Essays from West of 98: Action and Transformation 2021
In my first essay shortly after New Year’s Day last year, I wrote “I want 2020 to be a year of action. By making it so, we can make this a new decade of transformation.” Then, 2020 happened. On the day I wrote that essay, very few of us had heard of COVID—19. Even fewer of us expected so much of the calendar year—and our lives—to be disrupted by a worldwide pandemic. It was easy to let COVID—19 disrupt our progress whether personally, professionally, or in our communities.
In January 2020, I authored the City of Stamford’s first “State of the City Report” and outlined 20 priority areas for improvement in the community. About six months into our local pandemic response, I was discouraged. It felt like so much of my mayoral time, energy, and mental exertion had been devoted to COVID response and the 20 priority areas had been cast aside. But then I pulled out my report and read through the 20 priorities. I was heartened to see that we had made progress on almost every area and substantial progress on many areas. If we did not make any progress, it was almost entirely a result of the social restrictions associated with the pandemic. I was still not satisfied (I will not be satisfied until everything is done to the best of our ability), but I was encouraged! So with that, I want to renew my challenge that I issued at the beginning of 2020, to carry over into the new year: “I want 2021 to be a year of action. By making it so, and continuing the growth and lessons of 2021, we can ensure the 2020s are a decade of transformation.”
In last year’s essay, and today, I want to point you to the two key words in that challenge: ACTION that leads to TRANSFORMATION.
As I wrote last year, the New Testament book of James reminds us that faith without deeds is dead. But deeds without faith are also futile. A Christian who follows the teachings of Jesus and strives to impact their world must combine both faith and deeds. A simple deed might be beneficial, but what mighty power comes from deeds fueled by faith? Jesus tells us in Matthew 17:20-21 that faith can move mountains. It is faith—the true, deep faith that transforms hearts and minds—that gives real, mighty, awe-inspiring power to our deeds.
That brings us back to action and transformation within our communities. As I wrote last year, and I want to reiterate today, action is necessary if we want to revitalize our rural communities and if we want to reverse decades of population, economic, and cultural decline. But is that enough? Author Wendell Berry writes that, today, a small town is “like a man on an icy slope, working hard to stay in place and yet slowly sliding downhill.” But why is that?
Our needs are easy to identify. It does not require an expert with years of academic training in rural development to identify that our streets are substandard, our water/sewer infrastructure is aging, and we need more housing and more quality of life amenities. But if we fixed all of those things overnight, would people suddenly flock to town for those improvements? I don’t know. This is a great “chicken or the egg?” question I struggle with frequently. If we improve the brick and mortar of our communities, will they attract more people, or must we attract more people to finance the improvement of the brick and mortar?
I think it’s probably both. Mere brick-and-mortar improvements alone are not enough to transform a town. Those are, in some respect, deeds without faith. They are action without transformation. You can make it look better, but you haven’t given people are reason WHY it is a more desirable place to live in the regional/state/national/global landscape. You can pour enormous sums of money into a town and make it look as beautiful as possible, but if you haven’t given people a reason to want to live there, you might just have a beautiful ghost town.
As we move our action and transformation into 2021, we must remember that our actions in our communities must also transform hearts and minds to be effective. I want a beautiful town, but I want a beautiful town that gives more people more reasons to live here.
James Decker is the Mayor of Stamford, Texas and the creator of the “West of 98” website and forthcoming podcast. Contact James and subscribe to these essays at westof98.substack.com.