Make a stand and sit

They say not to sweat the small stuff, but it is often the little things that get under our skin: the rude driver at the lights, the long queue at the bank, the shocking price of butter.

It’s the cold caller in the middle of our favourite show, the neighbour mowing the lawn early in the morning again, or the small stain on a brand-new shirt. Each seemingly insignificant annoyance can feel like a tiny stone in our shoe, or a barely-visible splinter in our fingertip – minor discomforts that can get to feel unbearable.

As a young Christian I was taught to suck it up and just keep smiling. I was quoted verses about being patient in affliction, slow to anger, prepared to turn the other cheek. The more I focused on developing the art of bearing the little frustrations, the more I began to behave as though all injustice should be accepted as an inevitable part of life. I began to believe that the best Christian response is always to give in, sit back and do nothing.

The story of one 42-year-old seamstress challenges me. She was a devout Christian who chose not to accept the injustice she was experiencing. One evening, after a long, exhausting day at a department store, a place where she was not allowed to measure up the customers because white women didn’t want to be touched by Black employees, she did what could have been seen as ‘unchristian’ – she ran out of patience. She broke the rules, refusing to give up her seat in the front row of the bus to a white person when the bus got full. She caused a scene, staying put even when the bus driver threatened her with arrest. Later, in police custody, she asked for a glass of water, which was denied, because the water in jail was for white people only: her polite request only serving to highlight further the daily indignities Black Americans faced at that time.

Mrs Rosa Parks was not a newcomer to the world of civil rights. When she wasn’t working as a seamstress she was doing voluntary work documenting cases of rape and sexual assault against Black women kidnapped and raped by white men from the Klu Klux Klan. But one day all those hours spent quietly serving the needs of those around her was not enough. She had to stand up for what she believed was a compromise of her Christian commitment – which she did quietly sitting down on the 2857 bus. Later she famously said: “The only tired I was, was tired of giving in.”

Park’s simple act of resistance, which took place 70 years ago this year, prompted the Montgomery Bus Boycott. It was the spark that ignited the civil rights movement that championed non-violent direct action to bring social change. Four days after her arrest, a 26-year-old pastor named Martin Luther King Jr. stood up before 5,000 people at Holt Street Baptist Church and challenged them to follow Rosa Park’s example. He said: “If we are wrong, Jesus of Nazareth was merely a utopian dreamer that never came down to earth. If we are wrong, justice is a lie. Love has no meaning. And we are determined here in Montgomery to work and fight until justice runs down like water, and righteousness like a mighty stream.”

My early Christian teaching was not entirely helpful. Sometimes the small things that annoy us are splinters of bigger problems that run counter to everything the Bible stands for. Segregation on the Montgomery buses, for example, was a denial of the fundamental Christian teaching that each of us is created equally. It was not just a civil rights problem, but a dangerous heresy.

As I reflect on Rosa Parks’ act of resistance I ask myself – am I really just supposed to accept the injustices I see around me? While the frustration of a noisy neighbour or a ruined T-shirt may indeed be simply an opportunity for me to practice patience, what about those other occasions – when my foster children’s support is taken away, when a young friend is treated badly in an interview, when my neighbour can’t afford to eat, when children on the other side of the world are deliberately targeted in conflict zones? Am I really supposed to simply turn the other cheek then? Or is there a way, still with patience, gentleness and self-sacrifice, to undertake a small act of resistance?

Whether we choose to sit somewhere different, speak up for those who are struggling, or make quiet choices that promote the dignity of others, we can be encouraged by Rosa Parks’ example that sometimes it is the little things that make the biggest difference.