Dear all,
We are now back from three weeks in Northern Uganda, where we dug our roots back into a community we have come to know and love, deepened relationships, made new friends, and, in the midst of great oppression and resilience, took on hard challenges together. I may have more to say later. In the meantime, if you would like a copy of the letter with updates on the school we support, please let me know.
As we enter a season where the minds of many of us are turned to giving, I wanted to share what was perhaps the biggest gift I received this year.
Love,
Pamela
For love of the land
I’ve loved this bit of land for over fifty years. Coming up over the hill, my heart always opens anew to the jewel of a valley spread out below, part of the rolling farmland and woodlots of central New York state. My father bought an old farm here in the 60’s, preparing for a job move that didn’t work out. But my family loved the land. The old farmhouse became a focal point for a group of young adult Quakers, a gathering and landing place as we attempted to shape lives that aligned with our deepest faith values. Our community loved the land.
Then my mother moved up there in her retirement and it became the center of family gatherings for her six children and growing extended family. My sister, Liseli, lived across the road on adjoining farmland, and dug her roots in deep. When my mother died, it took us some time to decide that we needed to sell the house, but none of us wanted to sell the land. How could we ensure that it would continue to be loved as we loved it?
My sister and her partner had been on their own journey, building ever-closer relationships with members of the neighboring Onondaga nation, and coming under the weight of our country’s history of broken treaties, stolen land, and destruction of whole indigenous nations. Living on traditional Oneida territory, Liseli had started exploring the idea of a land trust with the Haudenosaunee Confederacy (who used to be known as the Iroquois) of which the Oneida are a part. But as time passed with no visible progress, the outcome seemed increasingly uncertain.
Then, last fall she met an Oneida woman who was working with others in Wisconsin and southern Ontario to rekindle a shared traditional identity—a challenge, given that the only tiny remnant of their traditional homeland was now given over to a casino and entertainment complex. This meeting was the opening my sister had been waiting and hoping for. Over the next nine months, they worked together to create a nonprofit organization, my sister consulted with her siblings, and we joyfully agreed to return that thirty acres to these Oneida women.
At a ceremony in July, the three groups of Oneida women gathered on the land to mark its return. They sang to the land in its home language. They squished their toes in the wet earth. I can’t imagine any better resolution, any better future for that land that so many of us have loved over all these years—and so many Oneida people had loved long before.
I was already struggling to take in the terrible injustice of our nation’s treatment of native people. But being able to be part of one tiny thing that was so completely right has opened me up in a new way—both to the heartbreak and to the possibilities of healing.
Late harvest
The weather has turned cold.
The sweet potatoes wait, still in the ground.
I seize an unexpected daylight hour,
take old coat, old gloves, a fork,
a shopping cart of leaves,
go out to dig—
and step into an ancient rite.
It’s true I tucked in little slips last spring.
Vines have grown and leaves have multiplied
but who knows what has happened underground?
Now, vines stripped away,
all that’s left to see is barren ground.
What magic has been working down below?
And so I dig.
Each time I turn the earth
there’s treasure to be found.
I straighten to a stunning sunset
spread across the sky
(I would have missed it from indoors).
My harvest grows
the colors shift, then fade.
I pile the leaves as cover for the soil,
fill my basket, head for home
Darkness settles.
All is well.
Dare to Imagine: A new economy is possible!
Free Public Transit
Lawmakers in Kansas City, Missouri have voted to make public transportation in the city free of charge, setting the stage for it to be the first major U.S. city to have free public transit. They will set aside $8 million to cover the costs, with hopes that the effort will have a positive impact on economic inequality and boost the overall economy.
Estonia is the world leader in free public transit. In 2013, all public transit in its capital, Tallinn, became free to local residents (but not tourists or other visitors, even those from other parts of the country). The new national free-ride scheme with extend this model even further, making all state-run bus travel in rural municipalities free and extending cost-free transit out from the capital into other regions.
https://portside.org/2019-12-06/kansas-city-missouri-approves-free-public-transit-all
https://www.citylab.com/transportation/2018/05/estonia-will-roll-out-free-public-transit-nationwide/560648/
Some things that have made me hopeful recently
A female chief in Malawi who has broken up more than 1000 child marriages so girls can go back to school.
https://www.lifegate.com/people/news/theresa-kachindamoto-child-marriage-malawi
The decision by the lending arm of the EU, the world’s largest multinational lending institution, to become first ‘climate bank’ by ending financing of oil, gas and coal projects after 2021.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/nov/15/european-investment-bank-to-phase-out-fossil-fuels-financing
A determined Indian farmer who proved the government wrong by planting trees in an area known as “uncultivable”.
https://www.onegreenplanet.org/environment/farmer-plants-trees-desert/
(There was one more, but my computer deleted everything as I was trying to send, and these are the threeI can remember… Look for it next time!)
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)
