#229 Trying

 Dear all,

We’re back from a lovely quiet time at the cabin we share in the woods. I spent a couple of hours every morning on the pond—being present to the dawn and growing light of a new day, and pulling out great quantities of algae while composing articles and poetry in my head. What a delicious combination! It was like a little writing workshop folded into a deeply restful vacation.

This column/blog/newsletter may come to you in a different form next month. I’m moving my system to a new platform that provides a link for signing up—which will hopefully make it easier for new folks to find and access. I may continue sending it in this form as well, but don’t be surprised if there’s a change.

Looking forward to my book and birthday celebration on the 19th—please be in touch if you want the link. And I hope you catch sight of our beautiful moon!

Love,
Pamela




Trying

I was going to write about how trying is always worth doing, because it moves you forward whether you succeed or not. I had my examples lined up. There was the time my attempt to propagate larch trees failed, but acting on my caring for the forest jumpstarted a process that led to what could be a lasting solution for our threatened hemlock trees. There was a more recent experience with the exciting new prospect of blueberry propagation; initial failure motivated me to research the process, add a new rooting ingredient, and try again.

I just needed a few examples outside this rather narrow realm. Maybe trying a recipe that didn’t quite work out and being motivated to change it up a little? Or I could use the example of small children and their incredible determination to keep trying, whether for mobility or language, regardless of innumerable failures. But my goal was to encourage adults to try new and hard things, and when I put my mind to that realm I wasn’t coming up with much.

In reality, when we try and don’t succeed, I think many of us are not so much inspired to try harder as convinced that the safer alternative is to give up. Or if we’re not humiliated into passivity, we may just keep doing the same thing we’re familiar with, louder and more insistently perhaps, with equally little chance of success.

I hold to the core of my original proposition—that trying is always better than not trying, and that learning from our mistakes can propel us forward. But what are the factors in a failed try that put us in a stronger position to try again? Alternatively, what are the factors that flatten us, leaving us certain that any new attempt would only be a waste of time and effort?

The difference between trying and not succeeding and being shown up as a failure seems to be a critical one. Part of moving forward in the face of failed tries involves doing the emotional work of recognizing how we’ve been set up by experiences from our childhood to protect ourselves from failure and humiliation. Though the reasons to give up may seem present and overwhelming, it helps to recognize them as voices from the past—poor guides for our grown-up selves—and to find ways of removing their tentacles from our attitudes and decisions in the present.

Another part of not being rocked by failure is planning in advance for obstacles, so they don’t take us by surprise. In a training series on leadership and advocacy that I’ve done with childcare workers, we imagine planning a big Thanksgiving dinner, a leadership challenge that everyone can relate to. After thinking through the goals, the work required, the skills and resources that are needed, we consider the obstacles we can anticipate. After brainstorming what could be a terminally discouraging list of potential obstacles, we imagine possible ways of handling each one.

It is also helpful to surround ourselves in the present with example of hope and possibility. Though not an easy task these days, with crises looming on all fronts and media that seems to concentrate and relentlessly broadcast the worst news, we can be intentional here as well.

Perhaps most important, we can make it our business to not try hard things alone. This could mean joining groups with similar passions and goals. It could mean finding one person with whom we can share our dreams and struggles, knowing they will remember how good and capable we are. It could mean identifying a little accountability group—people who care about what we are trying, and with whom we can share both successes and discouragement, humiliation and failure, and strategize about how to move on.

Since I started drafting this article, my second attempt at blueberry propagation has failed. But I learned in the process that I had started late in the season, so I will try again in the winter. And I’m soaking up the benefits of my own advice—with a little group gathered round to back me as I find my way through the minefield of self-doubt and fear of humiliation and failure that comes as I try for bigger goals. In the embrace of their support, I gather courage to try again.





Accident on the turnpike

The car in front of me
slows suddenly, dramatically
I slam on the breaks—
accident right in front of us
overturned trailer
car bent in, people
starting to walk about.

Immobilized, I wait.
A semi rolls in on the shoulder
immense and improbable.
How can he possibly hope
to get through this?

Door opens, driver rushes out
heads straight for the crash
to help. Then more and more men
open the doors of cars ahead
come hurrying from behind
ready to offer what they can.

I wait and witness
deeply shaken, deeply reassured.



 

Dare to imagine: A new economy is possible!
Common Market

A Philadelphia couple, working with a coalition of community businesses and organizations, launched Common Market in 2008 to rebuild the infrastructure and relationships that once linked local farms to local communities.

Today, Common Market connects more than 200 mid-Atlantic institutions, businesses and community organizations to 75 family farmers in New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Delaware. Sales have grown from $600,000 in 2010 to $1.7 million in 2013, with 25 percent of it reaching institutions serving low-income communities and communities of color.

Supplying institutions such as schools and hospitals has been the key to Common Market’s uncommon success at reaching large numbers of low-income children and families. Common Market serves retail grocers, runs a thriving farm share program and has its own brand, “Delaware Valley Grown,” but working with large institutions also has enabled this social enterprise to grow to operational scale.

https://www.wkkf.org/what-we-do/featured-work/common-market-makes-local-food-happen-for-all





Some things that have made me hopeful recently:

Hawaii, the first state in the US to make a net zero pledge, has received its final shipment of coal.
https://gizmodo.com/hawaii-phasing-out-coal-renewables-1849348490?

The Onondaga Nation has regained 1,023 acres of land from New York State, including the headwaters of Onondaga Creek, a ground-breaking opportunity to restore the land, preserve Onondaga culture, and address historic and ongoing land injustices. 
https://www.onondaganation.org/uncategorized/2022/land_back_1023_acres/ 

Three oil companies have canceled their leases in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, a 19.5-million-acre wilderness area. 
https://www.ecowatch.com/oil-companies-drilling-leases-arctic-national-wildlife-refuge.html

Columbia has sworn in leftist Gustavo Petro as president, and Francia Márquez as their first Black vice president, bringing his long history of equity-focused public service and her human rights and environmental activism to the country’s leadership.
https://www.upi.com/Top_News/World-News/2022/08/07/colombia-swears-in-ex-rebel-president-gustavo-petro-first-black-vice-president-francia-marquez/6231659899307/





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://bookshop.org/books/alive-in-this-world/9789768273260

That Clear and Certain Sound; Finding Solid Ground in Perilous Times
A book of essays from this blog.

https://bookshop.org/books/quaker-quicks-that-clear-and-certain-sound-finding-solid-ground-in-perilous-times/9781789047653

Get Down to the Rock; Addressing the Economic Roots of the Climate Emergency

https://www.friendsjournal.org/get-down-to-the-rock/

Public Banking Has the Potential to Truly Revolutionize Our Economy
An article on my experience with the public banking movement as revolutionary reform.
https://truthout.org/articles/public-banking-has-the-potential-to-truly-revolutionize-our-economy/

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/  

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

Money and Soul; Quaker Faith and Practice and the Economy
If money troubles your soul, try this down-to-earth Quaker perspective on economies large and small. 

https://bookshop.org/books/quaker-quicks-money-and-soul-quaker-faith-and-practice-and-the-economy/9781789040890

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; Debt, Interest, Growth and Security.

https://bookshop.org/books/toward-a-right-relationship-with-finance-debt-interest-growth-and-security/9789768142887

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

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) 


More resources

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/  

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
 

#228 Know my name

 Dear all,

It was a delight to get away for a week to the woods of northern Pennsylvania, and I share some of that experience in what follows. Now we’re enjoying the (somewhat) slower pace of summer at home. I love how my early walks and garden time get me out in the cool of hot days, and it’s good to have relaxed time with Chuck as he steadily recovers his strength.

I have a new book of poetry coming out later this summer: Encounters with the Sacred and the Profane. I’m working with a very small publishing house, and they’ve lent a hand to make sure it will be ready by my birthday! So if you’re interested, save the date, Friday evening, 8/19, and let me know if you’d like an invitation. And now, in my ongoing project of getting the word out, I’m on the lookout for folks who know about starting podcasts—and doing TikTok videos (any talented but bored teenagers in your midst?!)

It’s been a blessing to be out in the evenings, taking in the moon as she grows ever more full. The sense of wonder and anticipation never fades.

Love,
Pamela




Know my name

Looking back on my childhood, it is sobering to realize I had no confidence that any of my teachers until sixth grade knew my name. They probably did. They may even have used it at times. But my felt experience of moving through that space unseen was no less real. In contrast, I remember the two bus drivers from my elementary school days with enormous fondness and gratitude. They always had a smile for me and greeted me by name.

Now this memory could logically lead to a reflection on the important role any adult can play in the life of any child, by letting them know that they are seen. I do believe this to be true and potentially life changing. But, after spending a week in the mountains where the human population is low, my thoughts are with the birds and the trees.

Earlier in the summer, a mother bird had decided to build her nest on a quiet window ledge of a deserted cabin. We arrived to find it right outside the window above the kitchen sink. She immediately flew off in alarm, and we worried that we would cause the death of those two tiny babies, totally dependent on a mother who was now too terrified to come near them. Fortunately, with great care and respect on our parts and great courage and persistence on hers, we found a way to coexist. It was a privilege and a delight to have such close access to this new little family, and it was good to know their name: this was a family of robins.

I was grateful that it was a robin who had built that nest. But there are so many birds I don’t know—like the striking pair with the double black ring around their necks that we saw in a field on our way in, the very red one flying into a nearby tree, the tiny one with bright distinctive coloring hopping under a picnic table at the park. They sent me again and again to the bird book. I had some success—those distinctive double bands were clear identifiers of a killdeer—but mostly I was overwhelmed by the incredible diversity of bird life and all that I did not know. So many names to learn if I would interact respectfully as a neighbor and co-inhabitant of this place!

Last time, my attention was on the trees. Over the years I have come to know a small core of the trees in these woods: maple, beech, birch, black walnut, hemlock, pine. With the help of the tree book and a couple of more knowledgeable friends, I was very pleased to be able to add cherry and white ash to my circle of acquaintances. We found the cherries on a little excursion farther afield—great towering trees with rough dark reddish bark. The delicate cherry blossoms underneath, which helped confirm their name, seemed so incongruous in that setting. The ash, by contrast, is growing up among the maples right outside the cabin. Its leaves are similar to black walnut, but I can see now that it has a different look. Invisible to me before, this time I was able to greet it, if not as an old friend, at least by name.

Once you know someone’s name, you are in relationship—and a relationship is a powerful thing. I think again of how painful it was to me as a child to experience that lack of relationship at school, that feeling of invisibility. Our species has gained unprecedented power in the last couple of centuries over the other species on earth—the birds and the trees among so many more. Our actions can wipe them out with terrifying ease. There are no simple answers. But acknowledging the relationship, as that of valued and interconnected neighbors, has to be part of the way forward. And this means calling them by name.





Swimming hole

This swimming hole is a jewel
a product of the Depression
(Give those young men a job).
It lies in the bend of a river,
ancient plateau cut by moving water
over millions of years
to form this gorge.

Amid steeply rising hemlock forests,
the river makes its way
among the rocks—and here
in the middle of the park,
a place to swim.

The whole park is a jewel
in this rural county
where lumber once was king
staunchly conservative
working folk eke out a living
while the new fracking barons
seduce and despoil…

But this park has no politics.
We have all come with loved ones
here to swim—and so we gather
stripped down, undefended, intimate
held in the arm of the river
watched over by great hemlocks
reaching ever upward for the sky.

 



Imagine: A new economy is possible!
City land trusts protect affordable housing

As housing prices skyrocket in neighborhoods across the country, some state lawmakers and local officials are turning to a decades-old model for keeping homes affordable: community land trusts. These are mostly nonprofit organizations that operate within a specific neighborhood facing development pressure. They acquire and own land while selling homes that sit on the property or leasing apartments and commercial space. The trusts’ permanent ownership prevents the land from being scooped up by developers and converted to high-dollar housing.
https://www.pewtrusts.org/en/research-and-analysis/blogs/stateline/2022/05/25/cities-back-community-land-trusts-to-protect-affordable-housing?mc_cid=b70c6a034b&mc_eid=b2f3d85ae2

In one example, the Community Justice Land Trust in Philadelphia promotes equitable development through community ownership with projects in three low-income neighborhoods, for a total of over a hundred rent-to-own townhomes. The intention is to ensure permanent affordability and permanent community control by retaining ownership of the land and having decisions driven by the community. Operated by the Women’s Community Revitalization Project, the CJLT remains accountable to the local community through an advisory committee of residents and other stakeholders to guide it in a direction that puts the community first.
https://www.wcrpphila.org/cjlt 

 



Some things that have made me hopeful recently 

A progressive Democrat running for the US Senate from Pennsylvania with strong rural and working class appeal.
https://www.mironline.ca/democrats-revisited-the-rust-belt-the-working-class-and-john-fetterman/

The European Union’s recent Digital Services Act agreement that increases regulation of Big Tech platforms in their accountability around advocacy of hatred and spread of disinformation.
https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2022/04/european-union-digital-services-act-agreement-a-watershed-moment-for-internet-regulation/

The effective cancellation of major coal-fired power plant projects in Indonesia and Bangladesh after the Japanese government announced it would stop providing critical loans for such projects.
https://news.mongabay.com/2022/06/planned-coal-plants-fizzle-as-japan-ends-financing-in-indonesia-bangladesh/

A new study documenting the presence of large groups of southern fin whales in ancient feeding grounds in Antarctica for the first time since their hunting was restricted in 1976. 
https://www.earth.com/news/fin-whales-are-finally-rebounding-in-the-antarctic/





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://bookshop.org/books/alive-in-this-world/9789768273260

That Clear and Certain Sound; Finding Solid Ground in Perilous Times
A book of essays from this blog.

https://bookshop.org/books/quaker-quicks-that-clear-and-certain-sound-finding-solid-ground-in-perilous-times/9781789047653

Get Down to the Rock; Addressing the Economic Roots of the Climate Emergency

https://www.friendsjournal.org/get-down-to-the-rock/

Public Banking Has the Potential to Truly Revolutionize Our Economy
An article on my experience with the public banking movement as revolutionary reform.
https://truthout.org/articles/public-banking-has-the-potential-to-truly-revolutionize-our-economy/

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/  

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

Money and Soul; Quaker Faith and Practice and the Economy
If money troubles your soul, try this down-to-earth Quaker perspective on economies large and small. 

https://bookshop.org/books/quaker-quicks-money-and-soul-quaker-faith-and-practice-and-the-economy/9781789040890

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; Debt, Interest, Growth and Security.

https://bookshop.org/books/toward-a-right-relationship-with-finance-debt-interest-growth-and-security/9789768142887

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

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) 


More resources

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/  

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
 

Pamela Haines
215-349-9428 (h)
267-467-3263 (c)
919 S. Farragut St., 
Philadelphia, PA. 19143

Money & Soul; Faith and Practice and the Economy

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

Alive in This World—a poetry collection 

Hope begins in the dark, the stubborn hope that if you just show up and try to do the right thing, the dawn will come. You wait and watch and work; you don't give up.
-Anne Lamott

pamelahaines.carrd.co

www.pamelalivinginthisworld.blogspot.com

#227 Blank slate

 

Dear all,

I’ve been treasuring some stunningly beautiful late spring days, even as we brace for the heat that is on the way. I’m loving my growing garden and ripening fruit, gathering stories from valiant childcare workers for our newsletter, making new friends, feeling well-used in a variety of other ways. Overall, I’m blessed to be moving through days rich with diversity, meaning and connection, finding a balance between the horrors in the news and so much everyday goodness.

As I clarify a goal of expanding my reach as a trusted source of information and perspective I look to you, in my inner ring, for help. (My my age-old habits of going it alone and trying to stay under the radar are just not serving me well here!) I’m hopeful that you may have resources or ideas to offer—people to invite to this column, places to share my writing/thinking, ways to enhance my author FB page, other electronic sharing tools with potential, promising conversation sites. Please take a moment to think if there’s anything you might have to offer. Thank you.

And I share the joy of a full moon whose beauty and steadiness are beyond words.

Love,

Pamela

 





Blank slate

I’ve been struggling with my approach to the little plot I tend in our community garden. I love it dearly, but worry that it sucks up too much of my time, and that I could be getting a better harvest with less effort if I made better choices or were somehow more efficient. It has more weeds than many of the neighboring plots. Why do I cling to tenaciously to an approach that can be faulted on all fronts? Part of it, of course, is that always having more that could be done in the garden provides a great excuse for taking a break from “important” work, and a pleasurable context for being outdoors. If I suppressed weeds with the latest products and organized my plants into orderly and well-spaced rows, there would be less reason to hang out.

But as I’ve lingered in the garden this early spring, I’ve come to see that it’s more than that. It’s about relationships. I move larkspur, that would take over my whole little plot but has such beautiful flowers, out to the big front flower bed where they can be enjoyed by passersby. I dig up a trowel full of tiny kale plants—from last year’s kale gone to seed—and transplant them to give away to other gardeners. I carefully move little raspberries that are intruding on the area where I want to plant sweet potatoes, finding a place for them back among the other raspberries. I dig an invasive weed out from among the little lettuces that have grown from seeds I had saved last summer and scattered in open spots in February. I dig up ever-spreading black-eyed Susans to pot and give to a group that plants community orchards, complete with native pollinator flowers, across the city.

I love the role I get to play in this rich circle of life. It’s true, I do have some agency. I do want my tomatoes (grown from last year’s seed) to produce. I do want the pleasure of eating all those other tasty veggies. I do pull weeds. But even so, I want to do my part in a vibrant living community that serves all its members. 

There may be people who don’t have this luxury in how they grow their food—folks in the community garden whose lives are so stretched that they have only snatches of time for the garden, or small organic farmers who are tending too much land to pay attention to every square foot. But I think the motivation is sound. And as I think about it, this messy relational frame can be applied in other contexts.

Take children, for example. While treating them as the proverbial blank slate has gone out of favor in many circles, setting aside an overall habit of control and entering into their lives with open-ended, relationship-based curiosity is far from the norm.

Where else has our vision been distorted by assumptions around control and blank slates? I think of settlers coming to this continent, seeing a vast wilderness to tame—missing the productive and flourishing indigenous economies that were right before their eyes. I think of those who have engaged in “urban renewal”, razing whole communities to create a fresh palate on which to build their great dreams. I think of the fossil fuel industry which has no use for living ecosystems, but inconvenient parts of the land as obstacles to be flattened and overcome in pursuit of profit. The underlying perspective is that “There’s nothing here of value—nothing to compare with what I can create!” A master’s vision is centered as more productive and fitting.

The alternative of finding one’s place in a living system does sacrifice some efficiency and order—and at times there may be compelling reasons to assume mastering over another life form or community in search of a higher good. But if we can’t see the value of the life that is already there, we may find ourselves creating a monster whose impact over time will come back to haunt us. Valuing relationships, and observing life closely with great curiosity and respect, seem like more trustworthy guides as we chart our way into a future that is always unknown.

 

Bags

Almost out the door
put one more bag in my pocket
just in case
find another on the street
before I reach the park.

Fill one with the trash
that’s overflowing by the can—
the volunteers are strapped, I know.

Approaching where I clean each day
a man is struggling
with a scooter and torn paper bag
items falling out—
I have the means to help.
The good wishes we exchange—
heartfelt.

I try to pick this trash—my trash
without a bag,
find that I can, head home
a spare in my pocket,
warmth in my heart.





Dare to imagine: A new economy is possible!
Basic income in Brazil

The seaside city of Maricá in Brazil (population 160,000, is by no means affluent, but compared with other similar cities it has a visibly higher quality of life. One reason is the basic income program initiated by its mayor nine years ago, inspired by his lifelong dream of an egalitarian society.

Low-income residents of Maricá who have lived in the city for at least three years and have signed up for the program currently receive a local social currency of 170 mumbucas a month, roughly comparable to the poverty rate. Accounts in this alternative currency are held by Banco Mumbuca, a city-owned bank. The money can be accessed in the form of a card and managed through the bank’s mobile phone app. The mumbuca is accepted within the city at approximately 3,000 establishments, such as hairdressers, grocers, and pharmacies.

The Maricá local government decided to open the bank to distribute money from royalties from oil sales found in the Santos Basin along the Maricá coastline in 2010, starting with residents living in extreme poverty. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Maricá boosted its payments to help reduce the harmful effects of the pandemic on its citizens. At the end of 2021, the bank had 65,367 active accounts, and 2 billion mumbucas circulated in Maricá from 2018 through September 2021. In the past year, other cities within the state have been inspired to create their own community currencies based on the success of this model. 

https://www.yesmagazine.org/economy/2022/05/26/basic-income-brazil?

 
 

Some things that have made me hopeful recently

An Indian court’s ruling that nature has legal status on par with humans, that humans are required to protect it, and government has power to act as a guardian for those who cannot care for themselves.
https://insideclimatenews.org/news/04052022/india-rights-of-nature/

The landmark collective bargaining agreement for the United States Women’s National Team that creates a blueprint for equity across global sports organizations.
https://inequality.org/great-divide/equal-pay-victory-soccer/

How workers in historically unorganized occupations are forming unions—and breathing new life into the U.S. labor movement.
https://inthesetimes.com/article/new-labor-movement-amazon-starbucks-union

An update on international appliance safety standards that allows the use of more climate friendly refrigerants in air conditioners and heat pumps which could pull hydrofluorocarbons—global warming agents far more potent than carbon dioxide.
https://insideclimatenews.org/news/22052022/climate-refrigerants-air-conditioning-heat-pumps/





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://bookshop.org/books/alive-in-this-world/9789768273260

That Clear and Certain Sound; Finding Solid Ground in Perilous Times
A book of essays from this blog.

https://bookshop.org/books/quaker-quicks-that-clear-and-certain-sound-finding-solid-ground-in-perilous-times/9781789047653

Get Down to the Rock; Addressing the Economic Roots of the Climate Emergency

https://www.friendsjournal.org/get-down-to-the-rock/

Public Banking Has the Potential to Truly Revolutionize Our Economy
An article on my experience with the public banking movement as revolutionary reform.
https://truthout.org/articles/public-banking-has-the-potential-to-truly-revolutionize-our-economy/

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/  

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

Money and Soul; Quaker Faith and Practice and the Economy
If money troubles your soul, try this down-to-earth Quaker perspective on economies large and small. 

https://bookshop.org/books/quaker-quicks-money-and-soul-quaker-faith-and-practice-and-the-economy/9781789040890

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; Debt, Interest, Growth and Security.

https://bookshop.org/books/toward-a-right-relationship-with-finance-debt-interest-growth-and-security/9789768142887

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

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) 


More resources

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/  

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