#110 The Little Bank that Could

Dear all, I'm acutely aware these days of the contradictions involved in living in this world. On the one hand, we're in the midst of a stunningly beautiful spring, all my family is flourishing, I have good work and time to call my own. On the other hand, the things that are wrong in our city, nation and world are too great to number, too deep to fully feel. So I grope forward, testing for solid places to put my feet, with an intention to be as present to both as I can. I'm glad you're on this journey with me. The story I'm sharing this month is one of contradiction and hope as well--and a challenge to imagine a new thing. Love, Pamela The Little Bank that Could Once upon a time, in 1919, a populist farmers movement in North Dakota swept the elections and, among other things, established a state bank to loosen the hold of outside financial interests on the local population. Neither those outside interests nor the private banks in the state were happy with this development, and they bankrolled two years of intensive opposition. Just as the state bank was opening its doors, despite the boycott by local moneyed interests, and thanks to progressives across the nation who bought their start-up bonds, the populists were swept from office. Thus the conservatives ended up in charge of a bank they had fought against for two years. It was a dilemma. But when they looked at the situation from all sides and realized the uses such a bank could serve, they decided to keep it. They liked having a place in the state to keep the state’s money. They liked having a bank that could borrow—bank-to-bank—at a fraction of the interest rate that their government would have to pay a private bank. It made good, conservative fiscal sense. So the bank prospered, decade after decade, under Republicans, under Democrats, prudently investing the state’s money in state infrastructure and state enterprises. And when the great recession hit in 2008, and every one of the other forty-nine states, whose money was tied up in Wall Street, faced a swath of destruction and misery in the wake of that storm, North Dakota sailed through virtually unscathed. Forty-nine states depend on Wall Street for their financing. From the perspective of everyone in the country—except for the 683,932 people who live in North Dakota—this is the only possible way. It may be unfortunate. It may be costly. It may not make any sense. After all, why should governments, when they need money, have no choice but to borrow from private banks at high rates? When they have money, why must they just watch as those big banks take their wealth out of state to invest it who knows where in who knows what? But that’s just the way it is—or so we believe. We have been slaves for so long to the status quo that our minds have been affected. We have come to accept the story that this is how it has to be. We seem to have lost our capacity to imagine a new thing. But the little Bank of North Dakota keeps on chugging along, modestly doing what a public bank can do, showing us, if we would only notice, that there is another way. Some things that have made me hopeful recently: --A woman who has virtually single-handedly created a movement for public banking in the United States (see publicbankinginstitute.org) --The capacity of the soil to nurture life (it's spring!) --All the efforts around the world to develop and share low-cost clean water technology --A high level UN meeting this spring that brought together 600 participants to address a new economic paradigm and create a better set of indicators to measure human well-being than growth in GDP--a call for an ecologically sustainable economy issued by prime ministers, presidents, secretaries of the interior and high-ranking officials all over the world. More resources: Muscle Building for Peace and Justice; a Non-Violent Workout Routine for the 21st Century--an integration of much of my experience and thinking over the years: Download PDF of Muscle Building for Peace and Justice doingdemocracy.com/MB4PnJ02.htm faitheconomyecology.wordpress.com, a website that I've contributed to often (check the archives) www.ourchildrenourselves.org, a home for all the parenting writing I've done over the past 20 years. www.startguide.org. START: a way to study and work together with others to create a better world. For earlier columns, go to www.pamelascolumn.blogspot.com.

#109 Trees in winter

Dear all,
We are enjoying a long visit from our youngest son and his wife and new baby, finding relaxed time for extended family, and wondering at the mild winter and very early spring. Soon my attention will turn from the beautiful bare branches of the trees to spring flowers--so here is a little collection of poems from over the years about trees in winter.
Love,
Pamela
(If you would like to read our annual family letter, which we send out as a Valentine's Day greeting, just let me know.)



Sycamore

The sycamore is bathed in sunlight
Stone church behind in deepest shadow—
Light on dark.

Then a line
Where the branches reach out
Past the church to open sky—
Dark on light.

The tree is whole, unchanged
The background that we choose
Makes all the difference.



Equinox

Winter’s end
a tree stands lone and bare
arms outstretched
aglow in slanting sunlight
ready to receive
new life.



Trees of Winter

I am humbled
by the trees of winter.
I do not know them
yet they are knowable.
In this flat land
each stands out.
I try to paint them in my minds eye
as we drive by,
learn them by heart.

The bold trunks
with zigzagging branches
yielding to bunchy lace,
the slender fingers
that rise and spread
like a fan,
branches that jut out
horizontal,
those that droop,
some open and reaching,
others smoothly closed
like an egg.

(How do they know
where to reach,
when to stop?)

One could call them all trees and be done—
well maybe in summer
when all is green.
But in winter
laid bare for all to see
they stand separate, distinct
crying out to be named.

I would know each one.




DARING TO THINK--
A new economy is possible!

The recent unanimously-affirmed Pittsburgh city ordinance to ban shale gas drilling within city limits counters the legal rights of corporations by creating legal protections for communities and the natural environment, affirming a
“fundamental and inalienable right” to water--not just for residents, but also for ecosystems. It legally recognizes that "all power is inherent in the people, that all free governments are founded on the people’s authority and
consent, and that corporate entities and their directors and managers shall not enjoy special privileges or powers under the law which make community majorities subordinate to them.”
http://www.yesmagazine.org/people-power/pittsburg-bans-natural-gas-drilling




Some things that have made me hopeful recently:

Seattle's ex-police chief, who is now fighting to end the war on drugs.

How the experience of Occupy Philadelphia has built lasting and mutually beneficial relationships among members of the homeless and religious communities.

The work of the Nonviolent Peaceforce in South Sudan, using unarmed civilian peacekeeping to reduce violence and increase the safety and security of civilians affected by violent conflict.

The unanimous vote by City Council of Berkeley to not renew its contract with Wells Fargo Bank, and look for a more socially-minded institution to hold its $300 million account.




Check out: www.ourchildrenourselves.org, a home for all the parenting
writing I've done over the past 20 years.

Also: www.startguide.org. START: a way to study and work together with
others to create a better world.

For earlier columns, go to www.pamelascolumn.blogspot.com.

#109 Sacrifice

Dear all,
Well, we're back from British Columbia and a wonderful visit with Andrew and Erin and our new grandbaby--what a a treat!
The poem is an older one, evoking snow, which we haven't had much of this winter. And hopefully it will balance the essay on human sacrifice, which is just a tad serious. But I continue to marvel at how the conversation about economics has changed in just a few months--one of the things I'm finding most hopeful these days.
Love,
Pamela



Snowed in

Walk to the farmers market at the park
in freshly-falling snow
Bring home potatoes and parsnips
in the pack.
make fruitcakes & potato filling,
Set off for the Messiah sing
in dark and ever-deepening snow
picking through drifts,
raising voices that each count
when most are caught at home.

Snow falling all night
car buried in unplowed street
shovel the walk a third time, then
potato filling balanced in a basket on the arm
set out through knee-deep snow
hoping for the trolley
walking, looking back
then climb gratefully aboard
enjoy the service, the singing, the holiday meal
with those who ventured out
and found their way.

Snow day—stay late in bed
walk to the used bookstore
choosing the route most shoveled,
gather for evening class
with those who can walk.

Visit an elderly neighbor, then
bake a great batch of cookies
fill sixteen little bags
tie with bright ribbon
walk the neighborhood
to storefronts where we’ve shopped
throughout the year,
in snow and winter sunset
giving blessings, getting as much
or more.

As life returns to normal—
cars, work, rush—
give thanks
for these four days.




Human sacrifice

Most of us would see the ability to choose to sacrifice as a good and human thing. I can sacrifice immediate pleasure for a longer-range goal. I can sacrifice what I want for myself in the immediate situation because I see the more pressing need of somebody else. I can sacrifice a cherished dream that is no longer possible without contaminating my future with bitterness. I can cheerfully sacrifice convenience and comfort when community wellbeing or justice calls for it. I can even sacrifice my life, if necessary, in service to a higher good. Though not limited to our species, this seems to be a very human quality.

Of course sacrifice can go to extremes. There is a habit of self-sacrifice, of never acknowledging our value and always putting the perceived needs of others first, in a way that is ultimately helpful to no one. But in general we would choose to hang out with people who have the capacity to make sacrifices; we can trust that they have the larger picture—of not just themselves, not just this moment—in mind.

All of these, however, are examples of people choosing to make sacrifices. It can get a little trickier when the sacrifice is being called for by someone else. If you feel part of that body, it can still work. When the US entered World War II, for example, most people saw themselves as part of that effort. They were willing to make sacrifices—as civilians with fewer amenities and more work, as soldiers with their lives on the line.

But, as our sense of connection to those calling for sacrifice gets thinner, the enthusiasm wanes. At the far end of this spectrum is human sacrifice in the literal historical meaning of the term, where people are thrown into the gaping maw an all-powerful and angry god. Probably few of us would see anything noble or human about this.

It’s not pretty. Those who call for human sacrifice in these situations rarely offer themselves. They are the high priests, claiming to have the ear of the gods, who have gained enough ascendancy over the population, either through sophisticated psychology or coercive threat, that such sacrifice becomes an acceptable part of the religion.

Luckily that’s all way in the past, not something we have to worry about in our enlightened modern era. Or is it? A friend recently suggested—and I have to agree—that we are in the midst of just such a time. The new gods are the financial markets. These “markets” demand billions of dollars from governments to keep them fed, and more and more austerity measures in more and more countries. They must be not only obeyed but placated.

The high priests are the economists and Wall Street gurus. They claim that only they can understand the language of the gods. If we are to have any kind of future, we just have to trust them and do what they say,

The human sacrifice is… us. There may be others in front of us in line—those facing mortgage foreclosures, the unemployed and the poor in our richer countries, and almost everybody in the global south. But the line seems to be speeding up, and the call for human sacrifice on a larger and larger scale is growing. We are being called to sacrifice our jobs, our health, our homes, our very capacity to care for our families, all on the altar of the financial markets. Whole countries are being required to dismantle their safety nets. With gods and high priests like this, no one is safe.

We all do it because this is our religion, and when such big gods are angry, what other choice to you have? The pivotal scene from The Wizard of Oz seems uncannily apt. The Emperor of Oz, the Great and Terrible, is booming terrible commands and smoke is swirling and everybody is shaking in terror, when the little dog pulls back a curtain at the side of the great hall, revealing a little man at the controls of a fancy image-making machine. That clever little man, with the ominous pseudo-reality he has created, is willing to sacrifice everybody else in single-minded pursuit of his own self-interest. Are our high priests of finance any different?

This would be a really good time to pull back the curtain, shake our heads free of the illusion that seems so real, discredit those high priests, and refuse to sacrifice to those gods. Then we could get down to the business of deciding what kind of common good we’re willing to make sacrifices for.




A few things that have made me hopeful recently:

A new baby!

Seattle's ex-police chief, who is now working to end the war on drugs.

President Obama's rejection of a permit for the Keystone XL Pipeline, a decision made possible because of resistance that started in the indigenous communities of Canada and grew into a grassroots direct action effort, joined by a broad coalition of environmental and economic justice groups.

The growing interest in a financial transaction tax, that has the potential to raise billions of dollars, and perhaps discourage the casino mentality in our global financial institutions--at least a little bit.




Check out: www.ourchildrenourselves.org, a home for all the parenting
writing I've done over the past 20 years.

Also: www.startguide.org. START: a way to study and work together with
others to create a better world.

For earlier columns, go to www.pamelascolumn.blogspot.com.
(If the background is too dark to read, I hope you can get a computer whiz
to help--and let me know what you figured out! When I go there on my Mac
via Safari, it's fine.)

If you're in Philadelphia and want to move your money out of a big bank, go
to www.moveyourmoneyphilly.org.

#108 Winter Beauty

Dear all,
I send a mix of winter beauty, a challenge to think freshly about economics, and some hopeful things. Along with friends and loved ones, and a heart for right relationship, what else do we need?
Love,
Pamela




Winter beauty

Leaves fallen, flowers gone
time to change my route, perhaps
leave the park to barren winter,
zip to work more speedily.

I look with care amid the grays and browns
find leaves of plants that bloomed
so brightly in the spring
now lovely muted reds and greens, soft golds,
Study branches bare against the sky
notice all the seed balls
nature’s quiet decoration,
Come across a bird
perched at the top of a tiny tree
singing cheerily.

Next day the muted colors greet my eye again
and tiny balls in towering sycamores
and all the sky
No bird, but a memory of where it sat and sang
as clear as day.

These spare lines and quiet colors
call for a sharper eye
alert for smaller, subtler signs,
The need to look more closely
calls out more from me
whets the appetite,
To persevere in face of grey/brown scarcity
makes every find a treasure.

These small beauties fill me up
the longer route remains my choice
and I am glad.





DARING TO THINK--
A new economy is possible!

Adam Smith, whose ideas about the Invisible Hand of markets serve as the founding principles of free-market economics, has this to say in his book, The Theory of Moral Sentiments: "How selfish soever man may be supposed, there are evidently some principles in his nature, which interest him in the fortunes of others, and render their happiness necessary to him, though he derives nothing from it except the pleasure of seeing it." "To feel much for others and little for ourselves,... to restrain our selfish, and to indulge our benevolent, affections constitutes the perfect of human nature, and can alone produce among mankind that harmony of sentiments and passions in which consists their whole grace and propriety."





Some things that have made me hopeful recently:

Residents of four New York City districts getting the opportunity, for the first time in history, to be directly involved in allocating more than $6 million of the city’s budget, in a grassroots democratic system that allows anyone to present proposals for improvements in their communities.

The unanimous passage by the City Council of Los Angeles of a resolution calling for a constitutional amendment to end corporate personhood (joining voters this year in Boulder, Missoula, and Madison).

The opening of a window for public dissent in Russia, along with the quiet work of many small groups there: promoting conscientious objection to war and alternatives to violence; supporting immigrants, refugees, orphans and young people with special needs; and strengthening educational and social service initiatives.

The Seattle City Council vote to ban single-use plastic bags from groceries and other retail stores, joining a growing trend among cities that embrace green values.





Check out: www.ourchildrenourselves.org, a home for all the parenting
writing I've done over the past 20 years.

Also: www.startguide.org. START: a way to study and work together with
others to create a better world.

For earlier columns, go to www.pamelascolumn.blogspot.com.
(If the background is too dark to read, I hope you can get a computer whiz
to help--and let me know what you figured out! When I go there on my Mac
via Safari, it's fine.)

If you're in Philadelphia and want to move your money out of a big bank, go
to www.moveyourmoneyphilly.org.

#107 Microorganisms and Fertility

There’s something about the earth that calls to me. I love the feel of a good rich soil, knowing how it nourishes the plants we depend on to stay alive. I love making compost, finding earthworms, breaking up clumps of soil with my hands to create a bed for new seeds. So I’m thrilled to be reading a book that links the fertility of our soil with our wealth. At one point it talks about all the millions of microorganisms in every little bit of good soil. Those microorganisms have never gotten much respect. Scientists have been much more interested in how adding fertilizers and pesticides can increase yields. But they also know that after a while you have to add more fertilizers to get an increase, and then you have to add even more to maintain that yield, and then, even with such high dosages, crop yields start to decline.

Why? It seems that those heavy doses of fertilizers and pesticides kill off the microorganisms, so you end up with the soil as a sterile medium, useful only for receiving outside inputs and physically holding up the plants. And for some reason, that’s just not enough to make them thrive. Nobody seems to know exactly what all those microorganisms are and how they all work together, but it turns out that they’re critical to the fertility of the soil.

Well, this got me thinking. None of those microorganisms make the difference by themselves. But that big community all working together creates something of enormous value. It reminds me of human communities, creating culture, creating wealth, creating a fertile place for people to thrive. But I worry that we’re losing our fertility. The external inputs that seemed so hopeful when they were first introduced--the consumer products, the commercial entertainment, the advertising--are killing off the vitality of our soil. For a while it seemed like more inputs led to increased well-being, but as the doses got heavier, the rate of increase in quality of life slowed down, and now, despite continued, ever more feverish expansion of external inputs, our well-being is steadily declining.

The loss of good soil is a serious problem; it’s hard to even get one’s mind around the world-wide implications for feeding our planet in the face of such degradation. But I find reason for hope in my compost pile. It’s not impossible to create good soil. It’s not impossible to nurture the conditions that allow those microorganisms to find each other and start working their magic together again.

Similarly, I think we need to take ourselves very seriously as the microorganisms of society. We don’t have to accept our communities becoming an ever-more sterile medium into which ever-increasing doses of mass culture are necessary to prop up ever-more uniform lives. We can build up our resistance to those outside inputs which are poisoning the soil of our communities. We can put our energies to interacting with each other and creating richness from that interaction. The process remains a mysterious one. We may not know exactly how it happens, but it seems to be true that we, working together, with each other, are the only hope for a renewed fertility of our degraded culture.




DARING TO THINK--
A new economy is possible!

Do people need to eat? A recent economic study asserted that, since agriculture accounts for only 3% of some key indicator, losing that sector would not have much impact on the overall system. This scenario--an economy whose numbers stays healthy without agriculture, while its people try to manage without food--is a mind-bender.

We bend our minds, struggling to make sense of these things, when the answer is right in front of our faces, too simple to see: they don’t make any sense. This way of thinking about economics cannot solve our problems. We’ll have to wade in among the experts, brush past the thick curtains of numbers, and demand that our economic system be based squarely on the needs of its constituent human beings.





Some things that have made me hopeful recently:

The continued success of the Occupy movement in bringing economic justice into the public conversation.

The response of the citizens of Iceland to the collapse of their privatized banking system: refusing to take on the debt, launching penal investigations into those responsible, and rewriting their constitution--with popular input--to free the country from the power of international finance. (google "Why Iceland should be in the news")

Elderly Catholic nuns who are well-informed and sharp about international finance, global trade, and liberation theology.

The Philadelphia Orchard Project, that gathers folks in poor neighborhoods of the city to plant little orchards--beautifying their blocks and enriching their diets at the same time.





Check out: www.ourchildrenourselves.org, a home for all the parenting
writing I've done over the past 20 years.

Also: www.startguide.org. START: a way to study and work together with
others to create a better world.

For earlier columns, go to www.pamelascolumn.blogspot.com.
(If the background is too dark to read, I hope you can get a computer whiz
to help--and let me know what you figured out! When I go there on my Mac
via Safari, it's fine.)

If you're in Philadelphia and want to move your money out of a big bank, go
to www.moveyourmoneyphilly.org.

#106 Moving our money

Dear all,
Well, I've gotten pretty excited about the space that the Occupy movement has opened up to talk about wealth and injustice. I've been providing some hosting at the Friends Center, from whose kitchen 1500 meals a day are going to feed Occupy Philly (and whose single shower is in great demand!). And a group of us from my neighborhood are promoting the "Move Your Money" campaign (http://moveyourmoneyproject.org, or www.moveyourmoneyphilly.org), with a first event on Bank Transfer Day, November 5th. So my post today is in support of that movement.
Love,
Pamela


Moving our money

I remember when the local branch of a big Philadelphia bank moved out of our neighborhood because they just couldn’t make enough profit there to be worth the trouble; a church took over that large imposing space. And I remember when the local credit union finally opened--after long and hard effort by an idealistic group of activists and community members. Inertia kept us with our same checking account so I had to fit bank visits into farther flung trips, but we put our savings into the new credit union.

I remember Linda, one of the original credit union staff people who lived in the neighborhood and knew our growing boys. She always asked about them when I came in, and I remember getting help from her sorting out money transfers when our oldest ventured off to Nicaragua. I remember switching an organizational account from the bank to the credit union when the bank fees for that little “business” account got to be a significant portion of our expenses. There were no fees at the credit union.

And so I straddled the credit union/big bank world uneasily for years. The biggest reason for sticking with the bank, besides inertia, was that there was a convenient branch at my new job downtown, and when I had to deposit cash I knew that the lines at the credit union could be long.

I hadn’t been aware of the banking deregulation that happened so quietly in the 1980’s and 90’s, opening up a world of new ways for banks to make money. But I didn’t like what I saw. I noticed how fees kept creeping up--to the point where they charge you if you come in and use up a teller’s time “too often”. I observed the continuing buyouts of big banks by ever-bigger ones. I thought of all the money they had at hand to pour into their advertising campaigns in an attempt to buy good will, to convince us that they were good neighbors.

Finally, the dissonance got to be too much. I took all our money out of the big bank and put it in the credit union--and immediately wondered why I had waited so long.

I’m getting to know two of the women who have replaced Linda since she retired, and I ask for their help with questions about our sometimes complicated finances. I love being confident that their advice will not be tinged by lust for profit; after all, I’m one of their members. I’m getting the hang of what can be done on line. (My son, back from Nicaragua, has never had his money anywhere else--and has effortlessly mastered doing almost all his financial transactions on line and with his debit card.) I have decided that when I have to wait in line, it’s an acceptable cost of doing business in the neighborhood--I bring a book or visit with others who are waiting with me. I love knowing that my money is staying in the neighborhood as well, and not buying derivatives or credit swaps (whatever they are), or playing a role in nefarious mortgage bundling schemes whose main result seems to be putting people out of their homes, or flying off to pad some distant bank executive’s swollen pay check.

I think of our family’s Christmas tradition of baking an enormous batch of cookies to give to the businesses we are glad to have within walking distance--the corner deli, notary/insurance place, Korean dollar store, auto repair shop, independent gas station and drug store, Chinese take-out place, ethnic groceries. I doubt we would have included the branch of the big bank--but the credit union fits right in.

And that old branch bank, with its imposing façade, abandoned by the street corner church years ago? Well, it’s been bought up by the neighborhood food coop as part of a major upgrade of their services. Maybe the forces of sustainability and local economies--the forces of sanity--are actually starting to get some traction, providing a little hope for this troubled world.



Some things that have made me hopeful recently--

How some of the homeless folks who have been drawn to the food, shelter and safety of Occupy Philly are finding meaningful work in community there, and feeling blessed by that opportunity.

The labor union guy with his wife and three children who came down with a case of water on his shoulder to donate, hopeful about the possibility of transformation, and wanting a way to be involved (and how he stands for countless others).

How the European Union is leading the way in asking the big questions about our future viability as a species on Earth (and, as somebody recently pointed out, how they are working together after centuries of almost constant warfare).

A gathering in Guatemala of folks who lead alternatives to violence and trauma healing workshops all over the world, and how the Indonesian, East African and Latin American folks learned from and supported each other.




Check out: www.ourchildrenourselves.org, a home for all the parenting
writing I've done over the past 20 years.

Also: www.startguide.org. START: a way to study and work together with
others to create a better world.

For earlier columns, go to www.pamelascolumn.blogspot.com.
(If the background is too dark to read, I hope you can get a computer whiz
to help--and let me know what you figured out! When I go there on my Mac
via Safari, it's fine.)

If you're in Philadelphia and want to move your money out of a big bank, go to www.moveyourmoneyphilly.org.

#105 The blessing net

Dear all,
In a troubled world, I'm finding much to be thankful for--the opportunity to plant fruit trees in community space, ties of family and old friends, exciting sprouts of new relationships, so many people who want to do the right thing.
And I'm remembering that I've been passionate about popular education ever since I came of age; the form it's taking now is how to share what I know about economics in a way that's truly accessible. So I'm going to try something new--a very brief, hopefully thought-provoking, something about economics every month, along with whatever else has been able to squeeze its way into my busy mind--this month a poem about being present on the 64 bus.
Much love,
Pamela




The blessing net

I climb aboard the 64
could continue with my book
decide instead to pay attention,
offering a prayer of “bless and keep”
for everybody on the bus.

The woman in the wheel chair
taking up four seats,
The teens in their school uniforms,
The young mothers with small children,
(ethnicity changing with the neighborhoods,
Black, Spanish, Southeast Asian)
The old Chinese man who struggles with each step
The white man with a caved in face,
as if he’d received a bone-crushing punch,
The older woman who is late to work,
worrying that another wheel chair
will be maneuvered into the bus
slowing her down still more,
The young woman on the phone beside me
pregnant, supporting a man who doesn’t do his share
wondering what comes next.

On the way home,
old men with bags,
young women with scarves,
the crossing guard
with his bike on the front,
but mostly the small boy slumped in the seat
across from me
unhappy, maybe tired or sick,
with a father who watches but does not touch.
Bless and keep.

They are there with me
I welcome them, hold them
then look around and they are gone.
The net of blessing on a bus
is full of holes.
Nothing can be known for sure
about what good it does
except that I am better off for holding it.




DARING TO THINK--
A new economy is possible!

In the first half of the nineteenth century, most people believed that our nation's economy required slavery. It was seen as an unfortunate but necessary evil. Fast forward 150 years. What has taken the place of slavery? What do we see in the structure of today's economy that just as clearly cannot be changed--that is unfortunate, problematic, perhaps even evil, but is a necessary part of the scheme of things? Economic growth? Wall Street? Corporations hard-wired for profit? Could we imagine challenging their necessity, daring to live without them? Let's help each other cultivate the courage and imagination that will make a new economy possible.




Some things that have made me hopeful recently:

The Envision Peace Museum, www.envisionpeacemuseum.org.

A Greenpeace victory, getting Costco, the largest buyer of seafood in North America, to agree to no longer sell several endangered seafood species, pursue better aquaculture practices, and take a greater leadership role in the effort to develop a more sustainable tuna industry.

The growing number of bike trailers in West Philadelphia.

The Inside-Out Prison Exchange Program where college students join with prisoners to take courses together, which now includes more than 120 colleges in 35 states, and has moved thousands of traditional college students to rethink the nation’s approach to criminal justice.




Check out: www.ourchildrenourselves.org, a home for all the parenting
writing I've done over the past 20 years.

Also: www.startguide.org. START: a way to study and work together with
others to create a better world.

For earlier columns, go to www.pamelascolumn.blogspot.com.
(If the background is too dark to read, I hope you can get a computer whiz
to help--and let me know what you figured out! When I go there on my Mac
via Safari, it's fine.)

And I've joined Facebook! We'll see if I can use it as a communications
tool and not get sucked into all the rest...

#104 Protection and Safety

In a buzz of public conversation not long ago about the danger of contact sports and the long-term health impact of concussions, one comment leapt out at me: football players would be safer from concussion if they didn’t wear so much protective head gear. Back in the early days of the game, with thin leather helmets and everyone’s face exposed, people took more care about how they treated each other. All the padding and grills make players fair game for anything.

I was reminded of how obsessed our culture is with protection. I have a friend who talks about the “protection racket”—and I have to ask, how much of the energy that we put into protection, both physical and emotional, actually ends up making us less safe?

I think of the parents who hover over their children, trying to shield them from all danger--and the children who grow up never having developed their ability to judge risk or respond to danger. Or there are the rules in early childhood program, set up to keep children safe: bleach the toys, sanitize the table tops, eliminate exposure to dirt. Well it turns out that bleach and sanitizers bring their own safety hazards, and without access to dirt, children can’t build up critical antibodies.

Or we wall ourselves into gated communities and become targets, losing access to the connections and relationships that might actually increase our safety in the long run. Or we drill into our children’s psyches the danger of trusting any stranger even a little bit. Their capacity to trust is damaged forever, and many of them end up getting abused anyway by some someone they know--a far more common scenario.

Some of us fear danger and do everything we can to avoid it. Others put all our attention to developing foolproof protections so we can court danger without negative consequences. Both are problematic.

Fear of danger actually increases it. Yellow jackets and dogs, for example, can smell fear and go straight toward it. More generally, when we’re afraid, we’re not likely to be thinking at our best, which makes us more vulnerable. And the quest to develop “foolproof” protections leads us to the irrationalities of fancy headgear and increased concussions, guns in the home and increased gun-shot accidents, an out-of-control arms race and increased global insecurity.

Our urge to protect ourselves and our loved ones is natural, and there are real dangers, but somehow we need to find a third way. I think it will have to be grounded in judgment, engagement and connection. This third way would provide opportunities to take all kinds of (small-sized) risks, where we can build our judgment and confidence. It would include lots of practice in how to defang danger by moving toward it with curiosity and respect. The ultimate goal of any endeavor would be not safety but connection and meaning (with safety taken into consideration along the way). In this third way, good relationships would be recognized as the bedrock of our common security.

If the rules were adjusted so that football could be played again without helmets, my guess is that it would be safer, and just as interesting to play and watch--maybe even more so, since some of the lost blunt force would have to be made up for by added flexibility, intelligence and skill. It seems like a good trade-off in general: fewer fear-based rules and protections, less blunt force, more flexibility and connection, and more real safety.





Burden

Weighed down
with excess from my pantry
on my back

(Word had gone out
the food bank in a local church
was out of staples for the month)

Find the neighbor’s porch
and the big cardboard box

Unload
straighten, stretch
walk home
much lighter now.





Some things that have made me hopeful recently:

A Greenpeace boycott campaign which has succeeded in convincing the largest palm oil producer in Indonesia to announce a plan to protect forests and carbon-rich peat lands across all of its operations.

The enactment this year by Connecticut of the first state-wide law guaranteeing workers the right to earn paid sick days (SB 913).

Wiser Earth, the Social Network for Sustainability (www.wiserearth.org), which has created a database of over 2 million non-governmental organizations world wide working on the challenges we face (check out their short video at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NzMPUKAXM7U).

The on-going protest against social and economic injustice in Israel, with many tents in central places all over the country as focal points for gathering and discussion, and mass demonstrations--initiated and led by young adults and women, and including in one week 3% of Israel, or the equivalent of 9.2 million people in the US.

#103 Eco-vision

The ecology movement has made remarkable progress over the last several decades in challenging the illusion, driven by the scientific and industrial revolutions, that we are separate from and masters over an external environment. We have not been so successful, however, in challenging the illusion that growing our economy is the solution to all our problems. Yet this economy is exploiting the natural world beyond its ability to sustain itself, while delivering prosperity to an ever-smaller percentage of the population.

By any religious, moral, or ethical standard, our economy should serve all our people, the children who come after us, and the commonwealth of life on which our existence depends. Surely it should not be just to give the wealthiest more wealth and power; to maximize profits by eliminating jobs that people need; to convince us we need things that we are better off without; to strip the earth of its resources, pollute it with our wastes, and make life untenable for the most vulnerable.

I can hardly stand it when people cede all these issues to the economists, and assume that we have no alternatives. It makes me crazy to see us lured to worship a heartless god of materialism when our religious traditions are so much richer. We are imprisoned in a false consciousness, in a framework of beliefs that has no future. More than anything, we need word that there is life outside these prison walls--that another economy is possible.

We need a way to be better informed, enlightened, invigorated and connected. We need to be armed not just with facts, but with an understanding of the flawed foundations of our present failed economic system and the essential building blocks of one with a future. It’s all out there. There’s incredibly exciting thinking and work going on. Most of us just don’t know.

After participating recently on a call of a group of interfaith ecology/economy activists, listening to people pondering what we are capable of pulling off, I had a vision. It’s a vision of an electronic resource/blog/conversation that could become a go-to place for people who have figured out that something is wrong, but don’t know how to take the next step. It would start with the religious community because they have some organization and a constituency that can be called to question false gods and debased values, and to have a heart for justice and God’s creation.

We call it something like ECO-VISION; An Interfaith Voice on Economy and Ecology. New material goes up every day in brief accessible form, focused on finding/creating a way forward. It is organized thematically by days of the week, i.e.
Monday: grounding/philosophy/concepts/ecology-economy links
Tuesday: alternative models that people are trying out
Wednesday: facts, breaking news
Thursday: the next generation; voices of youth and young adults
Friday: policy and action implications
Saturday: reflections/sermons
Sunday: Sabbath rest--no posts

People, or teams, who take responsibility for the content choose the threads they are most interested in (for me, it might be the alternative models), and only have to post once a week. Readers might be initially attracted to just one of the six threads, but then get drawn into others.

I’m excited about this idea--though the voice of my fears keeps insisting that it’s too pretentious or impossible or lame, and that others will just roll their eyes. But I’m trying to listen to my hopes and not my fears. One thing is obvious--that my old habitual mode of sticking to what I can pull off all by myself has to be abandoned right from the start. So I’m asking for your help.

Some questions that come to my mind:
What would improve/strengthen the concept?
Where would such a voice best be housed?
Who else might want to participate?
Who would need to be involved from the beginning to make it effective in reaching broadly?

If you have thoughts, please respond (just to me). I have enormous respect for the power of the stories we tell each other, and see an opportunity here for us to learn new stories and share them in bold hope for the future.




Heat wave

Saturday morning
in the garden
at the crack of dawn—
finesse the heat wave
(watch the sunrise)

Others come
to water, weed and harvest
bend and sweat
all sturdy urban gardeners
who know
you can’t avoid the weather
if you want the food
but you can be smart
about when you’re out.

We chat
just neighbors
tied close this morning
by the choices we have made
about the weather
and the earth.




Some things that have made me hopeful recently:

The decision by city leaders of Cleveland, faced with massive deindustrialization, skyrocketing unemployment and urban blight, to rebuild their local economy by focusing on “anchor industries” like hospitals and universities, and establishing local worker-owned businesses to supply these anchor industries.

A recent vote in Italy, where an overwhelming number of people (96 percent of the 57 percent of the population that voted) cast their ballots for a peaceful future based on shared ownership of water, overturning a law which would have encouraged private companies to buy up public water utilities and have guaranteed them a profit.

The response to tragedy in Norway, where leaders cried publicly and encouraged the enormous crowds who thronged to streets to be close and listen to each other with love and respect and where, rather than demanding revenge against the anti-Islamic offender, a collective agreement was reached to embrace the values that he wished to destroy, by creating an even more open, friendly and inclusive society.

The growing momentum all over the world to mark September 24 as a day to move beyond fossil fuels: www.moving-planet.org




Check out: www.ourchildrenourselves.org, a home for all the parenting
writing I've done over the past 20 years.

Also: www.startguide.org. START: a way to study and work together with
others to create a better world.

For earlier columns, go to www.pamelascolumn.blogspot.com.
(If the background is too dark to read, I hope you can get a computer whiz
to help--and let me know what you figured out! When I go there on my Mac
via Safari, it's fine.)

And I've joined Facebook! We'll see if I can use it as a communications
tool and not get sucked into all the rest...

Hope, fear and change

Dear all,
After being too busy for months, my schedule seems to be easing a little and I'm basking in the possibilities. My most recent adventure has been exploring the delights of red and black currants, both of which have been ripening in our community garden. I wish you your own delights of summer.
Love,
Pamela



Hope, fear and change

We share a cabin with five other families up in the mountains of Pennsylvania, where deposits of natural gas in the underlying shale have recently become profitable to remove. A whole extractive industry has moved in, gas rights have been bought up, and sides have been taken. The gas industry, going for profit, is working hard to position itself as environmentally responsible. Individual landowners in this poor part of the state have benefited financially by selling gas rights, and unemployment in some places has dropped from 10% to 5%. On the other hand, the threat to the environment is real. Big ugly well pads replace forests and fields, the safety of the water supply is in serious questions, roads are being chewed up by big trucks, and more and more safety hazards, like dust and drill tailing disposal, are coming to light.

Local governments, increasingly recognizing the costs, are feeling caught in the middle. There is conflict both at the state level, where a new pro-business governor refuses to tax the gas industry while cutting funds for environmental protection, and at the national level, where this particular method of extraction--hydraulic fracturing--was explicitly exempted from federal clean air and water standards by the former administration.

Many outsiders who have cabins and hunting lodges in these beautiful mountains, and others who have left the city to get away from it all, have been caught up in the controversy. Our little group held off on selling gas rights for years, finally making the move only when it became clear that our land would be affected just the same by our neighbors’ decisions to sell. After long discussion, we decided to give a substantial portion of that money to environmental groups that could provide some leverage against the weight of the gas industry.

So our extended family’s time at the cabin over the long holiday weekend this spring was framed by the Marcellus shale. An enormous concrete well pad has been constructed in the big field that abuts our land--a jarring sight in this quiet place of fields, farmhouses and forests. Some of our weekend group overflowed into a near-by bed and breakfast, with hosts who are deeply involved in fighting the gas industry. And we started the trip with dinner in the next town with folks from a watershed group to whom we had given money.

I was struck by the difference in tone and strategy between the bed and breakfast folks and the people from the watershed group. The former are devastated. They had been deeply immersed in the project of building their little paradise--a lovely organic farm and hospitality center— far away from the evils of modern society, when the gas industry descended upon the area and threatened to destroy everything. He spends all his evenings researching the environmental problems and sending out warning information to everybody he knows. She bends the ears of her guests, worrying about the future. Both are passionately committed to building up enough local grassroots opposition to halt the gas companies, and have little trust in anybody else to help.

The leader of the watershed group was a county commissioner for many years, and knows this area well. An environmentalist to the core, he also understands the pressures on local officials, and the lure of a promise of jobs. His group’s strategy is to get people feeling more connected to the river, finding small grants for water access projects in struggling river towns, holding a “treasured places” photo contest, planning and improving river trails. As they help people notice and remember their love for this place, they are also putting out a measured position on the dangers of unrestricted drilling and the steps that need to be taken to preserve the value of what we have and love. They are ever more widely connected to a variety of groups throughout the 22-county watershed, and are using some of the money we gave them to establish a more formal membership base--with every member a potential advocate for responsible drilling.

The area encompassed by this watershed is the most deeply conservative part of the state, and activists in the more liberal big cities, working on a variety of progressive causes, have despaired for years over their inability to get any traction here to challenge the powers that be. Yet this modest low-key group is slowly and steadily building a network of engaged citizens who care about their communities, have a vision for the future based on what they love, and know that it’s possible to work together for change.
If I had to choose where to throw my lot, there would be no question. While I sympathize with the bed-and-breakfast folks, their tone of loneliness and desperation, their focus on danger and enemies, fear and loss, hold little appeal. I’d choose the ones who draw people in through connection and love. Not only are they more attractive, but I think they’re more likely to get the job done.




Hush

The back of the house behind us
rotting away for years
is being repaired.

Braced for noise
crude jokes, shouting
profanity in endless streams
instead I find a hush.

Four men in dreadlocks, overalls
work peacefully together
Help is asked and offered quietly
The elder one is sharing skills perhaps
the younger ones receiving
all in tones of deep respect.

Even the sound of power saws
and hammering
can’t drown out
this hum of reverence.




Some things that have made me hopeful recently:

The Nonviolent Peaceforce, which has been recently endorsed by the President of Finland, and received a $1 million grant from UNICEF for their peacekeeping work in the Sudan (www.nonviolentpeaceforce.org).

Leaders in the Kurdish region of Iraq who are building communities for people of different religious and ethnic backgrounds to live together peacefully — even as they contend with threats of violence.

The Philadelphia Water Department, whose master plan for keeping storm water from overwhelming the sewer system depends not on enormous new pipes and holding tanks, but hundreds of small rain-absorbing projects, and higher taxes on impermeable surfaces like parking lots.
(www.phillywatersheds.org/what_were_doing/green_infrastructure)

Dozens of urban farmers and gardeners--working in immigrant community gardens, urban orchards, backyard CSAs, new rec center greenhouses--who gathered recently in my neighborhood to share challenges, resources and a commitment to food sovereignty.



Check out: www.ourchildrenourselves.org, a home for all the parenting
writing I've done over the past 20 years.

Also: www.startguide.org. START: a way to study and work together with
others to create a better world.

#101 Home-made play

I had offered to do child care for a group of mostly childless young adults,
and it turned out that there was just one five year old boy--and no toys.
So we went to the kitchen--to give the grown-ups as much space as possible
to do their business in peace and quiet--and looked for something to do. He
found the recycling bin under the kitchen table and began exploring its
contents: an egg carton, a yoghurt container, a tuna fish can, one of those
little plastic cups that sauces and dressings for fast food come in, its
lid, and the foil of a candy wrapper.

We settled in on the floor and started by building towers, trying different
arrangements with the containers, and noticing what was the same and what
was different. I discovered that if we opened the egg carton a little and
put it on end, we could make a tall building. He checked out the foil,
announcing that it had been milk chocolate. Though I had never considered
that you could smell the difference in chocolates, as I sniffed I had to
agree. Noticing the strength of the smell, he speculated that it had been
blueberry--one of his favorite foods.

He began making meteorites from the foil, and it was surprising to see how
they shook the tower, but didn’t knock it down. Then the meteorites
transformed into a lumpy monster, putting an (imaginary) passerby in danger.
But the monster bumped into the leg of the table, and we discovered that it
was because the light hurt his eyes and he had to close them when he walked.
He tried again, got bumped again, and died. This monster, whom I had grown
fond of as his vulnerabilities became apparent, transformed into another
monster, this time with a long saber and a distinct head that looked up and
down. Then it grew a tail and transformed into a dinosaur. A tiny bit of
foil that I had put in the little lid on the top of the building became a
dinosaur egg, and the lid became a nest. The dinosaur, which changed fluidly
from ankylosaurus to tyrannosaurus rex, showed an amazing ability to leap
over tall buildings. Several times our tower got knocked down, but luckily
I was able to rebuild it each time.

We had been happily engaged together for about an hour, and had by no means
exhausted the possibilities of this play, when his mom came to find us in
the kitchen and take him home to bed. So we disassembled the tower and put
all the recyclables back in the bin, except for the foil, which was turning
into another dinosaur in his busy hands--way too valuable a plaything to be
abandoned.

I found this short time together on the kitchen floor both totally enjoyable
and vastly reassuring. We had nothing that could remotely resemble a toy,
much less anything that required external power or involved a screen. Yet
what we had was enough. That a 21st century child from the United States
could create such rich and flexible play from these homely ingredients was
enormously hopeful. It was a sign: that the initiative and creativity of
the next generation have not been permanently stunted by our society’s
addiction to consumption, and that it’s possible to downsize without
sacrificing life’s essential pleasures.




Some things that have made me hopeful recently:

The growing network of connections between local farms and food-serving
institutions like schools and hospitals.

The widespread outcry over the cheering at the killing of Osama bin Laden.

Successes in the grassroots effort to integrate a marginal ethnic group in
Rwanda, the Twa, into the life of the larger society.

The increasing number of religious people and institutions that are raising
their voices in a religious/ethical critique of our economic model, and its
impact on people and the environment.




Check out: www.ourchildrenourselves.org, a home for all the parenting
writing I've done over the past 20 years.

Also: www.startguide.org. START: a way to study and work together with
others to create a better world.

For earlier columns, go to www.pamelascolumn.blogspot.com.
(If the background is too dark to read, I hope you can get a computer whiz
to help--and let me know what you figured out! When I go there on my Mac
via Safari, it's fine.)

And I've joined Facebook! We'll see if I can use it as a communications
tool and not get sucked into all the rest...

#99 Common Ground, Revisited

I had the opportunity this month as part of my job to visit our state capitol and speak with a variety of legislators and policy people about priorities for state spending, and the needs of young children and families in particular. Our state now has a new conservative Republican governor and a majority of Republican legislators, and many people are worried about budget cuts and loss of public services.

In the visits with legislators, it was a surprisingly enjoyable exercise to search for and acknowledge common ground. It was good to see in the flesh people whom I’ve thought of in my mind as the “other” and find them to be warm and distinct human beings. It was interesting to join with them enough to feel comfortable seeing if there were places where I could nudge them a little in the direction of my point of view.

The meeting with the Republican education policy woman, however, was more than enjoyable and interesting--it was like a breath of fresh air! For the last eight years, the state early childhood community has been under the leadership of a brilliant and dedicated progressive civil servant who has built a coherent and comprehensive system, with procedures to shape every last detail and address every contingency. One could say that this is big government at its best--or at its worst. Folks in the field have appreciated the support for quality early education from the state, but chafe under the heavy hand of bureaucracy. So when this woman spoke of flexibility, and streamlining, and respecting people’s ability to do their work, I couldn’t have agreed with her more.

It reminded me of how strongly I identify with many values that are labeled conservative. Live within your means. Don’t waste. Value the virtues of hard work, responsibility, respect and civic engagement. Don’t automatically assume that newer is better. Believe in the ability of individuals to rise above adversity and shape their lives. I too am distrustful of big government, and believe that we do our best when given the space to innovate freely.

This isn’t to say that there aren’t powerful forces at work, way bigger than any human being, that are riding the current wave of energy from the right in order to amass more wealth and power. The small-government, pro-business slant of many individual Republicans is an ideal environment in which giant corporations and Wall Street firms, wired to maximize profits, can grow and consolidate their dominance of our political and economic institutions. Greed is the heart and driving force of our economic system--and this is not benign.

Yet it would be a mistake to lump these powerful and dangerous tendencies with all the good people in our country who honestly believe that we’re on the wrong track and something has to change. I may disagree with their targets. I may define the problem differently and come up with different solutions. I may worry about the forces that feed off their energy and their fears. But so long as I think of such people as “the other”, I can be sure that we will not find our way forward.





Cultivating confidence

I have taken on another infestation
at the point of the 45th St. flowerbed
A nasty weed has taken hold
and now it spreads.

The dirt is soft
I pull out plants
with great long runners
know there will be more
come back in two days
get the ones I missed
come back again to see new sprouts
from hidden roots—
dig out every root
prepare to dig again.

This is a strong resourceful foe
yet I rest in certain confidence
that I will win.
All it takes is patience
decision to take the time
knowing it will not happen
the first time or the tenth
Respecting this weed’s tenacity
and hold on life
but sure that if I hold out
for the flowers long enough
I will prevail

(though other weeds
will come of course—
the larger work is never done).

I like this stand.
Can I transplant it
lend this steady confidence
to other parts of life
where weeds are choking
things I love?
Learn to not succeed
the first ten times
and still go back?

Some things are worth doing
no matter what the odds,
at other points we can’t prevail,
and time is a factor, true—
but with a win on the horizon
it’s not so hard to find the time.

And to see that distant win
requires the confidence
I know the best
when gardening.




Some things that have made me hopeful recently:

A new movement called US Uncut, inspired by UK Uncut, in which tens of thousands of British citizens have targeted corporations that pay no or very low corporate income taxes--pointing out that the cuts would be unnecessary if only the corporations would pay up.

The friendship that has grown between US Senators Al Franken and Ron Paul despite their radically different political perspectives.

How perennial flowers keep spreading and, as they are shared and planted in barren places, how beauty can grow.

Our Journey to Smile, an Afghani youth movement for peace and reconciliation.

#98 Bringing what we have

One thing about spending two weeks in a poor and oppressed part of a poor African country that has endured twenty years of brutal civil war is that you see a lot of hard things. And one thing about inviting people from such a community to build their skills in telling and listening to each others’ stories is that you hear a lot of hard stories.

It can be confusing to know where to stand. On the one hand, the opportunity to be together is precious, and clearly a gift for everyone involved. On the other hand, my husband and I had the luxury of going back home to comfortable lives in a rich country, and they are left to live with fierce scarcity and uncertain futures.

This is a common experience, repeated tens of thousands of times as westerners venture out to Asia, Latin America and Africa, meet new people, fall in love, come up against the realities of poverty and inequality--and then go home. We want to help. But I’ve become increasingly aware of the many traps that come with people who have more trying to help people who have less.

One way to get those traps more clearly into focus is to check my motivation, and ask myself: Who and what is at the center of my helping story? If I’m helping you in order to relieve my guilt, and I need your cooperation to succeed, then the heart of the story is about me. If I’m helping you in order to confirm my generosity, and you’re a necessary part of that picture, then again the story is about me. If I’m helping you in order to expand my influence and good works, and I can’t do it without you, then the story is still about me.

We may be able to accomplish things that are of use to other people with these as our underlying--and often unconscious--motivations. But there’s a distortion. My gift has strings attached; I need something back. I need your lives to improve so I can feel less guilty. I need your thanks so I can feel generous. I need the project to grow so I can feel influential. On the surface it may look like it’s all about your needs, but really it’s a whole lot about mine.

Over the years I’ve developed a sensitivity to these traps--and am more likely to fall into one all the way at the other end of the spectrum: Since what I have is so clearly inadequate in the face of what you need, I should do us both a favor and keep my distance.

Luckily, I’ve been trying on a new point of view for my life in general, and carried it with me on our trip. What I bring clearly isn’t enough. It won’t come near to solving your problems. But it’s all I have, and I want to be with you. I’d rather face what feels like complete inadequacy than give up on the possibility of being close. Somehow, this focus on choosing for connection and bringing what I have leads me to solid ground.

What we brought to Northern Uganda fell far short of the need we encountered there. We didn’t bring enough money to begin to make a difference. We didn’t have enough understanding of the local situation to be able to suggest viable income generating activities. We hadn’t done enough advance work to line up meetings between local players who might be resourceful to each other. We weren’t there long enough to follow through on opportunities that came up. How could this be enough?

Yet we brought what we had. We did some income sharing with our friend. We brought our understanding of peer listening, and shared everything we knew that could help people heal from war and build resilience for the challenges ahead. We took time at the end of five full days of this sharing to be with those who were most ready to lead, and did what we could to prepare them to take over the work. We listened for more ways we could be of use in the future. Mostly, we paid attention, weaving and strengthening this growing web of connections and support. We were present to people, and their stories and families and gifts. We loved, and took in the love that was all around us. It was way less than what anybody deserved but it was all we had, and I have to believe that it was enough.




A few things that have made me hopeful recently (though you may not need them so much this month, with all the big news from North Africa and Wisconsin of people standing up together to make change):

A program at Swarthmore College that pairs students and blue collar staff for regular paired mutual learning possibilities.

www.ecotippingpoints.org, a website of over 100 environmental success stories from around the world, where "the right 'levers' transform vicious cycles into 'virtuous cycles' that contribute to restoration with as much force as the vicious cycles drove decline".





Check out: www.ourchildrenourselves.org, a home for all the parenting
writing I've done over the past 20 years.

Also: www.startguide.org. START: a way to study and work together with
others to create a better world.

For earlier columns, go to www.pamelascolumn.blogspot.com.
(If the background is too dark to read, I hope you can get a computer whiz
to help--and let me know what you figured out! When I go there on my Mac
via Safari, it's fine.)

And I've joined Facebook! We'll see if I can use it as a communications tool and not get sucked into all the rest...

#97 Weaving a new reality

Three years ago our family spend three weeks in northern Uganda, visiting with our dear friend Abitimo, supporting her school and her work with AIDS and war orphans, and teaching peer listening skills to a big group of young people who had lived all their lives in the midst of a brutal civil war. It felt like a miracle to have this opportunity, to get to know these young people, to be of use. They, in turn, were thrilled with the healing power of the basic listening skills we offered, and were eager for more.

Then we came home. Through a series of hard and sad circumstances it became impossible to continue relating to the young man who brought the group together, who knew everyone and still held tight to leadership. I had e-mail addresses for only a handful of the people we had been meeting with, and about half of them bounced back.

These folks seemed glad to be in touch, but would usually write about three lines of very generic greetings. In response to my pleading for more news, they would promise to get back when they had more time. While I had first-hand experience of the challenges of using the few internet cafes that were available to them, I hadn’t fully taken in how hard it was to share freely in a second language.

So here I was, thousands of miles away from a group of young people whom I had known for a few short weeks, in thin, infrequent communication with just four young men, who would often disappear for months at a time, out in a village for the summer, or up in the Sudan and away from any computer. It felt like everything that had been real and wonderful and full of life and possibility was slipping away through my fingers, evaporating like the mist. My grand plans for partnering these young people with like-minded folks at home foundered on this lack of contact. I couldn’t get enough news from them to allow me to build on what they were doing. I felt discouraged and useless.

After more than a year--maybe two--it occurred to me that I could offer what I had, whether I knew it was what they needed, or even whether they were getting it. I began writing to everyone I had addresses for every three or four weeks, remembering our connection, sharing a thought about this process of peer listening, wishing them well. I got the occasional three generic lines from one or two of my four, and some of the messages always bounced back. I didn’t take anyone off the list; somehow, deleting a young person who had survived a civil war and had said they wanted to be in touch seemed too harsh, too final.

Though I had virtually no idea what was really going on at their end, I was acting from my end as if they were a group who were in touch with each other, in motion, using what they had learned, eager for more. It felt like trying to weave a reality out of the most insubstantial bits of memory and rare scraps of contact.

As we slowly realized that the time was coming to go back to visit Abitimo, the question of whether anything we had done with these young people had stuck was a painful one to contemplate. And so I wrote again, as if it were real, inviting them to come back together and build on the work we had done.

Simon Peter wrote back saying that he would try to get folks in the school where he taught together and tell others from the group that we were coming. Okello Richard said that his group in the village would like to meet us and learn more. Omona Richard said that his work in the Sudan has been greatly helped by his understanding of peer listening and could we do something there? Abitimo said that Okello Richard had met with her and she was excited about the potential of his group. Omona Richard said that he could come down from the Sudan when we were there. Omony Geoffrey just said how happy he would be to see us again.

We go in a few days. I’m seeing the decision point more clearly. The obstacles to maintaining connection over all that distance and all those years were overwhelming, and I could have bowed to that reality and let it go. But I decided to keep weaving. I used the strongest and best thread I had, others kept throwing me all the threads they could manage, and together we wove something of substance. As I consider this story, I have to believe that when we keep acting as if what we hope for is real, we change reality.




A few things that have made me hopeful recently:

How non-violent training has diffused potentially deadly cattle disputes in Sudan,

The passage by Congress of the Cobell trust fund case, clearing the way for half a million Native Americans to receive the money that the federal government has owed them for many years for the use of their land, 

A young man from a poor farming family in Malawi who got books out of the library, scrounged trash heaps and made a windmill (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=crjU5hu2fag&feature=related),

Thousands of Egyptian Muslims who showed up at Coptic Christmas eve mass services in churches around the country and at candle light vigils held outside, to protect them from the threat of Islamic militants and support religious tolerance in their country.

#96 What rings true

Every now and then I find myself engaged with life in a way that seems just right. I have a human interaction that is clear and connected, and deeply satisfying. I pause when I walk under a tree, taking in the colors and light and shadow that the sun and leaves create. I extend the life of something old and functional with a careful mend. I do a piece of work that matters, and clearly has my name on it. I take the hard next step, that’s waiting to be taken, in a friendship. I transplant a flower to give away, using my good compost. Something about what I’m doing rings true.

What rings true? I’m thinking that this is a powerfully illuminating question to bring to all parts of our lives. We could start anywhere. Take, for example, what we eat. Can I think of an experience with food when I sensed something deeply right? What were the ingredients that made it that way? Or take gift-giving. When has a moment in that emotionally-charged mine-field rung true? What made it right? When has my mind been clear? When have I had an interaction, no matter how simple, that I’d be happy to live over and over again? What made that possible?

A bell can’t ring true when it is covered or padded or stuffed. It can help to get down to the bare bones of the matter. What clutters our minds? What messages have we taken in (from our childhoods, from advertising, from society at large) that muffle the truth? What has accreted to our social institutions that keeps us from discerning their true vocations? What layers of history and privilege and inequality obscure the possibility of respectful and mutual friendship in any situation?

I’m an enormous fan of a colonial Quaker, John Woolman, who advises us to “Dig deep... Carefully cast forth the loose matter and get down to the rock, the sure foundation, and there hearken to the Divine Voice which gives a clear and certain sound.”

What if the central principle for organizing our lives was moving ever closer to what rings true? It can be discouraging to notice how much of our time is spent elsewhere. We know what we’re doing doesn’t ring true, but it’s hard to see an alternative. Or we try to get some relief from that tinny sound with activities that are supposed to be pleasurable or comforting, but then those activities--often some form of addictive behavior--don’t quite ring true either. The relief doesn’t really satisfy, and it’s hard to know where to turn.

Just identifying this as something we want, however, and being able to recognize the moments when we’ve had it, is a big step forward. I smile as I imagine us counting up the minutes that ring true in our lives--just two minutes this day, maybe seven the next--and then reaching for more.


I think of a wise friend who is gifted with parents and children. The times that are truly golden, she says, come when you’ve played with a child in enough different ways that you can find a spot where they laugh openly and freely--then you stay at that spot, and they laugh and laugh. We don’t have to just wait for a miracle to hear the ring of truth more often in our lives. We can remember those moments, and value them. We can look for where they most reliably happen. We can talk with our friends, and get help working to reproduce the conditions that encourage them. We can dig away at the stuff that muffles them. There may be no work that’s harder--or more worth doing. And maybe, as we keep trying, it will get less hard--and we’ll hear that ring of truth in our lives more and more.




Some things that have made me hopeful recently:

President Obama's refusal to give up on the START Treaty, and the Senate's ultimate passage of the treaty, reducing tension between US and Russia.

The revocation of a multi-million dollar casino license in Philadelphia--perhaps the first in the country--after five years of struggle, started by a tiny community-based anti-casino group.

The growing availability of not only vegetables but local eggs and honey right in my urban neighborhood.

An American nun who helps support a group of Rwandan woodcarvers by selling their work--and thousands more like her.

#95 Come

This stretch of road
calls out in many languages:

Be here for the exercise
Smooth roadside surface
flat and humble countryside
of woods and fields
invite a walk.

Be here for the beauty
subtle in its plainness
colors of late autumn now,
soft and sun filled, hard to name.

Today the call is new,
compelling: Come
Be here for community.

Come be with the Pines
whose sharp needles in blunt narrow fans
create an airy solid whole,

Be with the Big-leafed Trees
as their leaves take off into the wind
to meet the earth,

Be with the Birds
a hidden rustle in the brush
till eye picks out the moving brown and white,

Come bring your species in
your Mammal skin
awareness that is yours alone.
Turn that awareness not away
but toward your place
in this community of life.

Come.



Some things that have made me hopeful recently:
--How Thanksgiving continues to resist the forces of commercialism that have taken over so many other US holidays.
--Clerks who are kind even when the lines are long and people are impatient.
--All the Macedonians who came out one day this month to plant seven million trees.
--A Honduran minister who moved from a suburban church to one of the poorest neighborhoods in Philadelphia and is living out the core message of Christianity among his parishioners.



Check out: www.ourchildrenourselves.org, a home for all the parenting
writing I've done over the past 20 years.

Also: www.startguide.org. START: a way to study and work together with
others to create a better world.

For earlier columns, go to www.pamelascolumn.blogspot.com.
(If the background is too dark to read, I hope you can get a computer whiz
to help--and let me know what you figured out! When I go there on my Mac
via Safari, it's fine.)

#94 My Indonesia Story

I’ve never been to Indonesia. I’ve never met anybody who lives there. But, with a friend who was there for years and has been back many times, I do have my own story to tell.

Nadine and I met through a leap of faith. I offered her and her eleven-year-old daughter a place to live in our home, sight unseen, she accepted, and we discovered that we were sisters of the heart. As we grew deeper into each others’ lives, even after she moved hundreds of miles away, I took in more and more of her story.

I’ve heard the joys and struggles of her work in Indonesia and with her family and community at home, stood by as she faced forks in her road, joined in wrestling over knotty issues of power, inequality and conscience, listened out greater clarity and gathered others to listen, added from my experiences, offered suggestions of ways to move forward, written and shared what I’ve heard and come to know, been an anchor at home as she’s traveled.

Most simply, my story is one of friendship. My community now includes people I’ve never met, because they are connected to Nadine and she is connected to me. There is Dahlan, who has built a structure beside his little fish farm to house people who come to Alternatives to Violence workshops that he helps lead in his community. There is Ririn, an early childhood teacher, who is doggedly pursuing her degree with the goal of starting a trauma healing center. There is Pak Darmo, who heads a refugee camp and is helping his community learn to farm without destroying the rain forest where they are located. There are the women in the refugee camp who now staff their new preschool as volunteers. There are the poor neighbors who brought food and water to shipwrecked refugees who were even more in need. There is Yuyun, who was taken off the street to clean for a human rights group--and is now using his artistic abilities to illustrate children’s books for pre-schoolers. I am richer for having all these people--and so many more--in my life.

This is also a story of opening up to new ways of knowing myself and seeing the world. Nadine’s insistence that I write my own statement of conscience clarified my conscientious objection to our deeply flawed and damaging economic system. I’m more actively engaged with questions about rich people interacting with poor people: When does foreign aid that outstrips local capacity do more harm than good? When is it patronizing to give money when people can earn it themselves? What kind of work should always be volunteer, regardless of one’s ability to access resources? When the goal is to help build a community’s strength, is it ever wise to accept money that demands particular project outcomes? When does a big investment in one person damage their relationships with their peers?

My mind is busy with Nadine’s big “new idea”: through the three-legged stool of practicing conscience, nonviolence/trauma healing, and developmental play, people become clear and strong enough to pursue healthy lives and choices that make peace with the earth as well as each other. I continue to be challenged by her demand that whatever she does or asks of others in Indonesia, she does and asks of herself and others at home.

So I find myself part of a growing web of relationships and initiatives, that offer group training in non-violence and trauma healing, support developmentally appropriate pre-schools, work on the production of ceramic water filters, help refugees establish land claims, provide technical and marketing assistance to wooden block makers, bring Christians and Muslims, Acehnese and Sumatrans together, help in healing from civil war, make story books for little children, and call all of us to lives of integrity.

This is a story I’m happy to tell. It is a story of friendship. It is a story of hope, when hope seems in critically short supply. It is a story of possibility--of what can happen when people follow friendship, follow conscience, and believe in our capacity to transform our lives and the communities of life around us.

For more information: www.consciencestudio.com/index.php?q=indonesia




Viewing options

A moralizing mama
from a children’s book
firmly bans the TV and
invites her brood
to sit outside
and watch the stars come out.
What red-blooded American child
would stoop to such a trade?

Our friend shows me her vegetables.
A terrace at the garden’s edge
has four chairs facing to the hills.
Unusual.

The dad goes out for dinner lettuce,
calls "Come here
there’s something you have got to see.

We all rush out,
find a spot
on chair or ledge behind.

Six red-blooded American teenagers
and four parents
hang out
among the vegetables
in deep content,
watching the sun
as it sets in all its glory
behind the distant hills.



Some things that I've found hopeful recently:

Roberto and Alfredo, two young men who grew up on the streets of Nicaragua and were helped by my son and others to come of age, proudly telling of how they're giving back by helping children in their neighborhoods to be on a team and learn a trade.

How the Transition Town movement, a response to peak oil, is demonstrating potential for building community and helping people gain skills in resilient living in towns all over England and the US.

A retired county planner in north central Pennsylvania who is responding to the economic and environmental challenges of gas drilling in his region with deep wisdom, compassion, resourcefulness, and creativity.

Jon Stewart and the power of laughter.




Check out: www.ourchildrenourselves.org, a home for all the parenting
writing I've done over the past 20 years.

Also: www.startguide.org. START: a way to study and work together with
others to create a better world.

For earlier columns, go to www.pamelascolumn.blogspot.com.
(If the background is too dark to read, I hope you can get a computer whiz
to help--and let me know what you figured out! When I go there on my Mac
via Safari, it's fine.)

#93 Imagining a New Thing

"It is easier to imagine the end of life on earth than a new economic
system; this is a lethal failure of the imagination, and an indication of
how much the system has us in thrall."

I am still stunned by the truth, and horror, of that first phrase. Our
growth-driven economic system is leading us toward environmental
destruction, yet we’ll go along with this nightmare, simply for lack of
imagination. It gives me a new perspective on the people who believe in
rapture and the end days. If you are a good person trying to do the right
thing, yet everything around you seems to be falling apart, it may be easier
to imagine the end than change here on earth. And if you are around
passionate people with vivid imaginations who paint a compelling picture of
how the rapture will play out, it becomes that much easier to believe.

Yet people have been prophesying imminent apocalypse in vain for well over
2000 years, and I’m much more interested in life here on earth. So I’d
rather imagine a new economic system instead, and paint a different picture
that’s equally passionate and compelling.

Luckily it’s not that hard. There are lots of people all over the
world--including economists--who are busily engaged in imagining a new
thing, and there is a growing consensus about many of its elements: a
reorientation from a focus on producing money to a focus on producing goods
that people need; measuring our economic health not by the sum of all
economic activity, good, bad or indifferent, but by how well people are
doing; moving from growth in consumption and scale to growth in knowledge,
technical ability and flexible intelligence; production methods that move
beyond waste, so that by-products of one process become valued inputs
somewhere else; a regulatory and tax system that works toward equity; an
emphasis on the value of community and caring, and local ability to produce
wealth and meet human needs.

Yes, yes, you may say, that all sounds very good, but it will never happen.
I would quote, in return, the wise person who said that despair is an insult
to the future. And, anyhow, where does despair get us besides what our
current society has to offer--endless consumption and entertainment, or
individualized pursuit of a private good life, or embracing the rapture? At
least the work of imagining, both what could be and how it might come to
pass, provides some meaning.

It isn’t work that’s easy. The institutions and powers that seem to have
society in thrall, moving us inevitably toward destruction, are immense.
Wall Street blatantly protects its power and greed. Politics is
increasingly devoid of civility or cooperation. The solutions the system
creates for the problems it has produced just seem to breed bigger
problems--all at the expense of the environment. If this is all we focus on
when we look out, the end days could easily be right over the horizon.

I’m helped here by a concept I came across from theologian Walter Wink, that
every human institution has a divine vocation. They may have strayed from
that vocation, but it is still there to be found. Politics has a vocation
of providing a structure that allows people to live together. Economics has
a vocation of creating a way for people to meet their needs. It is our job
to call our institutions back to their divine vocation. If we can choose
this role, of imagining what our institutions are really there to do, and
calling them home, we will find ourselves in a new place of power and
authority.

The times call out for us to imagine the future as if our life, as if life
on earth, depended on it. But we can choose a different, even more
compelling, motivation. We can engage in this work because imagining a new
thing is at the very heart of what it means to be human.





Stranger

In the corner of the compost
is a stranger.
Home from travels away
I find the exotic waiting
in my tiny yard.

The compost has never
been strange before--
egg shells
vegetable waste
weeds and leaves
the occasional sprouting potato
all common,
familiar as my hand.

Yet this tall foreigner
has boldly taken residence
Long pointed leaves
dark and shiny
the new ones translucent
almost red--
of royal blood perhaps?
I’m not sure how to behave
in its presence.

I get a pot
prepare it to receive the visitor
and carefully
begin to dig.

As I work through layers of waste
I find the seed
key to this mystery--

I am hosting
a mango.




Some things that have made me hopeful recently:

The opening of four short films, done by community groups with the help of a
community media organization--focusing on a grocery store coop in a poor
city without a supermarket, a vibrant neighborhood self-help group, women
working together to get their children out of foster care, and teens working
to keep juveniles out of adult prisons--followed by heartfelt and
mutually-appreciative discussion among the filmmakers and audience.

A federal grant to create a big research hub focused on sustainable
building, energy use and rehabbing technology at a long-unused naval
shipyard--the ultimate conversion from military to peaceful production.

Indigenous environmental wins, gathering allies across the world through
electronic communication--including a tribal group in India protecting their
land from a bauxite mine.

The recognition by 300 international scientists that efforts to protect the
ozone layer have been a success, with a significant decrease in the ozone
layer depletion in the past years.

#92 City Harvest

City Harvest

Graterford Prison
heart of urban despair
old greenhouse brought back to life
Large hands
unused perhaps to nurturing
put seeds in tiny pots
tend sprouts and fresh new growth

Then say goodbye to healthy seedlings
with regret, perhaps
and send them out into the world
where neighbors work in city garden plots
to plant them in good earth
weed, water, watch them grow.

Our garden is among the hosts.
The man who works our City Harvest plot
is finding unexpected joy
in growing food to give away
(I tend the flowerbed in front).

Early on a Saturday
I find him there at work
hoping for an extra hand
and gladly drop my private task to help in harvesting
kale, collards, broccoli.

They’ve grown so big and beautiful
and when I put them in the tub
and gently push the great leaves down
until the water covers them
they shimmer with silver lights
in beauty that astonishes.
It is a mystery, a sacramental task.

I add a batch of flowers for the alter
and off they go to the little storefront church
where good food will be greeted with delight
and given out to those in need.

A sacrament, in truth, at every step
from their first start as seeds
in gentle hands at Graterford.




Good Air

A woman with a damaged mind
sits in the front seat of the 34
Silent for the most part, when alone
Loud, insistent, inappropriate one-on-one.

Regulars, for the most part
know to steer clear
Giving up the chance to sit
for peace of mind.

An unwitting traveler at times
is lured by the empty seat and trapped
Victim to a barrage
of loud demands.

But there are times of unexpected grace
when someone takes that seat
and knowing or unknowing what’s in wait
is kind.

The flood of words, slurred and hard to understand
meet patient warm respect.
Demands are courteously turned aside.

The world shifts.
A sweet fresh breeze
wafts from that troubled seat.
Tensions ease all round
and everyone drinks deep
of that good air.




Some things that have made me hopeful recently:

A great barren area of China transformed to green by systematic tree-planting and terracing to capture the rain water (see "Hope in a Changing Climate").

A new city-wide system of weekly curbside single stream recycling, including all plastics (even if your town already has it, for Philadelphia, this is huge).

A 150,000 member food coop in South Korea where mutual understanding has grown to the extent that farmers argue for charging less and consumers argue for paying more.

A successful legal challenge to the flood of mortgage foreclosures, based on the argument that the electronic holding entity, which financial speculators used for convenience in bundling and betting on their value, couldn't prove legal ownership of individual deeds.

#91 Mastery

Dear all,
I missed being in touch in late June, but we had computer problems, and then life intervened... But here I am with a thought about mastery and a poem about food and sacrament and four things that make me genuinely hopeful--even though there's lots that I could be discouraged about. I hope you're making a point to tell others what's making you hopeful as well.
Love,
Pamela




Mastery

Master seems to be something we as human beings take to naturally. As children we are deeply and innately engaged in mastery--first of our internal functions, then of mobility and speech, and then of whatever else we have access to. In our school years we have the opportunity to master more skills and information. Our entire childhood is one great exercise in self-mastery.

We can see mastery in the history of our species as well. When we learned to plant crops, there came the opportunity to settle down and store a little extra, freeing up some members of the community to engage in activity separate from survival. More and more inquiring minds gathered more and more information about the world, leading to the explosion of knowledge of the scientific revolution, and our current belief that we are infinitely capable of mastering all aspects of life on this planet.

It’s not surprising that a little mastery gives us a taste for more, nor that such a desire can be abused. We see this directly when one person or group exercises mastery over another--in child or spousal abuse, in enslavement, colonization, and dictatorship. We see it more subtly in how advertisers master our emotions to sell us their products, or how spin doctors master the presentation of information to suit their ends. What is natural and benign in an infant’s exploration of self becomes problematic when this power is exercised over another.

Perhaps even more problematic for the future of our species is the idea that we can be masters over the earth itself. As we’ve come close to making our planet uninhabitable in this endless lust for mastery over, we may finally be realizing that stronger forces are at work here, that the earth needs our species less than we need the earth. As we reach that limit of mastery over, we may be in a teachable moment, with the opportunity to learn self-mastery in a whole new way.

An understanding is growing among us that our species is inextricably intertwined with innumerable others that, together with the earth, make up the web of life that supports us all. It that way, we are one body. And like a child that has just been born, advanced western civilization is new to this body. We don’t have much experience with how it works as a single system--and we have much less control than we would wish. It’s hard to figure out all the different parts, how they are connected, and how to make them work together in a way that supports life in the long term.

Now here is a situation crying out for self-mastery--and the good news is that the untapped potential is enormous. So long as we can remember that we’re one body, the likelihood of abuse drops, while endless vistas of opportunities for self-mastery--more than the most adventurous infant could hope for--open up before us.



City Harvest

Graterford Prison
heart of urban despair
old greenhouse brought back to life
Large hands
unused perhaps to nurturing
put seeds in tiny pots
tend sprouts and fresh new growth

Then say goodbye to healthy seedlings
with regret, perhaps
and send them out into the world
where neighbors work in city garden plots
to plant them in good earth
weed, water, watch them grow.

Our garden is among the hosts.
The man who works our City Harvest plot
is finding unexpected joy
in growing food to give away
(I tend the flowerbed in front).

Early on a Saturday
I find him there at work
hoping for an extra hand
and gladly drop my private task to help in harvesting
kale, collards, broccoli.

They’ve grown so big and beautiful
and when I put them in the tub
and gently push the great leaves down
until the water covers them
they shimmer with silvery lights
in beauty that astonishes.
It is a mystery, a sacramental task.

I add a batch of flowers for the alter
and off they go to the little storefront church
where good food will be greeted with delight
and given out to those in need.

A sacrament, in truth, at every step
from their first start as seeds
in gentle hands at Graterford.




Some things that have made me hopeful recently:
--The proven potential of early childhood initiatives to play a role in peace-building in the larger community, in places as diverse as Albania, Indonesia, Chad, Columbia, and Bosnia-Herzogovina.
--An older farmer in Ohio who has switched his dairy cattle and chickens to grass feed, and is discovering the joys of improving the soil, increasing water absorption, hearing the birds, and seeing a future for his farm and farm family.
--Libraries, serving people in so many ways and places throughout the world, especially (in my consciousness this week) those in Bogota, Columbia and Philadelphia.
--A growing system of Riverkeepers, community groups who have banded together to clean and protect their watersheds.






NEWLY AVAILABLE: A resource packet on Faith and Economics, which I
developed for my denomination:
http://www.pym.org/pym_wgs/comments.php?id=5918_0_296_0_C.

Check out: www.ourchildrenourselves.org, a home for all the parenting
writing I've done over the past 20 years.

Also: www.startguide.org. START: a way to study and work together with
others to create a better world.

For earlier columns, go to www.pamelascolumn.blogspot.com.
(If the background is too dark to read, I hope you can get a computer whiz
to help--and let me know what you figured out! When I go there on my Mac
via Safari, it's fine.)