Dear all,
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.
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.
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.
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/
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
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)
Hi Pamela, are you on Twitter?
ReplyDeleteI'm not on Twitter. But I'm glad to welcome you to my blog!
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