The debt ceiling crisis brought out some of the worst of people’s tendencies in the country. Today, many of us are asking what can be done to get things moving in a better direction. Here are five questions that can help you and others bring out the best in ourselves, and which you can put to use immediately in your own life, work and community.

I thought to draw on these questions this morning because so many of us are so deeply frustrated and angry about the state of affairs in the country. Oftentimes we can feel like we can’t change the nation’s trajectory, that we are prisoners to current conditions.

It doesn’t seem that a “change” in the tone and substance of Washington, D.C., in many state capitals, or for that matter in many communities, will come anytime soon. Indeed, such change may materialize only when the country demands and expects it. I believe we’re moving in that direction, but we’re not there yet.

But where does that leave you? Must we stand idly by and wait for others to change the nation’s course? Should we simply put our heads down and tend to our own affairs? Do we believe that our own actions do not matter?

My answer is simple and direct: what each of us does daily does matter.  It matters to what happens in our own communities, in our workplaces, in our relationships. It matters to who each of us is, and whether we believe we are staying true to ourselves. If these things don’t matter, then what does?

So, on this day, the day the debt ceiling crisis has come to an end (at least for now), what can we do? Here are five questions I’d urge you to ask yourself, to answer, and to act on.

• How can I come together with others to truly make a difference?
• How do I make the kinds of leaps in my life and in efforts in my community to have the impact and life I seek?
• How can my participation in the community reflect the best of my personal values?
• How can I unleash the potential of myself and others?
• How do I find the courage and humility to take such a path?

Over the past weeks, I have traveled to Kansas City, Missouri; Battle Creek, Michigan; Champaign/Urbana, Illinois; Detroit, Michigan; Columbus, Ohio; San Francisco, California; and Brazil, among other places, and no matter where I go, I hear people yearning to make a difference in their communities and to live their lives in meaningful ways. Each of us can do this, and the questions above can help. Their simplicity is what we need to grapple with right now.

As you move ahead, I ask you to keep the words of Dorothy Day, the Catholic social activist, in mind. These words have inspired me for years:

“Some people say, what is the sense
of our small effort?

They cannot see that we must lay one
brick at a time, take one step at a time.

A pebble cast into a pond causes ripples that
spread in all directions. Each one of
our thoughts, words and deeds is like that.

No one has a right to sit down and
feel hopeless.

There is too much work to do.”

A dynamic public speaker, Rich Harwood is a frequent keynote for foundations and national organizations. He is an expert contributor on national and syndicated media outlets including MSNBC, NPR, The Christian Science Monitor, CNN’s Inside Politics, The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, Special Report with Brit Hume, C-SPAN, and many others. He is also the author of Hope Unraveled: The people’s retreat and our way back (2005), Make Hope Real: How we can accelerate change for the public good (2008) and numerous studies, articles and essays chronicling vital issues of our time. His most recent written work, Why We’re Here: The Powerful Impact of Public Broadcasters When They Turn Outward, is being published and distributed in Spring 2011. You can follow him on twitter @RichHarwood and facebook.com/richharwood.

You can read Rich’s posts every Tuesday on State of the Re:Union’s website.

Do you feel like your elected representatives are listening to you?

Americans from all walks of life are concerned about whether those in Washington will reach a bipartisan agreement to raise the debt ceiling. There’s only 12 days left, and yet we’ve seen the same old partisan games and political posturing.

The negotiations in Washington can make the debate seem miles away from your hometown, but the lawmakers in D.C. were elected by us to work for us, and we at No Labels believe they should be held accountable for their actions. So, amidst war, a debt crisis and high unemployment weighing us down, who should be steering our lawmakers toward progress? In our dynamic democracy, it’s important to remember that viable change comes ultimately and thankfully from the constituents – real people, back home, speaking up for what they believe in and making their voices heard.

Those that make the most noise nowadays tend to be on the far right and the far left, and that’s reflected in the behavior of our politicians. They’re constantly bashing the other side, issuing an ultimatum here, signing a pledge there. Rampant hyper-partisanship is impeding the bipartisan solutions our nation so desperately needs right now.

It doesn’t have to be that way. The vast majority of Americans are tired of the petty partisan gridlock. They want their leaders to work together to find bipartisan solutions and know that compromise is essential to progress. We at No Labels want to amplify those voices so our elected officials begin to hear them loud and clear.

It’s going to take people at the local level to clean up this toxic political atmosphere. Change happens from the bottom up, and since we launched in December No Labels has been working everyday to grow our citizen-led movement.

We’re organizing in all 435 congressional districts in all 50 states, and we’ve made great progress. No Labels is 100,000 members strong, and we have 350 grassroots Citizen Leaders in 230 unique congressional districts. These Citizen Leaders are building support for the bipartisan No Labels approach — from Lisle, Illinois and Bowling Green, Kentucky to Oakland, California and Boston, Massachusetts. Each day, new No Labels Citizen Leaders join the movement to advocate for compromise in their own communities.

This Monday, July 18th, No Labels hosted a National Citizen Leadership Meeting where over 150 leaders from 35 states traveled to D.C. for a day of empowering citizen leaders to organize and energize their communities around the nation. This was a chance for No Labels founding leaders and staff to meet face-to-face with the individuals who are working to make change happen at every level of the political spectrum by speaking up and speaking out. The day culminated with a demonstration against hyper-partisan gridlock and in support of a bipartisan solution to our debt crisis.

If politicians are hearing from enough voices at the local level, they will listen and they will react. In order to get compromise, politicians must see that there is a constituency for compromise. That’s what the leaders in our citizen-led movement are building towards with the support of other like-minded people in their area.

No Labels Citizen Leader Carol Dietz of Lisle, Illinois, put it well, explaining that she joined No Labels as a grassroots leader “because we are at a critical juncture for the future of our country. We can no longer let the extremes of either party block the rational compromise we need to solve our problems. We can no longer be silent bystanders – we must make our voices heard!”

Reviving our political process may seem an impossible task, but think about it – most Americans already want their lawmakers to work together, just like they work with others at their jobs every day. In the end, we elect our representatives in Washington — it’s up to us to step up and make our voices heard. The real power lies with us.

State of the Re:Union is thrilled to be working with No Labels. Politics can feel so toxic at times and can be a source of division. So many of these political battles are played out on a national stage, but from spending time in so many wonderful communities throughout the country, we know how much the end result of this type of partisanship can hit locally. Although No Labels discusses D.C. a good deal, their reach, their message, their mission is permeating through communities small and large throughout the country. Be sure to look for their pieces, appearing regularly on the State of the Re:Union website.

The debate over what to do about the nation’s debt ceiling only gets sillier by the day.  Demands and counter-demands are producing little progress, which leaves the debate at an impasse. So what to do? Of paramount importance is to restore people’s faith in their leaders and themselves. One key step: The president should immediately call an open, televised roundtable discussion with congressional leaders as he did on health care.

What the country urgently needs is for someone to flip a “circuit breaker” to stop all the noise surrounding the debt crisis debate and provide Americans with a greater sense of coherence and meaning about what is happening, and then to help create some semblance of possibility about how to move ahead. Leaders must demonstrate that it is possible to engage with one another, and to engage the nation, and for us to make progress.

Official White House Photo by Pete Souza

Truth be told, I’m usually against meetings like the health care roundtable. Typically, they turn into staged events where participants simply repeat canned positions. But, as you may recall, the health care roundtable actually led to some substantive discussion about where progress could be made, and where differences remained.  There was real give-and-take, which offered the nation a moment of sanity in a sea of uncontrolled craziness.

Of course, the news media’s instant coverage of the health care roundtable didn’t help at the time. It was framed much like a post-game sports show, where analysts and pundits picked winners and losers, replayed “highlights,” and revved up conflict.

But that’s no reason for inaction now; for we must not minimize the damage to people’s faith in politics and public life from the current debate. A poll in today’s Washington Post reports fewer than a third of Americans hold much confidence in congressional leaders’ handling of the debt crisis, and under one-half in the president. No matter how one looks at the numbers, they’re ugly. People’s sentiments only reinforce a deepening narrative in the nation that we do not have the collective ability to get things done.

A televised meeting would air out the discussion about the nature of the challenge and how we got here. It would explore arguments for different options for dealing with the situation. Make no mistake: in all likelihood this won’t lead to any grand agreement on how to handle the debt crisis. But it would require leaders to make clear arguments, and to be held accountable for their statements, demeanor and posture. And it would require them to take responsibility for this challenge, rather than continue their empty posturing, gamesmanship, and desire for someone else to make the hard decisions.

As in communities, when impasse occurs, there often is agreement that a problem exists, but a lack of common ground about what to do about it.  The current debt crisis is no different. Thus, one of the most important things that can happen at such a point is to acknowledge and “name” the problem, and then determine steps forward that give people a genuine sense that things are moving in a sound direction. Then a debate about subsequent actions can ensue.

Striking just “any deal” to break the current gridlock is not enough, especially one filled with gimmicks, which will only deepen people’s cynicism. At the heart of the debt crisis debate is people’s very faith in our ability to engage productively and get things done. It’s late in the game to call the type of meeting I have in mind, but it’s not too late.

Mr. President, make the call.

A dynamic public speaker, Rich Harwood is a frequent keynote for foundations and national organizations. He is an expert contributor on national and syndicated media outlets including MSNBC, NPR, The Christian Science Monitor, CNN’s Inside Politics, The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, Special Report with Brit Hume, C-SPAN, and many others. He is also the author of Hope Unraveled: The people’s retreat and our way back (2005), Make Hope Real: How we can accelerate change for the public good (2008) and numerous studies, articles and essays chronicling vital issues of our time. His most recent written work, Why We’re Here: The Powerful Impact of Public Broadcasters When They Turn Outward, is being published and distributed in Spring 2011. You can follow him on twitter @RichHarwood and facebook.com/richharwood.

You can read Rich’s posts every Tuesday on State of the Re:Union’s website.