#220 Efficiency

 Dear all,

Well, a lot has been going on in our house since my last post. Chuck got diagnosed with a cancerous tongue/throat tumor, so we’ve been thrust headlong into a big and intense health journey. Fortunately, it’s a type that’s very responsive to treatment, and the supportive communities around us are both wide and deep.

At the same time, I get to announce two writing milestones. My book of reflections, That Clear and Certain Sound; Finding Solid Ground in Perilous Times, is now available for purchase, and I’ve learned that there’s a non-Amazon small business option. I hope you keep it—and my poetry book—in mind during this season of giving. And just yesterday I learned that an article I wrote on public banking for Waging Nonviolence got picked up not only by TruthOut, but by YES Magazine. I’m very pleased!

Then there is the full moon, and harvesting my sweet potato crop with our local grandchildren, and being part of the 50th reunion of the founding of the social change community we came of age in. In the midst of everything, it’s not hard to count my blessings.

Love,

Pamela

Efficiency

As I harvest my little crop of black-eyed peas in the community garden—inefficiently, I’m sure—I think also of the time I recently spent weeding an invasive and persistent weed out of a tiny section of the big flower bed in front. Considering all the other projects that should perhaps have a stronger claim to my attention, I can’t help but wonder about the choices we make about our time.

I was raised on the value of efficiency—doing things with the least possible steps, time, or money: don’t expend any extra when there is an alternative. I’ve lived my life by this rule, cleaning without wasted motion, choosing the shortest route for travel, always on the lookout at a meeting for how we can wrap up a conversation and move on.

It’s good to have the ability to do these things, but as a rule of life, I’m discovering that it has its flaws. Limiting the number of times I go up and down the steps as I clean also limits my exercise. Always taking the shortest route cuts out unexpected beauty and adventure. Keeping the group moving along means lost opportunities to stop and really hear everyone, or share the informal stories that will bind us together and make everything go better.

On a larger scale, the problems with efficiency are just compounded. With cost-cutting division of labor come mind-numbing assembly jobs. With the standardization of products and “economies” of scale, delightful local quirks are squeezed out by behemoth monocultures. A focus on efficiency seems to favor pyramids, with money and power rising from the wide bottom to the tiny top.

The costs and distortions are great. If I am in a position to organize others around a goal of my own choosing, yet have never fully considered what constitutes a meaningful life, how can I design a life-supporting system?  If I have not invested time, energy and love in the caring economy—cooking, cleaning, tending to children and the elderly—how will that work be valued in the places where I wield power?

I can see the lures of being too important for the little things. Looking back to earlier periods of my life I realize that, as I’ve increasingly discovered my ability to have a wider influence, I’ve spent less time on cleaning and repair and general attention to the calls of my immediate environment. Why prioritize such “low-level” work when I could spend the time writing a piece that might impact the lives of others?

While I could argue that I’m using my skills and talents for the common good, if I’m too busy to tend to the needs right around me, there’s a way that I’m fundamentally off-balance—and contributing to imbalance in society at large. And, ultimately, if my skill with words leads me to spend all my time writing, when do I live the life that gives me something to say?

Efficiency—at its heart a way of maximizing return on investment—may have its place, and may be useful in organizing us around small tasks and windows of time, but it simply lacks the breadth or depth to help with the big questions. There’s just too much we don’t know, too much that gets left out of the picture—and I can see no way to be efficient about caring.

Reflecting on all of this, I’m inclined to defend my very inefficient black-eyed pea harvest, welcome extra trips up and down the stairs, enjoy the scenic route, and clean with greater appreciation. Perhaps I can organize myself around a simple intention to show up to the world as fully as I know how. Realizing that what this looks like will shift as I find ways to show up ever more fully, I can keep in mind that my significance may have less to do with measurable returns and more with my capacity to do small things with great love.





Moon behind clouds

Stepping outside to morning clouds

I wonder if I’ll glimpse the moon.
Looking up to where I saw her yesterday
I follow the arc of that day’s journey in my mind,
pick a spot where she might be.

I see a rounded light spot in the shifting clouds.
I hold my gaze and wait, entranced.
Could this be my moon? I think it could.

Seen or unseen of course she’s there
radiant, whole in the heavens above
and will be there far on beyond my time—
and yet it’s good to lift my eyes and look
in love and hope.





Dare to imagine: A new economy is possible!

Worker-owned cooperatives creating their own funding networks

Seed Commons is a national network of locally-rooted, non-extractive loan funds that brings the power of big finance under community control. Because of their unorthodox ownership structures, cooperatively owned businesses don’t fit neatly into most lenders’ boxes. So one group decided to build their own source of funding. Founded by a coop that was struggling to find financing, Seed Commons has grown to bring together worker co-op incubators and loan funds in cities across the country. Loans of as little as $15,000 or $20,000 can be transformational in getting a new co-op up and running; they have now made loans as large as $1 million. Seed Commons can also offer technical advice and training, and access to networks of resources, that are critical to the health of the co-op sector. Seed Commons has now invested over $15 million in a national network of worker-owned co-ops that are building their own non-extractive funding streams.
https://www.yesmagazine.org/economy/2021/02/12/worker-owned-cooperatives-investment-network?
 

Some things that have made me hopeful recently: 

NYC taxi drivers who organized to take on predatory lenders and won, paving the way for future debt relief.
https://inequality.org/great-divide/nyc-taxi-drivers-hunger-strike/?

New banking services that are offered by post offices, testing the possibility of a wider system that could benefit the unbanked.
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/return-postal-banking-postal-service-tests-new-financial-services-rcna2502?

Uruguay’s journey from dependence on fossil fuel imports to becoming a renewable energy pioneer, with nearly 100% of its power now coming from renewable sources.
https://www.dw.com/en/uruguay-leads-green-energy-charge-in-latin-america/a-59492982

The move by the Biden administration moving to bar federal oil and gas leasing around the Chaco Culture National Historical Park, siding with tribal heritage against economic interests.
https://www.santafenewmexican.com/content/tncms/live/

 
 

Resources

Alive in this World
A book of poetry in three parts: A Home with the Trees, Commuter Encounters, and A Home with the Earth
https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/alive-in-this-world-pamela-haines/1139506943.

That Clear and Certain Sound; Finding Solid Ground in Perilous Times

A book of essays, many from this blog, available for pre-order till late November
https://www.johnhuntpublishing.com/christian-alternative-books/our-books/quaker-quicks-that-clear-certain-sound.

The Financial Roots of the Climate Crisis 
Link to a talk I gave at a church in Houston 
https://vimeo.com/showcase/7910215

Envision or Perish; Why we must start imagining the world we want to live in

An article I co-authored with George Lakey
https://wagingnonviolence.org/2021/02/envision-or-perish-why-we-must-start-imagining-the-world-we-want/  

Money and Soul
My newish book (based on a pamphlet of the same name) available via QuakerBooks or other on-line distributors.
("If money troubles your soul, try this down-to-earth Quaker perspective on economies large and small.") 

Money, Debt and Liberation
A video of a talk I gave at Pendle Hill in January, 2019
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f7nP8eJ5vy8 

Toward a Right Relationship with Finance  
A book that I co-authored on Debt, Interest, Growth and Security.
The growth economy is failing to provide equitable well-being for humanity and a life-sustaining future for Earth.  However our institutional endowments and individual retirement are dependent on that same growth economy.  This book:
• offers background on our current economic system--how it is based on unearned income on the one hand and debt on the other, with a built-in momentum toward economy inequality and ecological overshoot;
• frames the conversation within the context of our deepest values and beliefs;
• suggests plausible and historically grounded alternatives to the current system, particularly with regard to financing retirement; and
• invites everyone to imagine new forms of durable economic and social security, and to help create the relationships and institutions that will make them a reality.
With many people now counting as never before on the performance of Wall Street for retirement security, how can this system be challenged with integrity and effectiveness?  Can we break with our dependence on financial speculation and build up new structures of security in a transformed, life-centered economy?
To order the book, or read it on line, go to http://www.quakerinstitute.org/?page_id=5 and scroll down.


Finding Steady Ground
If you need reminding of some simple ways to stay grounded in challenging times, I recommend this website, which I helped a friend develop following the last presidential election. 
www.findingsteadyground.com    

Other resources from my friend Daniel Hunter
Building a Movement to End the New Jim Crow; An Organizing Guide.  http://www.danielhunter.org/books/building-movement-end-new-jim-crow-organizing-guide  
Climate Resistance Handbook, or I was part of a climate action. Now what? https://commonslibrary.org/climate-resistance-handbook-or-i-was-part-of-a-climate-action-now-what/ 
Leading Groups On-Line. https://www.trainingforchange.org/training_tools/leading-groups-online-book/   


More resources

Posts on other web/blog sites:

In http://www.classism.org/gifts-american-dream/, Pamela Haines locates her family's homey DIY celebrations on a class spectrum of different connections to upward mobility.

            http://www.transitionus.org/blog/unlikely-suspects-–-deep-outreach-diverse-initiating-groups-–-pace-building-trust 

    http://www.classism.org/demolition-derby

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:  New link: https://www.peaceworkersus.org/docs/muscle_building_for_peace_and_justice.pdf (or just google the title)

#219 Fragility and healing

 Dear all,

The seasons are finally changing, and the different parts of my life—so many parts!—seem to be fitting into a workable and satisfying whole.

I’ve been struggling with my identity as a writer. Having to market myself—and now having two more book contracts (yikes!)—is really requiring me to stretch. It feels like I’m stepping into alien territory or crawling out of an old skin—facing vulnerability, unknowns, untested strengths. It’s more important than ever to remember that I’m not alone.

I’ve had a precious opportunity this past month to spend several days at the shore with family, immersing myself in a wonderful ecosystem that is full of new delights and mysteries. And the moon is full.

Love,

Pamela

Fragility and healing

There are contexts in which everything will go better if we honor fragility—the special plates or glasses that will break if not handled carefully, but that signal a time of great celebration; a delicate plant that must be carefully nurtured for its full beauty to be enjoyed; the medically fragile humans who are complete treasures just as they are. I’m sure there are many more contexts and occasions to honor fragility and tend to its needs, with love, respect and gratitude. This is an important lesson for me as I struggle with the ripples from life-long training to see just about any kind of fragility as problematic.

Yet there is also learned emotional fragility that drains our lives of possibilities and burdens those around us, and there are wrongly assigned assumptions of fragility that just sow confusion and disempowerment. While we don’t want to lay burdens on our children that are too heavy for their small shoulders, for example, treating them as fragile and trying to protect them from all risks brings its own peril. What if we could see this kind of learned or assigned fragility as separate from our true nature, and keep our sights on building our strength and resilience?

There is a peculiar set of dynamics here among men and women. We live so intimately together—we love and need and hope and despair and hate so openly, and in such close quarters. The story line in the West is that it is the women who are fragile. There may be some biological base in the vulnerability of women who are giving birth and caring for infants. Yet the life that has been pumped into this narrative of feminine fragility seems to be less about the true nature of women, and more about the emotional needs of men to have a counterfoil to their felt need to be strong. Where is the real fragility here?

In the US, in the context of our history of slavery, there is no space for Black fragility in any amount or any form. So we find white men needing white women to be close in and fragile, white people needing Black people to be apart and strong, and Black people experiencing whites as oppressively fragile.

There are compelling indications that nobody who is steeped in oppression—at either end—can grow up without being deeply wounded by it and forced into unnatural shape. The wounds of those in oppressed groups are deep and open, kept raw in the present by pervasive systems of injustice and daily acts of intentional or unintentional belittling. The wounds of those in the dominant or oppressive role can be more hidden—at least to those carrying them—covered over by protective layers of privilege and misinformation and insulation from reality.

As we engage together in the great work of healing, there are different needs. Those whose wounds are raw can be helped by some protective bandaging, by relief from constant abrasion. Those whose wounds are deep and hidden need to start with the kind of painful lancing that exposes the pus that must be drained away for true healing to occur.

We can use each other’s thoughtful help in this healing process: understanding how seemingly small things can affect unprotected nerve endings; seeing the depths of the hidden wounds that may be invisible to those who carry them; making the not-always-welcomed offers of help with lancing. It helps to remember that none of us can be fully healed until the systems of oppression and domination are dismantled, and that all of us have the seed of wholeness within.

Willingness to accept fragility that we can’t control is no easy feat in a culture that worships the bursting health that manifests in youth. At the same time, we are challenged to combat false messages of fragility that needlessly limit us—the assumptions that we are dependent for emotional care on women or Black people, or that the trait of fragility assigned to us, as white women for example, has anything to do with our true nature. Those understandings are the solid foundation for doing the hard emotional work, both individually and together, that will result in true community healing and resilience.

Portal

Sun after rain, the puddles
on this wooded trail are irresistible.
Jump in, jump over, wade through
test the depth of the biggest ones.

The six year old is captivated—
jumps and splashes, but sees more.
Look, he says, and points to a reflection:
It’s a portal to the sky.

Dare to Imagine: A New Economy is Possible!

Just Banking

Triodos Bank, in the Netherlands, is one of the world's leading sustainable banks, and one that gets a high rating from Ethical Consumer. Its mission is “to make money work for positive social, environmental and cultural change.”

It has extensive ‘minimum standards’ for companies that it invests in, which cover areas such as health and safety, governance and human rights, and screening for involvement in conflict minerals and human or labour rights abuses, and arms-related activities. In 2017, 38% of its loans went to environmental projects, including renewable energy, organic agriculture and other projects across the agricultural chain, recycling, and nature conservation. It ranks at Ethical Consumer’s top for transparency. Not only does it have a clear policy for its investments and lending, it publishes a full list of the companies in which it holds shares.

https://www.ethicalconsumer.org/company-profile/triodos-bank-nv




Some things that have made me hopeful recently:

All the environmental rights struggles—and successes—across the country that are documented in The World We Need.

https://thenewpress.com/books/world-we-need

How the mineral rich Indian state of Chhattisgarh is moving away from mining, and giving fair prices for forest produce and creating more jobs.

https://www.goodgoodgood.co/articles/indian-mining-state-shifting-from-coal-to-forest-fruits-and-flowers?

During the pandemic and recession, farmers are realizing they have more in common with immigrant meatpackers than agribusiness CEOs.
https://otherwords.org/farmers-and-meatpackers-are-teaming-up-for-pandemic-safety/

The growth of bee populations by 73% in Maine, and 14% nationwide in the last two years, as reported by the US Department of Agriculture.

https://mymodernmet.com/bee-colony-increase/

Resources

Alive in this World
A book of poetry in three parts: A Home with the Trees, Commuter Encounters, and A Home with the Earth
https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/alive-in-this-world-pamela-haines/1139506943.

That Clear and Certain Sound; Finding Solid Ground in Perilous Times

A book of essays, many from this blog, available for pre-order till late November
https://www.johnhuntpublishing.com/christian-alternative-books/our-books/quaker-quicks-that-clear-certain-sound.

The Financial Roots of the Climate Crisis 
Link to a talk I gave at a church in Houston 
https://vimeo.com/showcase/7910215

Envision or Perish; Why we must start imagining the world we want to live in

An article I co-authored with George Lakey
https://wagingnonviolence.org/2021/02/envision-or-perish-why-we-must-start-imagining-the-world-we-want/  

Money and Soul
My newish book (based on a pamphlet of the same name) available via QuakerBooks or other on-line distributors.
("If money troubles your soul, try this down-to-earth Quaker perspective on economies large and small.") 

Money, Debt and Liberation
A video of a talk I gave at Pendle Hill in January, 2019
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f7nP8eJ5vy8 

Toward a Right Relationship with Finance  
A book that I co-authored on Debt, Interest, Growth and Security.
The growth economy is failing to provide equitable well-being for humanity and a life-sustaining future for Earth.  However our institutional endowments and individual retirement are dependent on that same growth economy.  This book:
• offers background on our current economic system--how it is based on unearned income on the one hand and debt on the other, with a built-in momentum toward economy inequality and ecological overshoot;
• frames the conversation within the context of our deepest values and beliefs;
• suggests plausible and historically grounded alternatives to the current system, particularly with regard to financing retirement; and
• invites everyone to imagine new forms of durable economic and social security, and to help create the relationships and institutions that will make them a reality.
With many people now counting as never before on the performance of Wall Street for retirement security, how can this system be challenged with integrity and effectiveness?  Can we break with our dependence on financial speculation and build up new structures of security in a transformed, life-centered economy?
To order the book, or read it on line, go to http://www.quakerinstitute.org/?page_id=5 and scroll down.


Finding Steady Ground
If you need reminding of some simple ways to stay grounded in challenging times, I recommend this website, which I helped a friend develop following the last presidential election. 
www.findingsteadyground.com    

Other resources from my friend Daniel Hunter
Building a Movement to End the New Jim Crow; An Organizing Guide.  http://www.danielhunter.org/books/building-movement-end-new-jim-crow-organizing-guide  
Climate Resistance Handbook, or I was part of a climate action. Now what? https://commonslibrary.org/climate-resistance-handbook-or-i-was-part-of-a-climate-action-now-what/ 
Leading Groups On-Line. https://www.trainingforchange.org/training_tools/leading-groups-online-book/   


More resources

Posts on other web/blog sites:

In http://www.classism.org/gifts-american-dream/, Pamela Haines locates her family's homey DIY celebrations on a class spectrum of different connections to upward mobility.

            http://www.transitionus.org/blog/unlikely-suspects-–-deep-outreach-diverse-initiating-groups-–-pace-building-trust 

    http://www.classism.org/demolition-derby

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:  New link: https://www.peaceworkersus.org/docs/muscle_building_for_peace_and_justice.pdf (or just google the title)

#218 Knowledge

 Dear all, 

I think all of us are finding it hard to keep our balance these days as we step into the fall. With both vaccinations and the delta variant, how do we balance new possibilities with caution? With signs of both progressive movement and strong backlash in our country, how do we balance hope and fear? 

In my personal life, I’m faced with balancing on-going commitments with new projects, including moving from deeply intuitive writing to deeply non-intuitive book marketing (and I just signed two more contracts—yay/yikes!) I’m proud, though, of how I’ve been asking for help, and thrilled with what I’m receiving.

It’s been a pleasure to have two young grandchildren join me in our shared love for the moon, as we watched it grow this month from a sickle to stunning fullness. It reminds me of the constancy and beauty and power that are always there to be found.

Love,

Pamela

Knowledge

My daughter-in-law was reading a challenging text for a course she was taking—a philosophical treatise on white supremacy, full of long complicated words and longer more complicated sentences. As she vented about the challenge, I was a little surprised at the intensity of my response. I got mad. I was ready to throw all philosophers and all their stupid long words and sentences into oblivion. But she held out for the validity of philosophy, and I was called to think through my position a little more clearly.

I realized that it wasn’t the field of philosophy that offended me so deeply. After all, there is nothing inherently wrong with “love of wisdom”! It is the weaponizing of wisdom that gets under my skin: presenting knowledge in a way that demonstrates how much more you understand than the deficient masses; protecting your vulnerable sense of self-worth with a show of importance; publicly claiming your membership in an elite superior group. It smells of domination, seems full of the seeds of oppression.

The field of economics has a similar story, where self-proclaimed “experts” created a complex mathematical system to explain the workings of the markets, then built a wall around their new discipline and required those who would enter to master the intricacies of their creation. Those on the outside came to feel that they just didn’t know enough to understand, that they had no choice but to cede the whole territory to the “experts”. Yet “economics”, from the Greek for “household management,” is something anybody can think about. It’s full of values and common sense that those who claim expertise have obscured rather than clarified. Everybody has the capacity and right to engage on this territory.

So, am I saying that there’s no place for expertise in this world? That putting in the effort to master complexity is, at its heart, suspect? Well, that couldn’t be right. We certainly wouldn’t want to hold out an expectation that nobody should know more than anybody else. But there is something about our attitude toward knowledge that needs closer examination.

If we see it as private property then it’s logical to use it to our own advantage, to prop up our egos, to keep it scarce so its value stays high, to hoard and to deploy it for mastery over others. Some may approach it privately, but pursue knowledge for the sheer joy of personal discovery—like my eight-year-old grandson. Others may be on a quest to uplift humanity. Theirs may be the hardest job, because their goal extends beyond the personal. They would choose to serve, yet if an idea is presented in language that blocks understanding it’s like giving and taking back in the same motion. If you really believe you’ve come across something important, then you either need to learn how to communicate it in words that people can understand, or you have to acknowledge that it will be useless unless somebody else does that job for you.

I would argue that, in the process of pushing the edges of human understanding, there is no place for ownership. Our knowledge is part of a shared cultural heritage, a common wealth. Everyone of us who has explored a new idea is standing on the shoulders of those who have come before. Our minds are our own, it is true, yet we do not exist in isolation. And for our thoughts to matter to anyone else they have to find a pathway not only out of our heads but  into the heads of others. For that to happen, they have to be accessible.

Perhaps my passion here grows from the reality that I too have a love for wisdom. I am committed to seeking it and sharing what I find. So the text my daughter-in-law was reading grew from something that I love, but had been twisted into another shape, sharpened and misused. I think the way forward is simple—abandon the lures of private property, claim all our knowledge and wisdom as part of the commons, and keep access at its very heart.

 

Strand of the web

As I weeded at the trolley portal
he would come by on his little city sidewalk vacuum sweeper
and we would say hello—
a small human moment to cherish
as we both tended to beauty in the neighborhood.

Years pass, those public beds make way for other city plans,
our paths no longer cross.

Then, deep in the winter of pandemic,
I see him on my morning walk, closer to home.
Perhaps his route has changed.
Bundled and masked, I smile and wave.
He waves back, but does he know it’s me?
The months go by. I see him now and then
look for a chance to catch his eye and say hello.

Then one day the stars align—
maskless and present, we connect.
His cheerful greeting warms my heart—
a strand in the web of life reclaimed, restored.





Dare to imagine: A new economy is possible!
Solidarity investing club supports coops

The Vermont Solidarity Investing Club, with 27 members, has invested all of its more than $60,000 specifically in cooperatives. Each member owns a portion of the LLC, to which they contribute $20 to $200 on a monthly basis.

The largest of VSIC’s current investments is in the Cooperative Fund of New England, which loans money to co-ops, democratic worker-owned businesses, and community organizations. VSIC also invests in other cooperative funds, existing coop businesses and new cooperative ventures, supporting the network of coops throughout the region.

https://www.shareable.net/solidarity-investing-club-helps-plant-a-new-crop-of-co-ops-in-vermont/  






Some things that have given me hope recently:

Locals are interrupting violence in Minneapolis, by sitting in lawn chairs at dangerous corners.

https://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/minneapolis-nashville-and-baltimore-violence-interrupters/?utm_campaign=newsletters&utm_medium=weekly_mailout&utm_source=22-09-2021

Farmers have been teaming up with meatpackers, realizing they have more in common with these immigrants than with agribusiness CEOs.

https://otherwords.org/farmers-and-meatpackers-are-teaming-up-for-pandemic-safety/

With Tunisia facing both climate and economic crises, a group of women have started cooperatives and small businesses to protect the environment and create a sustainable livelihood.
https://www.trtworld.com/magazine/saving-seeds-and-lives-tunisian-women-on-the-frontline-of-climate-change-49799?

And a handful of fossil fuel victories!

Indigenous resistance has staved off 25% of U.S. and Canada’s annual emissions, the pollution equivalent of approximately 400 new coal-fired power plants.

https://grist.org/protest/indigenous-resistance-has-cut-u-s-and-canadas-annual-emissions/

Student pressure on Harvard, the world’s richest university, to divest from fossil fuels has finally succeeded.

https://www.thenation.com/article/activism/harvard-fossil-fuel-divestment-won/

After intense grassroots pressure,15 insurers drop the Trans Mountain Pipeline 
https://truthout.org/articles/15-insurers-drop-trans-mountain-pipeline-after-grassroots-pressure/

A federal judge’s rejection of a huge Alaska oil drilling project is the latest reversal of Trump policy and a win for Indigenous and environmental activists.

https://insideclimatenews.org/news/20082021/alaska-willow-oil-project-biden-trump/?

Resources

Alive in this World
A book of poetry in three parts: A Home with the Trees, Commuter Encounters, and A Home with the Earth
https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/alive-in-this-world-pamela-haines/1139506943.

That Clear and Certain Sound; Finding Solid Ground in Perilous Times

A book of essays, many from this blog, available for pre-order till November
https://www.johnhuntpublishing.com/christian-alternative-books/our-books/quaker-quicks-that-clear-certain-sound.

The Financial Roots of the Climate Crisis 
Link to a talk I gave at a church in Houston 
https://vimeo.com/showcase/7910215

Envision or Perish; Why we must start imagining the world we want to live in

An article I co-authored with George Lakey
https://wagingnonviolence.org/2021/02/envision-or-perish-why-we-must-start-imagining-the-world-we-want/  

Money and Soul
My newish book (based on a pamphlet of the same name) available via QuakerBooks or other on-line distributors.
("If money troubles your soul, try this down-to-earth Quaker perspective on economies large and small.") 

Money, Debt and Liberation
A video of a talk I gave at Pendle Hill in January, 2019
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f7nP8eJ5vy8 

Toward a Right Relationship with Finance  
A book that I co-authored on Debt, Interest, Growth and Security.
The growth economy is failing to provide equitable well-being for humanity and a life-sustaining future for Earth.  However our institutional endowments and individual retirement are dependent on that same growth economy.  This book:
• offers background on our current economic system--how it is based on unearned income on the one hand and debt on the other, with a built-in momentum toward economy inequality and ecological overshoot;
• frames the conversation within the context of our deepest values and beliefs;
• suggests plausible and historically grounded alternatives to the current system, particularly with regard to financing retirement; and
• invites everyone to imagine new forms of durable economic and social security, and to help create the relationships and institutions that will make them a reality.
With many people now counting as never before on the performance of Wall Street for retirement security, how can this system be challenged with integrity and effectiveness?  Can we break with our dependence on financial speculation and build up new structures of security in a transformed, life-centered economy?
To order the book, or read it on line, go to http://www.quakerinstitute.org/?page_id=5 and scroll down.


Finding Steady Ground
If you need reminding of some simple ways to stay grounded in challenging times, I recommend this website, which I helped a friend develop following the last presidential election. 
www.findingsteadyground.com    

Other resources from my friend Daniel Hunter
Building a Movement to End the New Jim Crow; An Organizing Guide.  http://www.danielhunter.org/books/building-movement-end-new-jim-crow-organizing-guide  
Climate Resistance Handbook, or I was part of a climate action. Now what? https://commonslibrary.org/climate-resistance-handbook-or-i-was-part-of-a-climate-action-now-what/ 
Leading Groups On-Line. https://www.trainingforchange.org/training_tools/leading-groups-online-book/   


More resources

Posts on other web/blog sites:

In http://www.classism.org/gifts-american-dream/, Pamela Haines locates her family's homey DIY celebrations on a class spectrum of different connections to upward mobility.

            http://www.transitionus.org/blog/unlikely-suspects-–-deep-outreach-diverse-initiating-groups-–-pace-building-trust 

    http://www.classism.org/demolition-derby

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:  New link: https://www.peaceworkersus.org/docs/muscle_building_for_peace_and_justice.pdf (or just google the title)

#213 Lines and Circles

 Dear all,

In April it’s always hard to think about anything but spring—and we’re having a beautiful one—but I’ll try! 

As more people get vaccinated, we are cautiously considering that more contact might be possible. Working with a great team to teach a six-session course on economics to co-counselors around the world has challenged my deep-seated habit of solo-functioning, and required me to imagine the possibilities of having even great impact by gathering others around. And I keep finding more ways to share the invitation to focus not just on what is desperately wrong and needs to be changed in this world, but on what is right and needs to be nourished.

Wishing you the nourishment that you need.

Love,

Pamela

Lines and circles

In spring, my mind and heart come full circle. Here we are again in the most miraculous of seasons. Just as the earth turns every night toward the morning, it has been steadily turning all through the winter toward this rebirth. If I don’t catch the fullness of this transformation—if I miss a new bud, or the unfolding of a tiny leaf, or a bird song, if I fail to fully take in the freshness of a spring breeze, it is a loss. But there is always next year. Perhaps by then I will be even more attentive, more in tune. (And of course there are all the joys of summer, fall and winter to take in before spring comes around again.)

There is a richness to this circle that makes me wonder at our collective commitment to the line. This shows most clearly in our undying allegiance to the idea of progress, the idea that we’re on an ever-upward trajectory. The past deserves only our condescending sympathy. The future will be bigger, better, brighter. (I wonder, would we want the seasons to march on to every greater heights?) Even our clocks have abandoned the circle and joined with the line.

This allegiance to the march of progress comes at a cost. The linear model of extract, consume, discard, then extract even more is wreaking havoc on our economies, our planet and our psyches. The line on the graph that heads steadily upward often leaves out more than it shows. The rising yields of the Green Revolution also brought increased fossil fuel dependence, soil and water degradation and, with seeds that could not be saved, the threat to small farm sustainability. The steady expansion of the economy brings ever-increasing, and now intolerable, stress to the planet. The incredible growth of the stock market is mirrored by the ever-growing weight of debt that supports it. The staggering number of new products that are available to consumers (who have the means) has a stubbornly neutral, if not negative, impact on well-being. And what has been the cost of monotheism, in its replacement of earth wisdom with a dominant patriarchal authority?

I think it’s time to shift our allegiance from the line back to the circle. In agriculture, this means investing back in the soil and the farmers and farm communities. In production, it means planning so that the waste product of one process are the resources for another. In finance, it means lending in a way that reliably increases the wealth of the borrower.

Are there places where a commitment to the line still makes sense? Human evolution can certainly be shaped to fit the story line of progress, with ever-increasing domination and mastery. But isn’t evolution ultimately about developing the characteristics that best equip us to flourish within the circle of life? It could be argued that as a species we are on a linear, if uneven, path toward ever-greater enlightenment. Yet wouldn’t this better be seen as an unfolding of understanding from right where we are—a movement that is not directional, but up and out and down to the roots? Not an endless extraction of new truth from the universe and a discarding of the old, but a greater clarity, a settling into the wisdom that was always right there, waiting to be revealed? 

If we commit to the line, can we ever mature and become wise? It’s unclear if this was ever a good fit for the human condition. The scientific and industrial revolutions, fueled by the gift of stored sunlight from ancient times, have certainly allowed for an explosion of knowledge and access to each other. Maybe we needed this blip in history, this experiment with the line, to provide us with some of the means of surviving what it has created.

But the costs now clearly outweigh the benefits. Our long-term survival depends on reclaiming our allegiance to the circle: to recommit to generation and regeneration rather than extraction, to thriving rather than growing, to embracing the constraints of the circle rather than remaining enslaved to the allure of the ever-rising line. It means coming around full circle to the indigenous wisdom in which all of us have our roots, cultivating an ever-deeper appreciation of that which comes around, and then comes around again. It means settling into the great circle of life.

 



Will to live

I have a plan for this front garden plot,
no more than four feet square—
a narrow band of flowers in the front
peas to climb the fence behind
kale and basil in between
all protected by a layer of mulch.
A modest plan to balance beauty,
nourishment and care of soil.

The peas are up.
I crouch down to plant my kale—
and am undone.

There’s no blank canvas here.
Two earthworms with their thick bands joined
have claimed the space to make new life.
Countless tiny parsley leaves uncurl
across the bed, from seeds that fell to earth last fall
eager for the chance to grow,
and I find poppies sprouting up as well.
There’s life abundant here without my plans.

A layer of mulch laid thick would win
against their will to grow.
But do I want that victory?

The worms are fine, no need to worry there.
I set four kale plants in amid the parsley,
transplant some poppies to a planter by the street
to make more room for basil down the road,
abandon plans for mulch, at least for now.

We’ll find our way together in this bed,
somehow.






Dare to imagine:  A new economy is possible
Investing in worker coops

Seed Commons is a national network of locally rooted, non-extractive loan funds that brings the power of big finance under community control. By taking guidance from the grassroots and sharing capital and resources to invest in local coops, they are building the infrastructure necessary for a truly just, democratic and sustainable new economy. Non-extraction is one of the key principles of Seed Commons, and it dictates the terms for all of their loans and investments: returns to the lender will never exceed the wealth created by the borrower using the capital. This is often colloquially said as “a borrower will never be worse off than before working with us.” Seed Commons is a 501(c)(3) community development financial institution (CDFI).

https://seedcommons.org/about-seed-commons/ 






Some things that have made me hopeful recently:

The Chicago suburb of Evanston approving reparations for Black residents, a likely first.
https://www.npr.org/2021/03/23/980277688/in-likely-first-chicago-suburb-of-evanston-approves-reparations-for-black-reside 

How Mexico’s decision to ban Glyphosate has rocked the agribusiness world.
https://www.commondreams.org/views/2021/02/24/mexicos-decision-ban-glyphosate-has-rocked-agribusiness-world 

The response to rising anti-immigrant sentiment by a Danish group working to integrate new arrivals to Copenhagen by taking care of honeybees.

https://www.yesmagazine.org/social-justice/2021/04/02/denmark-refugees-honeybees?

The sign from the University of Michigan’s decision to divest from fossil fuels that change is here.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/mar/27/university-of-michigan-divesting-fossil-fuels-change-is-here

Resources 

The Financial Roots of the Climate Crisis 
Link to a talk I gave at a church in Houston 
https://vimeo.com/showcase/7910215

Envision or Perish; Why we must start imagining the world we want to live in

An article I co-authored with George Lakey
https://wagingnonviolence.org/2021/02/envision-or-perish-why-we-must-start-imagining-the-world-we-want/  

Money and Soul
My new book (based on a pamphlet of the same name) available via QuakerBooks or other on-line distributors.
("If money troubles your soul, try this down-to-earth Quaker perspective on economies large and small.") 

Money, Debt and Liberation
A video of a talk I gave at Pendle Hill in January, 2019
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f7nP8eJ5vy8 

Toward a Right Relationship with Finance  
A book that I co-authored on Debt, Interest, Growth and Security.
The growth economy is failing to provide equitable well-being for humanity and a life-sustaining future for Earth.  However our institutional endowments and individual retirement are dependent on that same growth economy.  This book:
• offers background on our current economic system--how it is based on unearned income on the one hand and debt on the other, with a built-in momentum toward economy inequality and ecological overshoot;
• frames the conversation within the context of our deepest values and beliefs;
• suggests plausible and historically grounded alternatives to the current system, particularly with regard to financing retirement; and
• invites everyone to imagine new forms of durable economic and social security, and to help create the relationships and institutions that will make them a reality.
With many people now counting as never before on the performance of Wall Street for retirement security, how can this system be challenged with integrity and effectiveness?  Can we break with our dependence on financial speculation and build up new structures of security in a transformed, life-centered economy?
To order the book, or read it on line, go to http://www.quakerinstitute.org/?page_id=5 and scroll down.


Finding Steady Ground
If you need reminding of some simple ways to stay grounded in challenging times, I recommend this website, which I helped a friend develop following the last presidential election. 
www.findingsteadyground.com    

Other resources from my friend Daniel Hunter
Building a Movement to End the New Jim Crow; An Organizing Guide.  http://www.danielhunter.org/books/building-movement-end-new-jim-crow-organizing-guide  
Climate Resistance Handbook, or I was part of a climate action. Now what? https://commonslibrary.org/climate-resistance-handbook-or-i-was-part-of-a-climate-action-now-what/ 
Leading Groups On-Line. https://www.trainingforchange.org/training_tools/leading-groups-online-book/   


More resources

Posts on other web/blog sites:

In http://www.classism.org/gifts-american-dream/, Pamela Haines locates her family's homey DIY celebrations on a class spectrum of different connections to upward mobility.

            http://www.transitionus.org/blog/unlikely-suspects-–-deep-outreach-diverse-initiating-groups-–-pace-building-trust 

    http://www.classism.org/demolition-derby

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:  New link: https://www.peaceworkersus.org/docs/muscle_building_for_peace_and_justice.pdf (or just google the title)

#194 Ignorance

Dear all,

I continue to be heartened by gathered voices and steps forward in this world—such as the climate strike and new public banking law in California—while weighed down by the scary challenges we face. I keep reminding myself of the resources on connecting and grounding that we developed at www.findingsteadyground.com, and that the essence of my work is to be who I am, as big as I can be.

I am always stunned by the amazing transformation from summmer to fall that we experience here in the northeastern US, and it's been a blessing to have more clear days this month to follow the cycle of the moon.

Love,
Pamela





Ignorance

I’ve been wondering recently whether a greater appreciation of our ignorance might shine a light on the pathway to wisdom.

Someone I know led off a workshop on race and racism not long ago by asking participants to rank themselves as beginning, intermediate or advanced on the issue. It’s an intriguing question. I think I would have said that I’m sufficiently advanced to know what a beginner I am. A few years ago I might have claimed the rank of advanced. After all, I’ve learned history, puzzled over theory, built a wide variety of relationship, done lots of emotional work, helped others engage with the issues.

Since then, however, I’ve taken a deep dive into the nitty-gritties of racism in an urban farm project that has had to address thorny issues of black spaces, reparations and community control. I am deeply grateful for that very painful opportunity, and have learned much in the process. I think I knew enough to play a role that was more positive than negative, but am amazed at the extent of my naivete and blind spots. There is no way I can avoid my ignorance.

This is hard to admit. In my family growing up, ignorance was viewed as a terrible thing.  Right answers were prized, and intellectual ability was encouraged above all else. My parents thought of themselves as outside of the mainstream, but I’ve come to see that these values of theirs were in complete alignment with the beliefs of the Enlightenment and the Scientific Revolution that have shaped our culture for hundreds of years. The pursuit of knowledge is the noblest endeavor; with it we can master the world. Ignorance is the enemy.

Yet where has this perspective led us? I recently came across a book, Earth in Mind, by David Orr, that is eloquent on this subject. Ignorance is not a solvable problem, he says. Rather it is an inescapable part of the human condition.  Knowledge, on the other hand, is a fearful thing.  He reminds us that to know the name of something traditionally was to hold power over it. Misused, that power would break the sacred order and wreak havoc. Why, I wonder, does that ancient warning ring so eerily true in our present condition?

He suggests that we cannot say that we know something until we understand the effects of this knowledge on real people and their communities. If we are too smug about the explosive increase of knowledge in modern times, we may fail to notice the knowledge that is being lost, and the critical nature of that knowledge for the survival of our species. We have broken the world down into billions of discrete knowable bits, but are lost when it comes to understanding what makes it whole.

Examples of the flaws of putting all our eggs in the knowledge basket are everywhere. Children are pushed to learn letters and numbers ever earlier, yet long-term success in school correlates more closely with a foundation of love of learning and strong social-emotional and problem-solving skills. Business schools turn out graduates who have aced classes on finance, planning and management, yet industry is desperate for the intangible qualities of leadership and entrepreneurial spirit. Scientists have mastered mixing chemicals to increase crop yields (as least temporarily), yet know virtually nothing about what creates soil health.

What would it take to decouple knowledge from hubris and from the blindness that seems always to come with it? Can we find the humility to accept our ignorance, to assume that anything we learn will illuminate bigger areas of unknowing that were previously invisible to us, and to cultivate an attitude of wonder at the unknowable? Perhaps then we can exchange the goal of mastery through attainment of knowledge for the ability to ask the questions that get to the heart of the matter.






Neighbors

The red car is gone.
For weeks (could it be months?)
it stood there in the lot
beside our garden fence.

Two young men were living there.
We said hello, talked about the heat.
They were not bad neighbors
though the smell of pee grew strong.

I knew they were in need
didn’t step in to save
didn’t complain
chose instead for steady warm civility.

And now they’re gone
not by choice, it’s said.
I wish them well, wherever they may be,
and wonder: Could I have been
a better neighbor?





Dare to imagine: A new economy is possible!

Fair Trade in Columbia

Established 21 years ago, the ColyFlor Solidarity Economic Circuit comprises 200 suppliers (rural families, women, indigenous and Afro-Colombian communities) growing agro-ecological foods in the region of Medellín, Colombia to sell at their fair trade store. It also includes a network of responsible consumers who live in Medellin and nearby municipalities. The store offers agro-ecological tours to small peasant farms, cooking courses with healthy foods, and promotion of participation in fairs and peasant markets in the city.

This effort has influenced local government rural development policies to promote agro-ecological good practice and sustainable consumption, and technical assistance for agricultural development. There are now around 17 initiatives in the region that focus on the sale of organic and agro-ecological products.

 https://transformativecities.org/atlas-of-utopias/atlas-58/




Some things that have made me hopeful recently:

At least eight states and 130 cities have legally changed Columbus Day to Indigenous People’s day, including Washington DC and Wisconsin in the last month.
https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/dc-joins-100-cities-changing-columbus-day-indigenous/story?id=66183074

The governor of California has signed a law enabling the establishment of public banks in the state, and efforts in LA and San Francisco are already underway.
https://www.publicbankinginstitute.org/

Four million people around the world took part in September’s global climate strike: 
Short video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=za-S4p4BwqY&feature=youtu.be

Costa Rica has doubled its forest cover, from 26% in 1983 to 52% today.
https://www.positive.news/environment/costa-rica-doubles-its-forest-cover-in-30-years/





Resources


Money and Soul
My new book (based on a pamphlet of the same name) available via QuakerBooks or other on-line distributors.
("If money troubles your soul, try this down-to-earth Quaker perspective on economies large and small.")

Money, Debt and Liberation
A video of a talk I gave at Pendle Hill in January, 2019
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f7nP8eJ5vy8

Toward a Right Relationship with Finance 
A book that I co-authored on Debt, Interest, Growth and Security.

The growth economy is failing to provide equitable well-being for humanity and a life-sustaining future for Earth.  However our institutional endowments and individual retirement are dependent on that same growth economy.  This book:
    • offers background on our current economic system--how it is based on unearned income on the one hand and debt on the other, with a built-in momentum toward economy inequality and ecological overshoot;
    • frames the conversation within the context of our deepest values and beliefs;
    • suggests plausible and historically grounded alternatives to the current system, particularly with regard to financing retirement; and
    • invites everyone to imagine new forms of durable economic and social security, and to help create the relationships and institutions that will make them a reality.
With many people now counting as never before on the performance of Wall Street for retirement security, how can this system be challenged with integrity and effectiveness?  Can we break with our dependence on financial speculation and build up new structures of security in a transformed, life-centered economy?

To order the book, or read it on line, go to http://www.quakerinstitute.org/?page_id=5 and scroll down.



More resources

www.findingsteadyground.com  

Resource from my friend Daniel Hunter, Building a Movement to End the New Jim Crow; An Organizing Guide.  http://www.danielhunter.org/books/building-movement-end-new-jim-crow-organizing-guide 

Posts on other web/blog sites:

In http://www.classism.org/gifts-american-dream/, Pamela Haines locates her family's homey DIY celebrations on a class spectrum of different connections to upward mobility.

            http://www.transitionus.org/blog/unlikely-suspects-–-deep-outreach-diverse-initiating-groups-–-pace-building-trust

        http://www.classism.org/demolition-derby

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:  https://www.trainingforchange.org/publications/muscle-building-peace-and-justice-nonviolent-workout-routine-21st-century (or just google the title)