Dear all,
We are back from a rich and intense two weeks in Northern Uganda, struggling a little to pivot into holiday season at home. There’s tons I could say about our trip, but it will keep. The message about heartening is the one I want to share this month.
For those of you who get a winter break, I hope it is nourishing. I take hope in the passing of the winter solstice and our hemisphere turning toward the light.
Love,
Pamela
Heartening
I work with Karen on a hot fall morning to save a witch hazel, growing in what used to be a rock pile in the community garden. It was planted too close to the paw-paw tree, and it’s dying, probably because its roots can’t deal with all that rock. Karen has taken over responsibility for this area, which was planted as a pollinator garden. But she is discouraged. It is overgrown, too closely planted, full of weeds. Part of me would choose to be elsewhere, but I’ve been absent from a string of garden work days. And there is the witch hazel, dying before our eyes. So we prune it way back, then work and work to dig the roots out of all that rock. After struggling and sweating for a long time, we succeed in getting it loose. We transplant it into a great pot filled with rich compost, and give it a good long drink. It’s got to be happier now, and Karen feels joined, ready to put renewed effort into this little spot in the garden that welcomes the butterflies.
This little episode gets me thinking. It’s so easy to lose heart. Yet it’s our heart, coeur in French, which gives us courage. Having Karen heartened, encouraged, matters. (And though the monarchs who have been gracing our garden with their presence may not engage in matters of the heart, being part of supporting their survival does seem like something that’s worth doing.) Other examples of heartening pile on each other in the weeks that follow
At Mill Creek Farm, we find the row where the beans and squash had earlier been now totally covered with weeds. And it is a long row—a discouraging prospect for an overworked farmer. I am glad to start the process—steadily uncovering a wide swath of rich earth. I don’t have time to do the whole row. But that start is heartening to our farmer. Now that the job is begun and the progress visible, the task of completing it feels more possible.
A group of child care workers want to highlight the critical economic importance of the work we do by closing down together for a day. We can’t get enough buy-in to all close, but I keep the idea alive, raising it at meetings, then setting up a call with a few advocates from across the state. The folks in Pittsburgh are heartened by that reminder of continued interest, and come up with a creative, potentially impactful and doable alternative to completely shutting down. That concept, in turn, heartens others.
One morning, my two-year-old grandson chooses to stick close to me while playing with little cars and animals. I find hand work to do that helps me stay present, offering ongoing warm and loving attention to his play. I have to believe that he is heartened by that attention, that the roots of his connection deepen, and his place in the world becomes a little more secure.
An older man recently joined our religious congregation. Single and handling significant health issues, he nevertheless maintains a positive attitude and perseveres in thoughtful work in the world. I make a point of greeting him, joining him, offering opportunities for him to be included and supported, thanking him for all he does. My intention is to give him heart.
I pick a bouquet of flowers for an activist who is facing grievous personal loss. I take time over cards for others, hoping that the note I write will add to their courage. And I listen, knowing how good attention can help drain discouragement.
There are so many things I don’t know. I don’t know if the witch hazel—or the monarchs—will survive. I don’t know if the time I spent transplanting it—or weeding that row at the farm, or hanging out with my grandson—could have been spent with greater impact elsewhere. I don’t know if discouragement will overtake people I’ve sought to encourage. But I have to believe that offering my attention and joining in the effort of another person in a way that heartens them—that gives them courage—is work worth doing.
Blanket
After a long balmy fall
cold swoops in
Overnight the gingkos
drop all their leaves.
In the morning
sidewalk and street
are covered
with a thick soft blanket
of green.
Imagine—A new economy is possible!
Municipal services
According to the Amsterdam-based Transnational Institute, cities and towns that want well-run water and sanitation services, low-cost access to the internet, and affordable housing should keep those operations public or run by local nonprofits. Research involving 1,600 cities in 45 countries that have chosen public ownership over corporate ownership, especially of their energy and water systems, shows that these (re)municipalizations “generally succeeded in bringing down costs and tariffs, improving conditions for workers and boosting service quality, while ensuring greater transparency and accountability.”
Both Hamburg, Germany, and Boulder, Colorado, for example, are making their electric power enterprises public in order to shift to green and renewable energy sources. In France, 106 cities and towns have taken over their local water systems in the past 15 years, in spite of the fact that France is home to some of the world’s largest private water companies. The movement for (re)municipalization is growing and spreading, despite the continued top-down push for privatization and austerity policies.
https://www.tni.org/files/publication-downloads/reclaiming_public_services.pdf
Some things that have made me hopeful recently
Successful ballot initiatives in the state of Maine, that in 2016 boosted the state’s minimum wage, raised taxes on the wealthy to fund education, and introduced ranked-choice voting—and a plan for the 2018 ballot: universal home care for the elderly and disabled, paid for through taxes on the salaries and investment income of the state’s wealthiest residents. https://inequality.org/great-divide/taxing-wealthy-pay-universal-home-care/
New York State Governor Andrew Cuomo and New York City Comptroller Scott Stringer’s plans to divest state and city pension funds from coal, oil and gas companies. https://www.ecowatch.com/new-york-fossil-fuel-divestment-2518904580.html
A compelling and deeply human TEDx talk by an Israeli man, Ran Gavrieli, on "Why I stopped watching porn” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gRJ_QfP2mhU.
Ecosystems and natural communities on eight acres of land on the island of Kaua’I now possess legal rights to exist, thrive, regenerate, and evolve, the first Rights of Nature conservation easement on the Hawaiian Islands. https://celdf.org/2017/12/press-release-first-rights-nature-easement-established-hawaii/
Money and Soul
A transcript of a keynote address I delivered at a Quaker conference in New Mexico, June 2017
https://westernfriend.org/media/money-and-soul-unabridged
Toward a Right Relationship with Finance
Check out this new 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.org
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
Recent 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)
faitheconomyecology.wordpress.com, a website that I've contributed to often (check the archives)
www.ourchildrenourselves.com, a home for all the parenting writing I've done over the past 20 years. NOTE THE NEW URL.
