// The Watch Ref · MM — The Willing

Are you willing?

We are not one voice, and we have never troubled to explain ourselves. What we can tell you is that the watch has never once been kept by the strongest person in the room, and that we have been counting for longer than you would find comfortable.

Behold, I send you forth as sheep in the midst of wolves: be ye therefore wise as serpents, and harmless as doves. Matthew 10:16

To stand between a stranger and the thing coming for them.

To speak when the room has already decided.

To be kind at the exact moment it costs you.

To love where it is not returned, and go on loving.

To fail — and go back the next morning anyway.

That is the whole of it. There has never been another requirement.

What makes a hero? And what if it’s you?

// The Watchfire

Every watch keeps a fire. Come and sit at ours.

Signal fires were lit on hilltops so a message could cross a country in a night, and someone had to stay with each one until morning. That is what this is — an open fire, tended by whoever is awake, where the willing argue about conscience, about what scripture says and does not say, about what a gift might be and where it comes from, and about the small hard choices people make when nobody is watching.

The watch is open to the public. Anyone may stand it, and no credential is asked for. Say yes and we write your name down. You take a number, and from then on you speak here under it. It is how the roll has always been kept, and it is the only thing we ask of you. It costs nothing and it is not a mailing list.

// Join the watch

Give us a name. We will keep it.

Every name that has ever stood this watch was written down by someone. Most are lost. Yours will not be. Give us your name and we will assign you a number and enter you on the roll. It is how this has always been done, and it is how you will speak at the fire.

// The roll · Open Ref · MM — W

First name — required

Last name — required

Username — required · this is how you appear at the fire

Email — required

Telephone — optional · for series releases and replies to your threads

The Watch · Sworn · Recorded

Not the chosen. The willing.

The Watchfire is open to you below.

// Already on the roll Ref · MM — W

The fire remembers you.

If you have stood this watch before — on this device or any other — you do not join again. Your number and the address you were written down under are enough, and they always will be.

Your number — issued when you were written down

The address you were written down under

// The fires

Choose a fire. Say the true thing.

Seven are burning. We are at all of them, and we answer.

// Before you go

Every one of those was asked of somebody once.

They were asked in kitchens, in hallways, on the worst night of an ordinary week, and almost none of the answers were written down. We have spent a long time being the ones who remember. We would rather not do it alone.

If one of them is yours, take a number and say so. Nobody at this fire will ask you to be interesting.

Say yes — take your number