different tribes to pursue something beyond our borders and bigger than ourselves.
In the absence of this coming together, we've turned to social media to connect us. And I imagine many of us would agree that while invaluable, it comes up short. In attempting to wrestle with poverty and the pains of our nation, we've resorted to call-outs, judgments, opinions, and deepening tribalism. We all feel the weight of this polarization, and it’s literally waged war on our nation's foremost institutions.
This weight is a mixed bag of deep heaviness and great potential for transformation in our families, communities and nation. Many of us hunger to be a part of positive change. It will require us to lay down our own egos and affirm our commitment to our neighbors, from all neighborhoods, to be the kind of people we were meant to be for one another.
This is the kind of leadership that, like Marilyn’s, brings real change to our communities.
By Marlo Fox, Executive Director, Think Tank Inc.
Photo by Pawel Chu for Unsplash