#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