A friend posted on Facebook that she needed some help moving and gave a window of hours. I didn’t go – I stayed home and cleaned my house and kept my eyes on my children. I suppose those were noble enough causes; in any case, it is what I did. Super Grover’s value is that he shows up, not that he’s useful. And that’s the joke, I think even visible to the kids. The person who is struggling ends up figuring it out on their own after he arrives. The thing is, you can’t be useful until you are there. Super Grover at least creates the possibility of helpfulness by being present. That day, I was not there for my friend. I cannot be a better person than I am, until I do.

I was reflecting on this as I was walking back from the grocery store with $30 worth of things for my family to eat in my backpack. It was dark and unseasonably warm. If I can walk, I do. My gift to my grandkids is what greenhouse gases I don’t put into the atmosphere. On the way, I was passed by an acquaintance who I like a whole lot. He didn’t see me – he bikes even more than I do, and that’s what he was doing then. I find his ways of being encouraging – he is also committed to greener transportation.

My mind wandered to leaving a training I had given. As we were being shown out the door, we were asked where we parked. “We walked,” the person with me said to her, and the host looked genuinely surprised. My companion then motioned at me with a smile, “Her craziness is rubbing off on me. She walks and bikes everywhere.” Every time I opened Google Maps for directions, I checked how long it would take to walk; it seems they’ve started to as well. The funny thing is that I got back into bicycle commuting because of the influence of a former colleague. “If he can do that, surely so can I.” Sometimes I worry that my efforts to live more ecologically soundly are surely a lost cause on the scale of me to the rest of the billions of people. But then there are those moments I realize I am not alone. Sometimes I am the reason other people are not alone.

This morning I had wanted to write about the necessity of commitment. How you cannot be a leader or a doer of good unless you are willing to stick through the cause when it is messy and when it is hard. There are times it feels futile and you need to stick with it. That an orientation of consumerism or conditionality (I’ll only be here if it benefits me, or if things happen the way I want them) was counter-indicated to leadership. The way out is through; you need to be in it to get through. But there are stories I need to keep and cannot tell, not now at least. I struggled to illustrate the point.

When I was part of University Unitarian Church in Seattle, WA, the closing words to extinguish the chalice were, “We extinguish this flame but not the light of truth, the warmth of community, or the fire of commitment. These we carry in our hearts until we are together again.” (Cultural note: Unitarian Universalists often, but not always, start their worship services by lighting a candle that is in a chalice, and end them by blowing it out.)

Fire of commitment. The mental image I’d always had with those words was more bonfire than Bic lighter. Something strong, all consuming, self-sustaining, bright and hot. But maybe not. Commitment, at its simplest, is just showing up. It’s the steps to the grocery store that convince someone else of a different world. It’s the rising to the occasion that presents. It is being there.

I am an imperfect practitioner of my own values. The thing about commitment is that it’s a fire that burns only when we fuel it, and sometimes it’s not very bright. But it is there. Candles still give off light.