tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28049215627710036822024-03-13T06:48:47.513-07:00Living in this WorldPamela Living in this Worldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01728149865852062590noreply@blogger.comBlogger104125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2804921562771003682.post-42491945852153268022022-08-11T15:52:00.004-07:002022-08-11T15:52:40.705-07:00#229 Trying<p> <span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;">Dear all,</span></p><br style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;">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</span><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;">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</span><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;">delicious combination! It was like a little writing workshop folded into a deeply restful vacation.</span><br style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;" /><br style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;">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</span><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;">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</span><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;">surprised if there’s a change.</span><br style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;" /><br style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;">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</span><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;">beautiful moon!</span><br style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;" /><br style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;">Love,</span><br style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;">Pamela</span><br style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;" /><br style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;" /><br style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;" /><br style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;" /><br style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: medium;"><b>Trying</b></span><br style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;" /><br style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;">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</span><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;">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</span><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;">could be a lasting solution for our threatened hemlock trees. There was a more recent experience with the exciting new prospect of blueberry</span><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;">propagation; initial failure motivated me to research the process, add a new rooting ingredient, and try again.</span><br style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;" /><br style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;">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</span><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;">up a little? Or I could use the example of small children and their incredible determination to keep trying, whether for mobility or language,</span><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;">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</span><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;">wasn’t coming up with much.</span><br style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;" /><br style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;">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</span><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;">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,</span><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;">with equally little chance of success.</span><br style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;" /><br style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;">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</span><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;">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,</span><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;">leaving us certain that any new attempt would only be a waste of time and effort?</span><br style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;" /><br style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;">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</span><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;">of failed tries involves doing the emotional work of recognizing how we’ve been set up by experiences from our childhood to protect ourselves</span><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;">from failure and humiliation. Though the reasons to give up may seem present and overwhelming, it helps to recognize them as voices from the</span><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;">past—poor guides for our grown-up selves—and to find ways of removing their tentacles from our attitudes and decisions in the present.</span><br style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;" /><br style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;">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</span><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;">leadership and advocacy that I’ve done with childcare workers, we imagine planning a big Thanksgiving dinner, a leadership challenge that</span><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;">everyone can relate to. After thinking through the goals, the work required, the skills and resources that are needed, we consider the obstacles</span><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;">we can anticipate. After brainstorming what could be a terminally discouraging list of potential obstacles, we imagine possible ways of handling</span><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;">each one.</span><br style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;" /><br style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;">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</span><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;">looming on all fronts and media that seems to concentrate and relentlessly broadcast the worst news, we can be intentional here as well.</span><br style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;" /><br style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;">Perhaps most important, we can make it our business to not try hard things alone. This could mean joining groups with similar passions and</span><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;">goals. It could mean finding one person with whom we can share our dreams and struggles, knowing they will remember how good and capable</span><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;">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</span><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;">successes and discouragement, humiliation and failure, and strategize about how to move on.</span><br style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;" /><br style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;">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</span><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;">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</span><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;">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</span><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;">support, I gather courage to try again.</span><br style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;" /><br style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;" /><br style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;" /><br style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;" /><br style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;" /><br style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;" /><b style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Accident on the turnpike</span></b><br style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;" /><br style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;">The car in front of me</span><br style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;">slows suddenly, dramatically</span><br style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;">I slam on the breaks—</span><br style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;">accident right in front of us</span><br style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;">overturned trailer</span><br style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;">car bent in, people</span><br style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;">starting to walk about.</span><br style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;" /><br style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;">Immobilized, I wait.</span><br style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;">A semi rolls in on the shoulder</span><br style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;">immense and improbable.</span><br style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;">How can he possibly hope</span><br style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;">to get through this?</span><br style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;" /><br style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;">Door opens, driver rushes out</span><br style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;">heads straight for the crash</span><br style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;">to help. Then more and more men</span><br style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;">open the doors of cars ahead</span><br style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;">come hurrying from behind</span><br style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;">ready to offer what they can.</span><br style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;" /><br style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;">I wait and witness</span><br style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;">deeply shaken, deeply reassured.</span><br style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;" /><br style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;" /><br style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;" /><br style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;"> </span><br style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;" /><br style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: medium;"><b>Dare to imagine: A new economy is possible!</b></span><br style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;" /><b style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;">Common Market</b><br style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;" /><br style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;">A Philadelphia couple, working with a coalition of community businesses and organizations, launched Common Market in 2008 to rebuild the</span><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;">infrastructure and relationships that once linked local farms to local communities.</span><br style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;" /><br style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;">Today, Common Market connects more than 200 mid-Atlantic institutions, businesses and community organizations to 75 family farmers in New</span><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;">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</span><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;">serving low-income communities and communities of color.</span><br style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;" /><br style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;">Supplying institutions such as schools and hospitals has been the key to Common Market’s uncommon success at reaching large numbers of</span><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;">low-income children and families. Common Market serves retail grocers, runs a thriving farm share program and has its own brand, “Delaware</span><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;">Valley Grown,” but working with large institutions also has enabled this social enterprise to grow to operational scale.</span><br style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;" /><br style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;">https://www.wkkf.org/what-we-do/featured-work/common-market-makes-local-food-happen-for-all</span><br style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;" /><br style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;" /><br style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;" /><br style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;" /><br style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;" /><br style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: medium;"><b>Some things that have made me hopeful recently:<br /></b></span><br style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;">Hawaii, the first state in the US to make a net zero pledge, has received its final shipment of coal.</span><br style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;">https://gizmodo.com/hawaii-phasing-out-coal-renewables-1849348490?</span><br style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;" /><br style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;">The Onondaga Nation has regained 1,023 acres of land from New York State, including the headwaters of Onondaga Creek, a ground-breaking</span><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;">opportunity to restore the land, preserve Onondaga culture, and address historic and ongoing land injustices. </span><br style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;">https://www.onondaganation.org/uncategorized/2022/land_back_1023_acres/ </span><br style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;" /><br style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;">Three oil companies have canceled their leases in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, a 19.5-million-acre wilderness area. </span><br style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;">https://www.ecowatch.com/oil-companies-drilling-leases-arctic-national-wildlife-refuge.html</span><br style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;" /><br style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;">Columbia has sworn in leftist Gustavo Petro as president, and Francia Márquez as their first Black vice president, bringing his long history of</span><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;">equity-focused public service and her human rights and environmental activism to the country’s leadership.</span><br style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;">https://www.upi.com/Top_News/World-News/2022/08/07/colombia-swears-in-ex-rebel-president-gustavo-petro-first-black-vice-president-</span><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;">francia-marquez/6231659899307/</span><br style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;" /><br style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;" /><br style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;" /><br style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;" /><br style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;" /><br style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: medium;"><b>Resources</b></span><br style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;" /><br style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;" /><b style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;">Alive in this World</b><br style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;">A book of poetry in three parts: A Home with the Trees, Commuter Encounters, and A Home with the Earth</span><br style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;">https://bookshop.org/books/alive-in-this-world/9789768273260</span><br style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;" /><br style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;" /><b style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;">That Clear and Certain Sound; Finding Solid Ground in Perilous Times</b><br style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;">A book of essays from this blog.</span><br style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;" /><blockquote class="" style="border-left-style: none; font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px; margin: inherit; padding: inherit;" type="cite">https://bookshop.org/books/quaker-quicks-that-clear-and-certain-sound-finding-solid-ground-in-perilous-times/9781789047653<br /></blockquote><br style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;" /><b style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;">Get Down to the Rock; Addressing the Economic Roots of the Climate Emergency</b><br style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;" /><blockquote class="" style="border-left-style: none; font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px; margin: inherit; padding: inherit;" type="cite">https://www.friendsjournal.org/get-down-to-the-rock/<br /></blockquote><br style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;" /><b style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;">Public Banking Has the Potential to Truly Revolutionize Our Economy</b><br style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;">An article on my experience with the public banking movement as revolutionary reform.</span><br style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;">https://truthout.org/articles/public-banking-has-the-potential-to-truly-revolutionize-our-economy/</span><br style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;" /><br style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;" /><b style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;">Envision or Perish; Why we must start imagining the world we want to live in</b><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;"> </span><br style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;">An article I co-authored with George Lakey</span><br style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;">https://wagingnonviolence.org/2021/02/envision-or-perish-why-we-must-start-imagining-the-world-we-want/ </span><br style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;" /><br style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;" /><b style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;">The Financial Roots of the Climate Crisis </b><br style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;">Link to a talk I gave at a church in Houston </span><br style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;">https://vimeo.com/showcase/7910215</span><br style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;" /><br style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;" /><b style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;">Money and Soul; Quaker Faith and Practice and the Economy</b><br style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;">If money troubles your soul, try this down-to-earth Quaker perspective on economies large and small. </span><br style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;" /><blockquote class="" style="border-left-style: none; font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px; margin: inherit; padding: inherit;" type="cite">https://bookshop.org/books/quaker-quicks-money-and-soul-quaker-faith-and-practice-and-the-economy/9781789040890<br /></blockquote><br style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;" /><b style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;">Money, Debt and Liberation</b><br style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;">A video of a talk I gave at Pendle Hill in January, 2019</span><br style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f7nP8eJ5vy8 </span><br style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;" /><br style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;" /><b style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;">Toward a Right Relationship with Finance; Debt, Interest, Growth and Security.</b><br style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;" /><blockquote class="" style="border-left-style: none; font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px; margin: inherit; padding: inherit;" type="cite">https://bookshop.org/books/toward-a-right-relationship-with-finance-debt-interest-growth-and-security/9789768142887<br /></blockquote><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;">A book that I co-authored on Debt, Interest, Growth and Security.</span><br style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;">The growth economy is failing to provide equitable well-being for humanity and a life-sustaining future for Earth. However our institutional</span><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;">endowments and individual retirement are dependent on that same growth economy. This book:</span><br style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;" /><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;">• 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</span><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;">built-in momentum toward economy inequality and ecological overshoot;</span><br style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;" /><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;">• frames the conversation within the context of our deepest values and beliefs;</span><br style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;" /><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;">• suggests plausible and historically grounded alternatives to the current system, particularly with regard to financing retirement; and</span><br style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;" /><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;">• invites everyone to imagine new forms of durable economic and social security, and to help create the relationships and institutions that</span><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;">will make them a reality.</span><br style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;">With many people now counting as never before on the performance of Wall Street for retirement security, how can this system be challenged</span><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;">with integrity and effectiveness? Can we break with our dependence on financial speculation and build up new structures of security in a</span><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;">transformed, life-centered economy?</span><br style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;">To read it on line, go to http://www.quakerinstitute.org/?page_id=5 and scroll down.</span><br style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;" /><br style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;" /><b style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;">Muscle Building for Peace and Justice; a Non-Violent Workout Routine for the 21st Century</b><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;">--an integration of much of my experience and</span><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;">thinking over the years: New link: https://www.peaceworkersus.org/docs/muscle_building_for_peace_and_justice.pdf (or just google the title) </span><br style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;" /><br style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;" /><br style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;" /><b style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;">More resources</b><br style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;" /><br style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;">Finding Steady Ground</span><br style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;">If you need reminding of some simple ways to stay grounded in challenging times, I recommend this website, which I helped a friend develop</span><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;">following the last presidential election. </span><br style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;">www.findingsteadyground.com </span><br style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;" /><br style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;">Other resources from my friend Daniel Hunter</span><br style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;">Building a Movement to End the New Jim Crow; An Organizing Guide. http://www.danielhunter.org/books/building-movement-end-new-jim-</span><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;">crow-organizing-guide </span><br style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;">Climate Resistance Handbook, or I was part of a climate action. Now what? https://commonslibrary.org/climate-resistance-handbook-or-i-was-</span><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;">part-of-a-climate-action-now-what/ </span><br style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;">Leading Groups On-Line. https://www.trainingforchange.org/training_tools/leading-groups-online-book/ </span><br style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;" /><br style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;">Posts on other web/blog sites:</span><br style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;">In http://www.classism.org/gifts-american-dream/, Pamela Haines locates her family's homey DIY celebrations on a class spectrum of different</span><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;">connections to upward mobility.</span><br style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;">http://www.transitionus.org/blog/unlikely-suspects-–-deep-outreach-diverse-initiating-groups-–-pace-building-trust</span><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;">http://www.classism.org/demolition-derby</span><br style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;"> </span><br style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;" /><div><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;"><br /></span></div>Pamela Living in this Worldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01728149865852062590noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2804921562771003682.post-77331716144051325712022-07-14T05:19:00.003-07:002022-07-14T05:19:37.349-07:00#228 Know my name<p> <span style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;">Dear all,</span></p><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;">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.</span><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;">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?!)</span><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;">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.</span><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;">Love,</span><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;">Pamela</span><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><span class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: medium;"><b class="">Know my name</b></span><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;">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.</span><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;">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.</span><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;">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.</span><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;">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!</span><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;">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.</span><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;">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.</span><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><span class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: medium;"><b class="">Swimming hole</b></span><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;">This swimming hole is a jewel</span><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;">a product of the Depression</span><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;">(Give those young men a job).</span><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;">It lies in the bend of a river,</span><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;">ancient plateau cut by moving water</span><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;">over millions of years</span><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;">to form this gorge.</span><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;">Amid steeply rising hemlock forests,</span><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;">the river makes its way</span><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;">among the rocks—and here</span><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;">in the middle of the park,</span><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;">a place to swim.</span><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;">The whole park is a jewel</span><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;">in this rural county</span><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;">where lumber once was king</span><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;">staunchly conservative</span><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;">working folk eke out a living</span><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;">while the new fracking barons</span><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;">seduce and despoil…</span><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;">But this park has no politics.</span><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;">We have all come with loved ones</span><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;">here to swim—and so we gather</span><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;">stripped down, undefended, intimate</span><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;">held in the arm of the river</span><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;">watched over by great hemlocks</span><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;">reaching ever upward for the sky.</span><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;"> </span><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><span class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: medium;"><b class="">Imagine: A new economy is possible!</b></span><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;">City land trusts protect affordable housing</span><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;">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.</span><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><a class="" href="https://www.pewtrusts.org/en/research-and-analysis/blogs/stateline/2022/05/25/cities-back-community-land-trusts-to-protect-affordable-" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;">https://www.pewtrusts.org/en/research-and-analysis/blogs/stateline/2022/05/25/cities-back-community-land-trusts-to-protect-affordable-</a><span style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;">housing?mc_cid=b70c6a034b&mc_eid=b2f3d85ae2</span><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;">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.</span><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><a href="https://www.wcrpphila.org/cjlt" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;">https://www.wcrpphila.org/cjlt</a><span style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;"> </span><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;"> </span><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><span class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: medium;"><b class="">Some things that have made me hopeful recently </b></span><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;">A progressive Democrat running for the US Senate from Pennsylvania with strong rural and working class appeal.</span><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><a href="https://www.mironline.ca/democrats-revisited-the-rust-belt-the-working-class-and-john-fetterman/" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;">https://www.mironline.ca/democrats-revisited-the-rust-belt-the-working-class-and-john-fetterman/</a><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;">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.</span><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><a href="https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2022/04/european-union-digital-services-act-agreement-a-watershed-moment-for-internet-regulation/" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;">https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2022/04/european-union-digital-services-act-agreement-a-watershed-moment-for-internet-regulation/</a><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;">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.</span><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2022/06/planned-coal-plants-fizzle-as-japan-ends-financing-in-indonesia-bangladesh/" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;">https://news.mongabay.com/2022/06/planned-coal-plants-fizzle-as-japan-ends-financing-in-indonesia-bangladesh/</a><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;">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. </span><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><a href="https://www.earth.com/news/fin-whales-are-finally-rebounding-in-the-antarctic/" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;">https://www.earth.com/news/fin-whales-are-finally-rebounding-in-the-antarctic/</a><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><span class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: medium;"><b class="">Resources</b></span><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><b class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;">Alive in this World</b><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;">A book of poetry in three parts: A Home with the Trees, Commuter Encounters, and A Home with the Earth</span><div class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;"><a href="https://bookshop.org/books/alive-in-this-world/9789768273260">https://bookshop.org/books/alive-in-this-world/9789768273260</a><br class="" /><br class="" /><b class="">That Clear and Certain Sound; Finding Solid Ground in Perilous Times</b><br class="" />A book of essays from this blog.<br class="" /><blockquote class="" style="border-left-style: none; margin: inherit; padding: inherit;" type="cite"><a href="https://bookshop.org/books/quaker-quicks-that-clear-and-certain-sound-finding-solid-ground-in-perilous-times/9781789047653">https://bookshop.org/books/quaker-quicks-that-clear-and-certain-sound-finding-solid-ground-in-perilous-times/9781789047653</a><br class="" /></blockquote><br class="" /><b class="">Get Down to the Rock; Addressing the Economic Roots of the Climate Emergency</b><br class="" /><blockquote class="" style="border-left-style: none; margin: inherit; padding: inherit;" type="cite"><a href="https://www.friendsjournal.org/get-down-to-the-rock/">https://www.friendsjournal.org/get-down-to-the-rock/</a><br class="" /></blockquote><br class="" /><b class="">Public Banking Has the Potential to Truly Revolutionize Our Economy</b><br class="" />An article on my experience with the public banking movement as revolutionary reform.<br class="" /><a href="https://truthout.org/articles/public-banking-has-the-potential-to-truly-revolutionize-our-economy/">https://truthout.org/articles/public-banking-has-the-potential-to-truly-revolutionize-our-economy/</a><br class="" /><br class="" /><b class="">Envision or Perish; Why we must start imagining the world we want to live in </b><br class="" />An article I co-authored with George Lakey<br class="" /><a href="https://wagingnonviolence.org/2021/02/envision-or-perish-why-we-must-start-imagining-the-world-we-want/">https://wagingnonviolence.org/2021/02/envision-or-perish-why-we-must-start-imagining-the-world-we-want/</a> <br class="" /><br class="" /><b class="">The Financial Roots of the Climate Crisis</b> <br class="" />Link to a talk I gave at a church in Houston <br class="" /><a href="https://vimeo.com/showcase/7910215">https://vimeo.com/showcase/7910215</a><br class="" /><br class="" /><b class="">Money and Soul; Quaker Faith and Practice and the Economy</b><br class="" />If money troubles your soul, try this down-to-earth Quaker perspective on economies large and small. <br class="" /><blockquote class="" style="border-left-style: none; margin: inherit; padding: inherit;" type="cite"><a href="https://bookshop.org/books/quaker-quicks-money-and-soul-quaker-faith-and-practice-and-the-economy/9781789040890">https://bookshop.org/books/quaker-quicks-money-and-soul-quaker-faith-and-practice-and-the-economy/9781789040890</a><br class="" /></blockquote><br class="" /><b class="">Money, Debt and Liberation</b><br class="" />A video of a talk I gave at Pendle Hill in January, 2019<br class="" /><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f7nP8eJ5vy8">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f7nP8eJ5vy8</a> <br class="" /><br class="" /><b class="">Toward a Right Relationship with Finance; Debt, Interest, Growth and Security.</b><br class="" /><blockquote class="" style="border-left-style: none; margin: inherit; padding: inherit;" type="cite"><a href="https://bookshop.org/books/toward-a-right-relationship-with-finance-debt-interest-growth-and-security/9789768142887">https://bookshop.org/books/toward-a-right-relationship-with-finance-debt-interest-growth-and-security/9789768142887</a><br class="" /></blockquote>A book that I co-authored on Debt, Interest, Growth and Security.<br class="" />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:<br class="" /><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>• 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;<br class="" /><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>• frames the conversation within the context of our deepest values and beliefs;<br class="" /><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>• suggests plausible and historically grounded alternatives to the current system, particularly with regard to financing retirement; and<br class="" /><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>• 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.<br class="" />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?<br class="" />To read it on line, go to <a href="http://www.quakerinstitute.org/?page_id=5">http://www.quakerinstitute.org/?page_id=5</a> and scroll down.<br class="" /><br class="" /><b class="">Muscle Building for Peace and Justice; a Non-Violent Workout Routine for the 21st Century</b>--an integration of much of my experience and thinking over the years: New link: <a href="https://www.peaceworkersus.org/docs/muscle_building_for_peace_and_justice.pdf">https://www.peaceworkersus.org/docs/muscle_building_for_peace_and_justice.pdf</a> (or just google the title) <br class="" /><br class="" /><br class="" />More resources<br class="" /><br class="" />Finding Steady Ground<br class="" />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. <br class="" /><a href="http://www.findingsteadyground.com/">www.findingsteadyground.com</a> <br class="" /><br class="" />Other resources from my friend Daniel Hunter<br class="" />Building a Movement to End the New Jim Crow; An Organizing Guide. <a href="http://www.danielhunter.org/books/building-movement-end-new-jim-crow-organizing-guide">http://www.danielhunter.org/books/building-movement-end-new-jim-crow-organizing-guide</a> <br class="" />Climate Resistance Handbook, or I was part of a climate action. Now what? <a href="https://commonslibrary.org/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/</a> <br class="" />Leading Groups On-Line. <a href="https://www.trainingforchange.org/training_tools/leading-groups-online-book/">https://www.trainingforchange.org/training_tools/leading-groups-online-book/</a> <br class="" /><br class="" />Posts on other web/blog sites:<br class="" />In <a href="http://www.classism.org/gifts-american-dream/">http://www.classism.org/gifts-american-dream/</a>, Pamela Haines locates her family's homey DIY celebrations on a class spectrum of different connections to upward mobility.<br class="" /><a href="http://www.transitionus.org/blog/unlikely-suspects-%E2%80%93-deep-outreach-diverse-initiating-groups-%E2%80%93-pace-building-trust">http://www.transitionus.org/blog/unlikely-suspects-–-deep-outreach-diverse-initiating-groups-–-pace-building-trust</a> <a href="http://www.classism.org/demolition-derby">http://www.classism.org/demolition-derby</a><br class="" /> <br class="" /></div><div class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;"><div class="" dir="auto" style="-webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;"><div class="" dir="auto" style="-webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;"><br class="Apple-interchange-newline" /><br class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><span class=""><span class="" style="display: inline !important; float: none;">Pamela Haines</span><br class="" /><span class="" style="display: inline !important; float: none;">215-349-9428 (h)</span><br class="" /><span class="" style="display: inline !important; float: none;">267-467-3263 (c)</span><br class="" /><span class="" style="display: inline !important; float: none;">919 S. Farragut St., </span><br class="" /><span class="" style="display: inline !important; float: none;">Philadelphia, PA. 19143</span><br class="" /><br class="" /><span class="" style="display: inline !important; float: none;">Money & Soul; Faith and Practice and the Economy</span></span><div class=""><span class="" style="display: inline !important; float: none;">That Clear and Certain Sound; Finding Solid Ground in Perilous Times</span></div><div class=""><span class="" style="display: inline !important; float: none;">Alive in This World—a poetry collection <br class="" /></span><div class=""><span class="" style="display: inline !important; float: none;"><br class="" /></span></div><div class=""><span class=""><span class="" style="display: inline !important; float: none;">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.</span><br class="" /><span class="" style="display: inline !important; float: none;">-Anne Lamott</span><br class="" /><br class="" /><span class="" style="display: inline !important; float: none;"><a href="http://pamelahaines.carrd.co/">pamelahaines.carrd.co</a></span></span></div><div class=""><span class="" style="display: inline !important; float: none;"><a href="http://www.pamelalivinginthisworld.blogspot.com/">www.pamelalivinginthisworld.blogspot.com</a></span></div></div></div></div></div>Pamela Living in this Worldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01728149865852062590noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2804921562771003682.post-25904007619677107122022-06-14T05:41:00.003-07:002022-06-14T05:41:56.601-07:00#227 Blank slate<p> </p><br />Dear all,<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<div><br /></div><div>And I share the joy of a full moon whose beauty and steadiness are beyond words.</div><div><br /></div><div>Love,</div><div>Pamela</div><div><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;"> </span><br style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;" /><br style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;" /><br style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;" /><br style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;" /><br style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;" /><br style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: medium;"><b>Blank slate</b></span><br style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;" /><br style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;">I’ve been struggling with my approach to the little plot I</span><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;">tend in our community garden. I love it dearly, but</span><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;">worry that it sucks up too</span><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;">much of my time, and that I could be getting a better harvest with less effort</span><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;">if I</span><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;">made better choices or were somehow more efficient. It has more weeds than</span><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;">many of the neighboring</span><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;">plots. Why do I cling to tenaciously to an approach</span><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;">that can be faulted on all fronts? Part of it, of course, is</span><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;">that always having</span><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;">more that could be done in the garden provides a great excuse for taking a</span><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;">break from</span><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;">“important” work, and a pleasurable context for being outdoors. If I</span><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;">suppressed weeds with the latest</span><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;">products and organized my plants into orderly</span><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;">and well-spaced rows, there would be less reason to hang</span><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;">out.</span><br style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;" /><br style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;">But as I’ve lingered in the garden this early spring, I’ve</span><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;">come to see that it’s more than that. It’s about</span><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;">relationships. I move</span><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;">larkspur, that would take over my whole little plot but has such beautiful</span><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;">flowers,</span><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;">out to the big front flower bed where they can be enjoyed by</span><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;">passersby. I dig up a trowel full of tiny kale</span><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;">plants—from last year’s kale</span><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;">gone to seed—and transplant them to give away to other gardeners. I</span><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;">carefully move</span><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;">little raspberries that are intruding on the area where I want to plant sweet</span><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;">potatoes,</span><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;">finding a place for them back among the other raspberries. I dig an</span><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;">invasive weed out from among the</span><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;">little lettuces that have grown from seeds I</span><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;">had saved last summer and scattered in open spots in</span><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;">February. I dig up</span><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;">ever-spreading black-eyed Susans to pot and give to a group that plants</span><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;">community</span><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;">orchards, complete with native pollinator flowers, across the city.</span><br style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;" /><br style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;">I love the role I get to play in this rich circle of life. It’s</span><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;">true, I do have some agency. I do want my tomatoes</span><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;">(grown from last year’s</span><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;">seed) to produce. I do want the pleasure of eating all those other tasty</span><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;">veggies. I</span><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;">do pull weeds. But even so, I want to do my part in a vibrant living</span><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;">community that serves all its members. </span><br style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;" /><br style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;">There may be people who don’t have this luxury in how they</span><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;">grow their food—folks in the community</span><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;">garden whose lives are so stretched that</span><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;">they have only snatches of time for the garden, or small organic</span><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;">farmers who</span><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;">are tending too much land to pay attention to every square foot. But I think</span><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;">the motivation is</span><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;">sound. And as I think about it, this messy relational frame</span><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;">can be applied in other contexts.</span><br style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;" /><br style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;">Take children, for example. While treating them as the</span><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;">proverbial blank slate has gone out of favor in</span><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;">many circles, setting aside an</span><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;">overall habit of control and entering into their lives with open-ended,</span><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;">relationship-based curiosity is far from the norm.</span><br style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;" /><br style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;">Where else has our vision been distorted by assumptions</span><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;">around control and blank slates? I think of</span><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;">settlers coming to this continent,</span><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;">seeing a vast wilderness to tame—missing the productive and</span><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;">flourishing indigenous</span><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;">economies that were right before their eyes. I think of those who have engaged</span><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;">in</span><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;">“urban renewal”, razing whole communities to create a fresh palate on which</span><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;">to build their great dreams. I</span><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;">think of the fossil fuel industry which has no</span><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;">use for living ecosystems, but inconvenient parts of the land</span><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;">as obstacles to</span><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;">be flattened and overcome in pursuit of profit. The underlying perspective is</span><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;">that “There’s</span><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;">nothing here of value—nothing to compare with what I can create!”</span><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;">A master’s vision is centered as more</span><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;">productive and fitting.</span><br style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;" /><br style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;">The alternative of finding one’s place in a living system</span><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;">does sacrifice some efficiency and order—and at</span><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;">times there may be compelling</span><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;">reasons to assume mastering over another life form or community in</span><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;">search of a</span><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;">higher good. But if we can’t see the value of the life that is already there,</span><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;">we may find</span><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;">ourselves creating a monster whose impact over time will come back</span><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;">to haunt us. Valuing relationships,</span><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;">and observing life closely with great</span><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;">curiosity and respect, seem like more trustworthy guides as we chart</span><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;">our way</span><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;">into a future that is always unknown.</span><br style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;" /><br style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;"> </span><div style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;"><br /><br /><b><span style="font-size: medium;">Bags</span></b><br /><br />Almost out the door<br />put one more bag in my pocket<br />just in case<br />find another on the street<br />before I reach the park.<br /><br />Fill one with the trash<br />that’s overflowing by the can—<br />the volunteers are strapped, I know.<br /><br />Approaching where I clean each day<br />a man is struggling<br />with a scooter and torn paper bag<br />items falling out—<br />I have the means to help.<br />The good wishes we exchange—<br />heartfelt.<br /><br />I try to pick this trash—my trash<br />without a bag,<br />find that I can, head home<br />a spare in my pocket,<br />warmth in my heart.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>Dare to imagine: A new economy is possible!</b></span><br /><b>Basic income in Brazil</b><br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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. <br /><br />https://www.yesmagazine.org/economy/2022/05/26/basic-income-brazil?<br /><br /> <br /> </div><div style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;"><br /><br /><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>Some things that have made me hopeful recently</b></span><br /><br />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.<br />https://insideclimatenews.org/news/04052022/india-rights-of-nature/<br /><br />The landmark collective bargaining agreement for the United States Women’s National Team that creates a blueprint for equity across global sports organizations.<br />https://inequality.org/great-divide/equal-pay-victory-soccer/<br /><br />How workers in historically unorganized occupations are forming unions—and breathing new life into the U.S. labor movement.<br />https://inthesetimes.com/article/new-labor-movement-amazon-starbucks-union<br /><br />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.<br />https://insideclimatenews.org/news/22052022/climate-refrigerants-air-conditioning-heat-pumps/<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>Resources</b></span><br /><br /><b>Alive in this World</b><br />A book of poetry in three parts: A Home with the Trees, Commuter Encounters, and A Home with the Earth<br /><blockquote class="" style="border-left-style: none; font-family: LucidaGrande; margin: inherit; padding: inherit;" type="cite">https://bookshop.org/books/alive-in-this-world/9789768273260<br /></blockquote><br /><b>That Clear and Certain Sound; Finding Solid Ground in Perilous Times</b><br />A book of essays from this blog.<br /><blockquote class="" style="border-left-style: none; font-family: LucidaGrande; margin: inherit; padding: inherit;" type="cite">https://bookshop.org/books/quaker-quicks-that-clear-and-certain-sound-finding-solid-ground-in-perilous-times/9781789047653<br /></blockquote><br /><b>Get Down to the Rock; Addressing the Economic Roots of the Climate Emergency</b></div><div style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;"><blockquote class="" style="border-left-style: none; font-family: LucidaGrande; margin: inherit; padding: inherit;" type="cite"><div class=""><div class="original-url"><a class="" href="https://www.friendsjournal.org/get-down-to-the-rock/">https://www.friendsjournal.org/get-down-to-the-rock/</a></div></div></blockquote></div><div style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;"><b><br /></b></div><div style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;"><b>Public Banking Has the Potential to Truly Revolutionize Our Economy</b><br />An article on my experience with the public banking movement as revolutionary reform.<br />https://truthout.org/articles/public-banking-has-the-potential-to-truly-revolutionize-our-economy/<br /><br /><b>Envision or Perish; Why we must start imagining the world we want to live in </b><br />An article I co-authored with George Lakey<br />https://wagingnonviolence.org/2021/02/envision-or-perish-why-we-must-start-imagining-the-world-we-want/ <br /><br />The Financial Roots of the Climate Crisis <br />Link to a talk I gave at a church in Houston <br />https://vimeo.com/showcase/7910215<br /><br /><b>Money and Soul; Quaker Faith and Practice and the Economy</b><br />If money troubles your soul, try this down-to-earth Quaker perspective on economies large and small. <br /><blockquote class="" style="border-left-style: none; font-family: LucidaGrande; margin: inherit; padding: inherit;" type="cite">https://bookshop.org/books/quaker-quicks-money-and-soul-quaker-faith-and-practice-and-the-economy/9781789040890<br /></blockquote><br />Money, Debt and Liberation<br />A video of a talk I gave at Pendle Hill in January, 2019<br />https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f7nP8eJ5vy8 <br /><br /><b>Toward a Right Relationship with Finance; Debt, Interest, Growth and Security.</b><br /><blockquote class="" style="border-left-style: none; font-family: LucidaGrande; margin: inherit; padding: inherit;" type="cite">https://bookshop.org/books/toward-a-right-relationship-with-finance-debt-interest-growth-and-security/9789768142887<br /></blockquote>A book that I co-authored on Debt, Interest, Growth and Security.<br />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:<br /><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>• 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;<br /><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>• frames the conversation within the context of our deepest values and beliefs;<br /><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>• suggests plausible and historically grounded alternatives to the current system, particularly with regard to financing retirement; and<br /><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>• 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.<br />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?<br />To read it on line, go to http://www.quakerinstitute.org/?page_id=5 and scroll down.<br /><br /><b>Muscle Building for Peace and Justice; a Non-Violent Workout Routine for the 21st Century</b>--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) <br /><br /><br /><b>More resources</b><br /><br />Finding Steady Ground<br />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. <br />www.findingsteadyground.com <br /><br />Other resources from my friend Daniel Hunter<br />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 <br />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/ <br />Leading Groups On-Line. https://www.trainingforchange.org/training_tools/leading-groups-online-book/ <br /><br />Posts on other web/blog sites:<br />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.<br />http://www.transitionus.org/blog/unlikely-suspects-–-deep-outreach-diverse-initiating-groups-–-pace-building-trust http://www.classism.org/demolition-derby<br /> <br /></div></div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline" />Pamela Living in this Worldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01728149865852062590noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2804921562771003682.post-53869599632857415142022-05-15T04:58:00.001-07:002022-05-15T04:58:48.650-07:00#226 Pruning<p> </p><br style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;">Dear all,</span><br style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;" /><br style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;">With a recent scan giving Chuck a clean bill of health (yay!), the new challenge is how to not overfill my life going forward. There are so many</span><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;">attractive options! I’ve been doing some speaking and workshops—thanks to the wonder of Zoom—trying to build people’s capacity as actors in a</span><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;">challenging world; tending to abundant life in the garden (planting, harvesting, weeding, transplanting); puzzling over the knotty questions of</span><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;">promoting my writing (and getting help!); loving friends and family; doing my share in ongoing roles; trying to be responsive to new</span><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;">opportunities and urgent needs, while letting so many others go by.</span><br style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;" /><br style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;">It seems that we are going to miss seeing our moon full and in eclipse this evening because of cloud cover. It will be a loss, but I’m still glad to know that she’s there.</span><br style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;" /><br style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;">Love,</span><div style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;">Pamela</div><div style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 14px;"><br /><br /><br /><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>Pruning</b></span><br /><br />Scanning my experience of pruning, I notice that most of it has left a bad taste in my mouth. As a young adult I hung out for several years around a community of apple-pickers. One group had learned an extreme pruning technique, whose focus on increased production and easy access left the trees so ugly that it hurt the eye to look. I always wondered if it could really be worth it. Moving to a city whose streets were lined with beautiful old sycamores, it hurt my heart to see them chopped and disfigured in service to the power lines. Later, the lovely linden in front of our house was cut so brutally to fit below the wires that it couldn’t recover and died a slow death. Then there are all the smaller losses, like forsythia whose branches are meant to arch and flow being shaped into sharp-edged boxes. Surrounding and permeating these experiences is the smell of hard, unloving hubris and domination.<br /><br />It was a revelation, and balm to the soul, to participate in a fruit-tree pruning workshop several years ago where the leader so clearly loved the trees. He invited us to see our goals as helping the sun to kiss the fruit and inviting children to climb. I took everything I learned there to the little orchard we are creating in the front of our community garden. Looking at the peach tree that I had planted as a little sapling and has now been bearing abundant and delicious fruit year after year, I knew this was a sacred task. How could we cut in such a way that the sun would have easy access, people could reach to pick, and the tree’s integrity would be preserved? Each cut was an exercise in loving discernment, with the intention of cutting back for the purpose of creating more.<br /><br />This metaphor of pruning is a powerful one for human beings as well. If we tend toward accumulation, our lives can become so overgrown with possessions or obligations that the light is obscured and parts of our natural inheritance of meaning and joy have grown out of reach. In such situations we may need to take on the discipline of pruning. What clutters our way and keep the sun from being able to kiss the fruits we most value? What could we cut out in the service of having more? How do we remove that which obscures our fruits and our true shape, reaching through the pain of loss to become more fully ourselves?<br /><br />If we tend toward spareness, on the other hand, we may find ourselves cutting out life-giving branches, or pruning with a vengeance in single-minded pursuit of a personal ambition or a noble cause. Ruthlessly cutting out everything that gets in the way, we may find ourselves disfigured in the process. In other contexts, we may succumb to fear, and shape ourselves to what others will think is attractive or acceptable, sacrificing our natural arch and flow to square edged conformity.<br /><br />Then there is the question of pruning others. This is a sacred responsibility, not something to be taken on lightly. Yet much pruning is done heedlessly, as we use our power to shape the environment around us to suit ourselves. In our yards and gardens, perhaps we should offer an explanation or an apology with each cut. It is easy, as well, to prune people who have less power in our midst—children and others over whom we exert authority. Some can bounce back, or conform without changing their essential nature, but cutting off branches that are essential to their well-being—leaving a lasting impact on their shape—is a serious thing. As those who would be pruned by others, we all have a right to stand against forces that would disfigure or diminish us.<br /><br />At its heart, good pruning calls for close observation of the true nature of a person (or tree), growing out of great love and commitment to their unique shape and sacred wholeness, only in pursuit of more light, sweeter fruits.<br /><br /> <br /><br /> <br /><br /><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>What exercise?</b></span><br /><br />Early in the morning<br />amidst dog walkers and runners<br />I feel naked, incomplete.<br />What am I giving exercise<div>on this walk?<br /><br />I realize that it is my mind, my heart—<br />waking it up<br />getting it moving<br />opening it to the possibilities<br />of a new day.<br /><br />I have to believe<br />that this exercise,<br />without apparent goal,<br />is worth the time.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>Dare to imagine: A new economy is possible!</b></span><br /><b><span style="font-size: medium;">Public Banking</span></b><br /><br />A growing awareness of the potential benefits of public banking has sparked grassroots movements across the country in recent years. In 2021, eighteen public banking bills were introduced at state, municipal, and federal levels. Bills were introduced in Massachusetts, New Mexico, Hawaii, New York, Oregon, and Washington; at the municipal level in Philadelphia, Los Angeles, and San Francisco; and at the federal level in the House of Representatives.<br /><br />The Public Banking Institute serves as the hub for public banking information, expertise, and resources, supporting advocates in their outreach work. With calls for a global “reset” mounting, PBI is working to facilitate the transformation of our society into one that is truly in the hands of the people. Critical to that transformation is a transparent national public banking system with a mandate to provide access to affordable credit to local governments, small businesses, and residents.<br /><br />https://publicbankinginstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/PBI_Annual_Report_2021_final_WEB.pdf<br /><br /> <br /><br /> <br /><br /><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>Some things that have made me hopeful recently:</b></span><br /><br />A Brazilian federal court that has upheld the suspension of an environmental license for what would be the largest open-pit gold mine in the nation’s Amazon rainforest, dealing a blow to the Canada-based company behind the project.<br />https://apnews.com/article/business-environment-forests-brazil-belo-sun-mining-corp-132865d50e57bb5c50b4a0b7e9d2c80e?emci=dc3eaa77-d9c7-ec11-997e-281878b83d8a&emdi=c5e5a1c0-e4c7-ec11-997e-281878b83d8a&ceid=4288612<br /><br />A foundation in California that is building into its finances a land tax to the indigenous people on whose original territory it operates.<br />https://medium.com/justice-funders/from-learning-to-action-a-foundations-journey-to-paying-shuumi-land-tax-f78f738c3880<br /><br />The government of Quebec’s recent explicit ban on oil and gas development in its territory after decades of campaigning by environmental organizations and citizen groups—a first in the world.<br />https://www.nationalobserver.com/2022/04/14/news/citizens-officially-win-fight-ban-oil-and-gas-development-quebec<br /><br />An interactive map developed by the Melbourne Urban Forest that provides an email address for each tree, and all the love letters that have been received in response.<br />http://melbourneurbanforestvisual.com.au/<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><b><span style="font-size: medium;">Resources</span></b><br /><br /><b>Alive in this World</b><br />A book of poetry in three parts: A Home with the Trees, Commuter Encounters, and A Home with the Earth<br /><blockquote class="" style="border-left-style: none; margin: inherit; padding: inherit;" type="cite">https://bookshop.org/books/alive-in-this-world/9789768273260<br /></blockquote><br /><b>That Clear and Certain Sound; Finding Solid Ground in Perilous Times</b><br />A book of essays from this blog.<br /><blockquote class="" style="border-left-style: none; margin: inherit; padding: inherit;" type="cite">https://bookshop.org/books/quaker-quicks-that-clear-and-certain-sound-finding-solid-ground-in-perilous-times/9781789047653<br /></blockquote><br /><b>Public Banking Has the Potential to Truly Revolutionize Our Economy</b><br />An article on my experience with the public banking movement as revolutionary reform.<br />https://truthout.org/articles/public-banking-has-the-potential-to-truly-revolutionize-our-economy/<br /><br /><b>Envision or Perish; Why we must start imagining the world we want to live in </b><br />An article I co-authored with George Lakey<br />https://wagingnonviolence.org/2021/02/envision-or-perish-why-we-must-start-imagining-the-world-we-want/ <br /><br /><b>The Financial Roots of the Climate Crisis </b><br />Link to a talk I gave at a church in Houston <br />https://vimeo.com/showcase/7910215<br /><br /><b>Money and Soul; Quaker Faith and Practice and the Economy</b><br />If money troubles your soul, try this down-to-earth Quaker perspective on economies large and small. <br /><blockquote class="" style="border-left-style: none; margin: inherit; padding: inherit;" type="cite">https://bookshop.org/books/quaker-quicks-money-and-soul-quaker-faith-and-practice-and-the-economy/9781789040890<br /></blockquote><br /><b>Money, Debt and Liberation</b><br />A video of a talk I gave at Pendle Hill in January, 2019<br />https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f7nP8eJ5vy8 <br /><br /><b>Toward a Right Relationship with Finance; Debt, Interest, Growth and Security.</b><br /><blockquote class="" style="border-left-style: none; margin: inherit; padding: inherit;" type="cite">https://bookshop.org/books/toward-a-right-relationship-with-finance-debt-interest-growth-and-security/9789768142887<br /></blockquote>A book that I co-authored on Debt, Interest, Growth and Security.<br />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:<br /><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>• 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;<br /><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>• frames the conversation within the context of our deepest values and beliefs;<br /><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>• suggests plausible and historically grounded alternatives to the current system, particularly with regard to financing retirement; and<br /><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>• 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.<br />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?<br />To read it on line, go to http://www.quakerinstitute.org/?page_id=5 and scroll down.<br /><br /><b>Muscle Building for Peace and Justice; a Non-Violent Workout Routine for the 21st Century</b>--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) <br /><br /><br /><b>More resources</b><br /><br /><b>Finding Steady Ground</b><br />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. <br />www.findingsteadyground.com <br /><br />Other resources from my friend Daniel Hunter<br />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 <br />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/ <br />Leading Groups On-Line. https://www.trainingforchange.org/training_tools/leading-groups-online-book/ <br /><br />Posts on other web/blog sites:<br />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.<br />http://www.transitionus.org/blog/unlikely-suspects-–-deep-outreach-diverse-initiating-groups-–-pace-building-trust http://www.classism.org/demolition-derby<br /> </div></div>Pamela Living in this Worldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01728149865852062590noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2804921562771003682.post-9596337796515080122022-04-16T14:48:00.003-07:002022-04-16T14:48:51.709-07:00#225 Alignment<p> <span style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;">Dear all, </span></p><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;">I think of three threads from the past month: The first is an uneasy relationship with a “return to normal”. Chuck is steadily getting better, but do we want to go back to all our habits that were broken by his fight with cancer? COVID has eased and opportunities seem to be opening up, but it seems unlikely that the old normal is around the corner.</span><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;">Then there is spring, which is pure delight (I could go on and on…). And finally, I’ve been aware of the joys of my work in early childhood—building vision and community in a leadership and advocacy fellowship, being part of heartfelt appreciation at an awards ceremony, co-creating stories for our newsletter that give voice to people who are often unseen. I’m noticing my deep engagement in relationships which are foundational to everything.</span><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;">I could use some help in promoting my writing. If you have ideas about event venues, interview opportunities or effective ways to use social media, or if you’d like to be part of a support/accountability team, please let me know!</span><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;">And I am taking in the full moon and looking forward to witnessing the sun rise tomorrow morning.</span><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;">Love,</span><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;">Pamela</span><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><b class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;"><span class="" style="font-size: medium;">Alignment</span></b><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;">With the invasion of Ukraine, a dedicated and powerful climate activist was trying to get her mind around war. Engaging in her own crash course on the military industrial complex and leverage points for change, she was exhorting her considerable following to do the same. To be anything less than powerfully in motion here, she suggested, was to abdicate our inherent power. I couldn’t disagree, but the thought of it just made me tired.</span><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;">How much force can one person exert against counterforces that are so much bigger? Reaching for a perspective beyond guilt-infused exhaustion, a series of sailing adventure books from my childhood came to mind. Following these children on the water, we learned a lot about the wind. You go fastest, of course, when it’s at your back. But you can still make progress against a headwind. You just can’t do it head on. You have to go at a diagonal, tacking first to the left then to the right, adjusting your sails to harness the power of the wind. This image has its own power, suggesting the potential of alignment with forces that are larger than ourselves.</span><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;">As I work with this idea, fruitful possibilities begin to emerge. First is an offering from Frederick Buechner: “Your vocation in life is where your greatest joy meets the world's greatest need.” You don’t sacrifice yourself for the sake of a noble cause. Rather, you find the point of intersection where you flourish as you make a contribution to a larger whole.</span><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;">I think of my longing to put my skills to their best use in the climate movement, and how I found a place offering individual attention to a handful of dedicated young climate activists. I think of the imperative of relating to indigenous rights, and finding my way into a mutually life-giving relationship with a Haudenosaunee community.</span><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;">I think of my recent struggle to stand with water defenders against pipelines. Putting my body on the line a thousand miles away in the midst of COVID seemed like facing too strong a headwind. Writing a letter to the president seemed so insignificant as to be pointless, but perhaps a letter a day, along with an invitation to others to do the same, would be better than nothing. The practice on my morning walk of reaching for three or four sentences that connect me with native people, one good man and my love for the earth has been unexpectedly grounding. And who knows? That steady drip of loving call to right relationship might even have an impact.</span><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;">If we’re facing strong headwinds, we need a good and life-supporting boat. I think of my local public banking coalition, and all the ways that group is nourished—by growing friendships, by drawing on and openly celebrating a variety of strengths, by our resident poet’s offering at the start of each meeting. As we navigate the choppy waters and gusty winds of local politics and rigid bureaucracies, the sturdiness of our vessel is no small part of the story.</span><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;">Speaking of joy, my mind goes to a scrappy group of Quaker-related climate activists who set their sights on our local electric utility and the imperative to transition to renewable sources. One of their actions involved blocking doorways, and they decided to do it with a dance party. So they turned up the music and invited everyone to join in the electric slide.</span><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;">There are other ways of aligning. Align with the earth, paying enough attention to the turning of the days and the seasons that we are in tune, drawing nourishment and strength, rather than opposing its forces. Align with physics. It’s amazing the size of a rock that can be moved by a strategically placed lever. And we can stay open to the unexpected. Sometimes a fresh breeze might catch us and draw us along, even though that hadn’t been part of our plan.</span><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;">There may be occasions for just putting our heads into the wind, drawing on all our resources of sheer determination and pushing toward a goal. At times stubborn opposition may be all that we have available to us. But constant straining against overwhelming odds drains both energy and joy—and it’s hard to invite others in.</span><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;">I can’t mobilize all my strength against every new injustice. But I can decide to look, grab a hand, consider what is mine to love, and seek ways to align with greater forces that are already at work around me. I can find my place in the arc of the universe that bends toward justice. As we practice this alignment, stepping out from under the oppressive weight of obligation and joining with the great creative spirit that is alive in this world, I wonder if this might be the way we get to be our biggest selves.</span><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><b class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: large;">Oasis</b><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><span class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: x-small;">I’ve picked this little triangle<br class="" />between park and gas station<br class="" />clean of winter’s trash,<br class="" />refresh it every morning now.<br class="" /><br class="" />As I rest in the beauty<br class="" />I wonder about others<br class="" />passing by.<br class="" />Do they notice<br class="" />what is no longer<br class="" />there to be seen?<br class="" /><br class="" />Or is it just a little less </span><div class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;"><span class="" style="font-size: x-small;">grit in the shoe,<br class="" />sand in the eye?</span><br class="" /><br class="" /><br class="" /><br class="" /><br class="" /><b class=""><span class="" style="font-size: medium;">Dare to imagine: A new economy is possible!<br class="" />Guaranteed income</span></b><br class="" /><br class="" />A universal basic income has been discussed for many years, as the simplest way to address financial need. Experiments in more targeted programs that guarantee income have been tried out in a variety of places over the years, and are becoming more widespread.<br class="" /><br class="" />A prominent example is the Stockton Economic Empowerment Demonstration, which put $500 a month into the hands of 125 low-income residents of Stockton, California, for 24 months. Data gathered from the SEED project found that the cash significantly helped recipients stabilize their finances, acquire jobs, and improve their mental health, compared with a control group. Two more recent ones in New York City and Atlanta are showing how modest monthly cash payments to low-income women of color can make a huge difference in alleviating race and gender-based economic inequities.<br class="" /><br class="" /><a class="" href="https://www.yesmagazine.org/economy/2022/02/11/guaranteed-income-projects-economy-more-equitable?">https://www.yesmagazine.org/economy/2022/02/11/guaranteed-income-projects-economy-more-equitable?</a><br class="" /><br class="" /> <div class=""><br class="" /></div><div class=""><br class="" /><b class=""><span class="" style="font-size: medium;"><br class="" />Some things that have made me hopeful recently:</span></b><br class="" /><br class="" />Successful union efforts at both Starbucks and Amazon that are shaking up power relationships in the far-reaching food service and warehousing industries.<br class="" /><a href="https://www.vox.com/recode/23005336/amazon-union-new-york-warehouse?">https://www.vox.com/recode/23005336/amazon-union-new-york-warehouse?</a><br class="" /><a href="https://www.seattletimes.com/business/seattle-starbucks-workers-vote-to-unionize-hoping-to-send-a-signal-of-change-to-the-food-service-industry/">https://www.seattletimes.com/business/seattle-starbucks-workers-vote-to-unionize-hoping-to-send-a-signal-of-change-to-the-food-service-industry/</a><br class="" /><br class="" />The collaboration of Finnish Indigenous knowledge holders and scientists to rewild and protect peatlands, revitalizing local ecosystems and economies while expanding carbon sinks again.<br class="" /><a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2022/03/traditional-knowledge-guides-protection-of-planetary-health-in-finland/">https://news.mongabay.com/2022/03/traditional-knowledge-guides-protection-of-planetary-health-in-finland/</a><br class="" /><br class="" />Examples of indigenous tribes regaining control of ancestral lands—in Virginia and California—with the potential in California of safeguarding old-growth forests and endangered species.<br class="" /><a href="https://nativenewsonline.net/sovereignty/after-350-years-the-rappahannock-tribe-gets-land-back">https://nativenewsonline.net/sovereignty/after-350-years-the-rappahannock-tribe-gets-land-back</a><br class="" /><a href="https://www.goodgoodgood.co/articles/california-redwood-forest-indigenous">https://www.goodgoodgood.co/articles/california-redwood-forest-indigenous</a>-guardianship<br class="" /><br class="" />Denver’s program to dispatch mental health teams instead of police, that is so successful that it is expanding five-fold.<br class="" /><a href="https://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/denver-star-program-expands-in-2022/?utm_campaign=newsletters&utm_medium=weekly_mailout&utm_source=23-03-2022">https://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/denver-star-program-expands-in-2022/?utm_campaign=newsletters&utm_medium=weekly_mailout&utm_source=23-03-2022</a></div><div class=""><br class="" /></div><div class=""><br class="" /></div><div class=""><br class="" /><br class="" /><b class=""><span class="" style="font-size: medium;">Resources</span></b><br class="" /><br class="" /><b class="">Alive in this World</b><br class="" />A book of poetry in three parts: A Home with the Trees, Commuter Encounters, and A Home with the Earth<br class="" /><blockquote class="" style="border-left-style: none; margin: inherit; padding: inherit;" type="cite"><a href="https://bookshop.org/books/alive-in-this-world/9789768273260">https://bookshop.org/books/alive-in-this-world/9789768273260</a><br class="" /></blockquote><br class="" /><b class="">That Clear and Certain Sound; Finding Solid Ground in Perilous Times</b><br class="" />A book of essays from this blog.<br class="" /><blockquote class="" style="border-left-style: none; margin: inherit; padding: inherit;" type="cite"><a href="https://bookshop.org/books/quaker-quicks-that-clear-and-certain-sound-finding-solid-ground-in-perilous-times/9781789047653">https://bookshop.org/books/quaker-quicks-that-clear-and-certain-sound-finding-solid-ground-in-perilous-times/9781789047653</a><br class="" /></blockquote><br class="" /><b class="">Public Banking Has the Potential to Truly Revolutionize Our Economy</b><br class="" />An article on my experience with the public banking movement as revolutionary reform.<br class="" /><a href="https://truthout.org/articles/public-banking-has-the-potential-to-truly-revolutionize-our-economy/">https://truthout.org/articles/public-banking-has-the-potential-to-truly-revolutionize-our-economy/</a><br class="" /><br class="" /><b class="">Envision or Perish; Why we must start imagining the world we want to live in </b><br class="" />An article I co-authored with George Lakey<br class="" /><a href="https://wagingnonviolence.org/2021/02/envision-or-perish-why-we-must-start-imagining-the-world-we-want/">https://wagingnonviolence.org/2021/02/envision-or-perish-why-we-must-start-imagining-the-world-we-want/</a> <br class="" /><br class="" /><b class="">The Financial Roots of the Climate Crisis </b><br class="" />Link to a talk I gave at a church in Houston <br class="" /><a href="https://vimeo.com/showcase/7910215">https://vimeo.com/showcase/7910215</a><br class="" /><br class="" /><b class="">Money and Soul; Quaker Faith and Practice and the Economy</b><br class="" />If money troubles your soul, try this down-to-earth Quaker perspective on economies large and small. <br class="" /><blockquote class="" style="border-left-style: none; margin: inherit; padding: inherit;" type="cite"><a href="https://bookshop.org/books/quaker-quicks-money-and-soul-quaker-faith-and-practice-and-the-economy/9781789040890">https://bookshop.org/books/quaker-quicks-money-and-soul-quaker-faith-and-practice-and-the-economy/9781789040890</a><br class="" /></blockquote><br class="" /><b class="">Money, Debt and Liberation</b><br class="" />A video of a talk I gave at Pendle Hill in January, 2019<br class="" /><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f7nP8eJ5vy8">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f7nP8eJ5vy8</a> <br class="" /><br class="" /><b class="">Toward a Right Relationship with Finance; Debt, Interest, Growth and Security.</b><br class="" /><blockquote class="" style="border-left-style: none; margin: inherit; padding: inherit;" type="cite"><a href="https://bookshop.org/books/toward-a-right-relationship-with-finance-debt-interest-growth-and-security/9789768142887">https://bookshop.org/books/toward-a-right-relationship-with-finance-debt-interest-growth-and-security/9789768142887</a><br class="" /></blockquote>A book that I co-authored on Debt, Interest, Growth and Security.<br class="" />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:<br class="" /><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>• 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;<br class="" /><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>• frames the conversation within the context of our deepest values and beliefs;<br class="" /><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>• suggests plausible and historically grounded alternatives to the current system, particularly with regard to financing retirement; and<br class="" /><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>• 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.<br class="" />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?<br class="" />To read it on line, go to <a href="http://www.quakerinstitute.org/?page_id=5">http://www.quakerinstitute.org/?page_id=5</a> and scroll down.<br class="" /><br class="" /><b class="">Muscle Building for Peace and Justice; a Non-Violent Workout Routine for the 21st Century</b>--an integration of much of my experience and thinking over the years: New link: <a href="https://www.peaceworkersus.org/docs/muscle_building_for_peace_and_justice.pdf">https://www.peaceworkersus.org/docs/muscle_building_for_peace_and_justice.pdf</a> (or just google the title) <br class="" /><br class="" /><br class="" /><b class="">More resources</b><br class="" /><br class="" /><b class="">Finding Steady Ground</b><br class="" />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. <br class="" /><a href="http://www.findingsteadyground.com/">www.findingsteadyground.com</a> <br class="" /><br class="" />Other resources from my friend Daniel Hunter<br class="" />Building a Movement to End the New Jim Crow; An Organizing Guide. <a href="http://www.danielhunter.org/books/building-movement-end-new-jim-crow-organizing-guide">http://www.danielhunter.org/books/building-movement-end-new-jim-crow-organizing-guide</a> <br class="" />Climate Resistance Handbook, or I was part of a climate action. Now what? <a href="https://commonslibrary.org/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/</a> <br class="" />Leading Groups On-Line. <a href="https://www.trainingforchange.org/training_tools/leading-groups-online-book/">https://www.trainingforchange.org/training_tools/leading-groups-online-book/</a> <br class="" /><br class="" />Posts on other web/blog sites:<br class="" />In <a href="http://www.classism.org/gifts-american-dream/">http://www.classism.org/gifts-american-dream/</a>, Pamela Haines locates her family's homey DIY celebrations on a class spectrum of different connections to upward mobility.<br class="" /><a href="http://www.transitionus.org/blog/unlikely-suspects-%E2%80%93-deep-outreach-diverse-initiating-groups-%E2%80%93-pace-building-trust">http://www.transitionus.org/blog/unlikely-suspects-–-deep-outreach-diverse-initiating-groups-–-pace-building-trust</a> <a href="http://www.classism.org/demolition-derby">http://www.classism.org/demolition-derby</a><br class="" /> </div></div>Pamela Living in this Worldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01728149865852062590noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2804921562771003682.post-51153036862470532612022-03-20T09:18:00.000-07:002022-03-20T09:18:05.830-07:00#224 Influence<p> <span style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;">Dear all,</span></p><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;">As health and well-being are steadily being restored on the homefront I breathe more deeply, very aware of others who are not so fortunate. I think of the suffering of war that has broken through into our consciousness, even as conflict is raging in parts of the world that seem too far away to care. I soak up the miracles of spring, even in the midst of ever-more-sobering climate reports. </span><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;">With crocuses and daffodils everywhere, trees in bloom, pea seeds in the ground, worms in my good compost, people flocking to the parks, I stick to the promise of life. And, after a misty morning, I hope to catch a glimpse of the full moon tonight.</span><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;">Love,</span><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;">Pamela</span><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><span class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: medium;"><b class="">Influence</b></span><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;">I recently spent some time at the end of my morning walks picking trash out of a little triangle at the intersection of two city streets, just beyond the park and across from a gas station and convenience store. Love had gone into the plantings in the past, but it had succumbed to the neglect that can take over so easily when resources are thin.</span><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;">It was covered with a thick and ugly layer of trash when I started, the accumulation of months of inattention. I took the approach I learned as a child when we were set out to weed in our lawn: Choose one small area and clean out every single thing that doesn’t belong, then turn your attention to another small area. It took quite a while, but progress was visible and a sense of accomplishment steady. When one morning I was finally done, I looked at this little triangle, now restored to the original vision, breathed deeply, and rested in its beauty.</span><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;">The next day I was not surprised to see that a few more pieces of trash had accumulated, but the day after, there was a lot! I had a sinking feeling and realized that this might be harder than the lawn, where it takes some time for the weeds to get reestablished. Could it have been the wind? But there was still not too much to fit in one of the little grocery bags I now kept in my pocket. When there was another strong wind one afternoon several days later, I wondered what I would find the next morning—and indeed the little triangle was awash in trash, with most on the side that faced the gas station.</span><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;">I wasn’t just picking up the trash that people threw in that one place; I was picking up everything that blew in as well. While this could be discouraging, I also had a quite unexpected and somehow bracing vision of my expanding influence. Just by tending that one small spot, I was having a wider impact. How much more of the city’s trash would I be cleaning up?</span><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;">As I considered other examples of expanding influence, my mind went to the hemlocks around the cabin we share in the mountains of northern Pennsylvania that have been threatened by a small invasive insect. In my search for a way to respond, I came across a group that raises the beetles that are its natural predator—and fortunately don’t eat anything else. We contracted with these folks to provide us with three little populations of beetles for the most vulnerable parts of the hemlock woods, and they seem to be keeping the damage at bay. But what will they do when they have eaten all the insects within range and start to get hungry? I think of all the hemlocks in that part of the state, all facing the same threat, and imagine our little population of beetles spreading out in an expanding circle of influence.</span><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;">Of course there are more familiar ways of thinking about circles of influence. I’ve always loved the image of the pebble dropped in the pond, and the ripples that spread out in ever-widening circles. There are many ways to be a pebble—sharing a good idea that gets picked up by one’s inner circle, then the circle around them; listening in a way that increases the capacity of others to listen as well; a kindness that touches someone’s heart and encourages them to do the same.</span><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;">But my trash example is less like a pebble rippling out and more like a magnet drawing in. As I think about it, there are many ways to be a magnet as well. I can be a magnet for good news; a magnet for stories that are attracted to a listening ear; a magnet for things in need of repair. I can be my own personal magnet for wonder and beauty: the more I make space for it, the more I notice.</span><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;">I haven’t quite worked out the physics of how being a magnet for trash can transform into pebble’s widening ripples of trash clean-up, but I have a hunch there might be a way. In the meantime, there’s nothing to stop us from exploring the limits of our capacity to influence—as pebbles, or magnets, or both.</span><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><span class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: medium;"><b class="">Tarp</b></span><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;">A bundle of old tarp, pulled aside</span><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;">yields a patch of pale yellow shoots,</span><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;">a sickly contrast to the hardy green</span><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;">of those that took in sun</span><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;">and flourish on all sides.</span><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;">Each time I pass, they’ve grown</span><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;">but not in health.</span><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;">One day I see the slightest hint</span><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;">of green on those pale shoots.</span><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;">I wait and watch. Another week</span><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;">and steadily more green,</span><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;">and then the buds—</span><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;">of daffodils.</span><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;">The sun has done its work,</span><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;">brought them back</span><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;">from the living dead</span><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;">as I, a member of the audience,</span><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;">cheered on.</span><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;"> </span><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;"> </span><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><span class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: medium;"><b class="">Dare to imagine: A new economy is possible!</b></span><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><b class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;">Pay for child care workers</b><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;">Thousands of child care workers in Washington, D.C., will receive checks for at least $10,000 following a unanimous vote by the D.C. City Council to "create an early educator pay parity program that will provide direct payments to employees of early childhood development providers" in fiscal year 2022. The payments will be made using revenue from a tax increase on wealthy households in D.C. that was passed by the city council last year. When they approved the tax increase, the council voted to set aside approximately $53 million of the revenue in the first year to raise pay for the city's child care workforce, which includes more than 3,000 workers.</span><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><a class="" href="https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/592466-dc-council-votes-to-send-10000-checks-to-day-care-workers" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;">https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/592466-dc-council-votes-to-send-10000-checks-to-day-care-workers</a><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;"> </span><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;"> </span><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><b class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;"><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: medium;">Some things that have made me hopeful recently</span></b><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;">The passage of a bill creating the Philadelphia Public Financial Authority—the first step toward a municipal public bank—by an overwhelming 15-1 vote.</span><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><a href="https://publicbankinginstitute.org/philadelphia-public-financial-authority-bill-passes-in-an-overwhelming-15-1-vote/" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;">https://publicbankinginstitute.org/philadelphia-public-financial-authority-bill-passes-in-an-overwhelming-15-1-vote/</a><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;">The inclusion in President Bidens Infrastructure law of $1.7 billion to fulfill Indian water rights settlements.</span><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><a href="https://www.doi.gov/pressreleases/tribes-receive-17-billion-president-bidens-bipartisan-infrastructure-law-fulfill?" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;">https://www.doi.gov/pressreleases/tribes-receive-17-billion-president-bidens-bipartisan-infrastructure-law-fulfill?</a><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;">Rights of Nature laws: Panama’s new law guaranteeing the nation’s land, trees, rivers, coral reefs and mountains the ‘right to exist, persist and regenerate’; and Ecuador’s court ruling that the mining industry must now prove that its projects won’t harm ecosystems or endanger species.</span><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><a href="https://insideclimatenews.org/news/25022022/panama-rights-of-nature/?" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;">https://insideclimatenews.org/news/25022022/panama-rights-of-nature/?</a><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><a href="https://insideclimatenews.org/news/21022022/rights-of-nature-laws-ecuador/?" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;">https://insideclimatenews.org/news/21022022/rights-of-nature-laws-ecuador/?</a><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;">Fishadelphia, a wildly creative project in which school students work with local fisher-people on the Jersey shore to provide affordable fresh seafood to their immigrant families and neighbors and others across Philadelphia (started by a friend of mine…)</span><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><a href="https://thephiladelphiacitizen.org/fishadelphia/" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;">https://thephiladelphiacitizen.org/fishadelphia/</a><div class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;"><br class="" /></div><div class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;"><br class="" /></div><div class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;"><br class="" /></div><div class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;"><br class="" /></div><div class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;"><span class="" style="font-size: medium;"><b class="">Resources<br class="" /></b></span><br class="" /><b class="">Alive in this World</b><br class="" />A book of poetry in three parts: A Home with the Trees, Commuter Encounters, and A Home with the Earth<br class="" /><blockquote class="" style="border-left-style: none; color: inherit; margin: inherit; padding: inherit;" type="cite"><a href="https://bookshop.org/books/alive-in-this-world/9789768273260">https://bookshop.org/books/alive-in-this-world/9789768273260</a><br class="" /></blockquote><br class="" /><b class="">That Clear and Certain Sound; Finding Solid Ground in Perilous Times</b><br class="" />A book of essays from this blog.<br class="" /><blockquote class="" style="border-left-style: none; color: inherit; margin: inherit; padding: inherit;" type="cite"><a href="https://bookshop.org/books/quaker-quicks-that-clear-and-certain-sound-finding-solid-ground-in-perilous-times/9781789047653">https://bookshop.org/books/quaker-quicks-that-clear-and-certain-sound-finding-solid-ground-in-perilous-times/9781789047653</a><br class="" /></blockquote><br class="" /><b class="">Public Banking Has the Potential to Truly Revolutionize Our Economy</b><br class="" />An article on my experience with the public banking movement as revolutionary reform.<br class="" /><a href="https://truthout.org/articles/public-banking-has-the-potential-to-truly-revolutionize-our-economy/">https://truthout.org/articles/public-banking-has-the-potential-to-truly-revolutionize-our-economy/</a><br class="" /><br class="" /><b class="">Envision or Perish; Why we must start imagining the world we want to live in </b><br class="" />An article I co-authored with George Lakey<br class="" /><a href="https://wagingnonviolence.org/2021/02/envision-or-perish-why-we-must-start-imagining-the-world-we-want/">https://wagingnonviolence.org/2021/02/envision-or-perish-why-we-must-start-imagining-the-world-we-want/</a> <br class="" /><br class="" /><b class="">The Financial Roots of the Climate Crisis </b><br class="" />Link to a talk I gave at a church in Houston <br class="" /><a href="https://vimeo.com/showcase/7910215">https://vimeo.com/showcase/7910215</a><br class="" /><br class="" /><b class="">Money and Soul; Quaker Faith and Practice and the Economy</b><br class="" />If money troubles your soul, try this down-to-earth Quaker perspective on economies large and small. <br class="" /><blockquote class="" style="border-left-style: none; color: inherit; margin: inherit; padding: inherit;" type="cite"><a href="https://bookshop.org/books/quaker-quicks-money-and-soul-quaker-faith-and-practice-and-the-economy/9781789040890">https://bookshop.org/books/quaker-quicks-money-and-soul-quaker-faith-and-practice-and-the-economy/9781789040890</a><br class="" /></blockquote><br class="" /><b class="">Money, Debt and Liberation</b><br class="" />A video of a talk I gave at Pendle Hill in January, 2019<br class="" /><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f7nP8eJ5vy8">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f7nP8eJ5vy8</a> <br class="" /><br class="" /><b class="">Toward a Right Relationship with Finance; Debt, Interest, Growth and Security.</b><br class="" /><blockquote class="" style="border-left-style: none; color: inherit; margin: inherit; padding: inherit;" type="cite"><a href="https://bookshop.org/books/toward-a-right-relationship-with-finance-debt-interest-growth-and-security/9789768142887">https://bookshop.org/books/toward-a-right-relationship-with-finance-debt-interest-growth-and-security/9789768142887</a><br class="" /></blockquote>A book that I co-authored on Debt, Interest, Growth and Security.<br class="" />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:<br class="" /><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>• 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;<br class="" /><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>• frames the conversation within the context of our deepest values and beliefs;<br class="" /><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>• suggests plausible and historically grounded alternatives to the current system, particularly with regard to financing retirement; and<br class="" /><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>• 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.<br class="" />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?<br class="" />To read it on line, go to <a href="http://www.quakerinstitute.org/?page_id=5">http://www.quakerinstitute.org/?page_id=5</a> and scroll down.<br class="" /><br class="" /><b class="">Muscle Building for Peace and Justice; a Non-Violent Workout Routine for the 21st Century</b>--an integration of much of my experience and thinking over the years: New link: <a href="https://www.peaceworkersus.org/docs/muscle_building_for_peace_and_justice.pdf">https://www.peaceworkersus.org/docs/muscle_building_for_peace_and_justice.pdf</a> (or just google the title) <br class="" /><br class="" /><br class="" /><b class="">More resources</b></div><div class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;"><b class=""><br class="" /></b></div><div class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;">Finding Steady Ground<br class="" />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. <br class="" /><a href="http://www.findingsteadyground.com/">www.findingsteadyground.com</a> <br class="" /><br class="" />Other resources from my friend Daniel Hunter<br class="" />Building a Movement to End the New Jim Crow; An Organizing Guide. <a href="http://www.danielhunter.org/books/building-movement-end-new-jim-crow-organizing-guide">http://www.danielhunter.org/books/building-movement-end-new-jim-crow-organizing-guide</a> <br class="" />Climate Resistance Handbook, or I was part of a climate action. Now what? <a href="https://commonslibrary.org/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/</a> <br class="" />Leading Groups On-Line. <a href="https://www.trainingforchange.org/training_tools/leading-groups-online-book/">https://www.trainingforchange.org/training_tools/leading-groups-online-book/</a> <b class=""><br class="" /></b><br class="" />Posts on other web/blog sites:<br class="" />In <a href="http://www.classism.org/gifts-american-dream/">http://www.classism.org/gifts-american-dream/</a>, Pamela Haines locates her family's homey DIY celebrations on a class spectrum of different connections to upward mobility.<br class="" /><a href="http://www.transitionus.org/blog/unlikely-suspects-%E2%80%93-deep-outreach-diverse-initiating-groups-%E2%80%93-pace-building-trust">http://www.transitionus.org/blog/unlikely-suspects-–-deep-outreach-diverse-initiating-groups-–-pace-building-trust</a> <a href="http://www.classism.org/demolition-derby">http://www.classism.org/demolition-derby</a></div>Pamela Living in this Worldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01728149865852062590noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2804921562771003682.post-37817789723853178822022-03-01T13:53:00.001-08:002022-03-01T13:53:16.201-08:00#223 Numb<p><span style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;">Dear all, </span></p><span style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;">I get to share the good news his month that we are finished with cancer treatments and Chuck is getting steadily better every day—what a gift! We are still are enjoying loving gifts of food, were blessed by a long visit from his sister, and now find ourselves a little off-balance as we navigate the welcome but unfamiliar territory of convalescence. Though I never stopped writing, I am trying to be ever more intentional and unapologetic in sharing my voice. Thanks to wonderful friends and family, I now have not only a new website but a Facebook page where you can like Pamela Haines, Author.</span><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;">I didn’t post this message with the full moon, not because I forgot—far from it!—but because it was so close to Valentines Day and the love letter we send then (if you want a copy, just let me know). A joy earlier this month was working with a couple of others to prune the peach tree in the little orchard we are growing in front of our community garden. And I’ve started some of my cold weather seeds indoors—in confidence that spring will come.</span><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;">Love,</span><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;">Pamela</span><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><b class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;"><span class="" style="font-size: medium;">Numb</span></b><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;">A friend had been estranged from loved one for years and was now experiencing the miracle of reconnection. She was telling of her disorientation, wondering at the unexpected feeling of great sorrow in a time that should have been one of undiluted joy.</span><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;">My mind went back to childhood times of playing out in the snow. On those cold winter days, our fingers grew steadily colder, till we could no longer feel them at all. Heedlessly, we kept on playing. Then there was that time back inside, as we warmed up sitting by the fire or with a cup of hot chocolate, when the feeling started to come back. Our fingers tingled. They burned. It was an exquisitely uncomfortable sensation—coming on just when everything should have been feeling ultimately warm and cozy.</span><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;">My friend had experienced great loss, and found a way to keep on going. It’s as if she’d packed that loss up in a box and pushed it way to the back of a tall shelf in a dark closet so that she could pay attention to other things. But now, with contact restored, it was like stepping back from a frozen outdoors into the warmth of a fire and hot chocolate. All of a sudden the box was out and wide open, and she was tingling all over with that exquisite pain of coming back to life.</span><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;">As children, we couldn’t play in the snow with numb fingers forever. After a while we had to come in out of the cold, and we had to feel that pain as those fingers came back to life. There was no other choice. But with other options available, how many of us would still choose to stick with numbness? It can certainly seem like a friend. Sometimes it’s a no-brainer. We get the Novocain so that we can tolerate the drilling, or the anesthesia so that we can get through an operation (though it can be argued that both are heavily overused, and that a few seconds of sharp pain might be preferable to hours of heavy fogginess).</span><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;">Then there are the ongoing challenges in life, and all the things we consume and activities we engage in with the goal of avoiding or numbing pain. Alcohol, of course, comes immediately to mind, along with other drugs that serve to directly blunt our fears or sorrows. Some of us use eating—sweets or otherwise—to this end. Others go for distraction of different kinds, in entertainment, or screens, or reading, or sports. Some of us just keep working.</span><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;">Whole industries have grown up, offering a dizzying array of services and products designed to help us numb to pain. Yet, they come at a cost. More and more, we are seeing pain as something to be avoided, something to buy our way out of, something that has no place in the Good Life to which we all aspire. Given this tendency, it’s not surprising that we struggle to find a home for loss, including the universal of aging and death, in our lives.</span><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;">We all find our own ways to numb ourselves to the pain we didn’t know how to handle as children, and continue to face as adults. If I can’t fix a situation that involves suffering—in myself, in others, or in the world around me—my personal go-to strategy has been to retreat to create a little emotional distance, and turn my attention to something that I can do. It’s not the worst strategy, but it keeps me a little apart. As I’ve faced a loved one’s suffering recently, I’ve noticed that this bit of distance is not what I would choose. I would choose to be able to feel how sad or sorry I am even if there’s nothing I can do to make it better. The only way forward that I can see is to dare to step out from my protected position of numbness and just feel how sorry I am, for his suffering, for mine, for that of the world.</span><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;">I believe we all need to come out of the numbing cold and go through that exquisitely painful process of coming back to life. Then we will be able to be fully present, not only to the sorrows of this world, but to all of its joys as well.</span><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;"> </span><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><b class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;"><span class="" style="font-size: medium;">West and east</span></b><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;">Pre-dawn after the full moon</span><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;">and all my attention is on the west,</span><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;">now thick with clouds.</span><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;">Will I catch a glimpse?</span><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;">Though the chance seems thin</span><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;">I look and look again.</span><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;">Heading home, my eye is caught</span><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;">by color in the east</span><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;">that grows and grows</span><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;">catching low clouds</span><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;">in rippling bands of pink</span><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;">rising higher, filling the sky.</span><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;">I am reminded that</span><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;">we don’t always get</span><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;">to choose our gifts.</span><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><b class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;"><span class="" style="font-size: medium;">Dare to imagine: A new economy is possible!</span></b><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><b class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;">Community wealth building<br class="" /></b><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;">The city of Preston, in northern England, is pioneering in community wealth building: establishing cooperative banks, insourcing services, expanding worker and employee ownership, supporting democratic ownership of land, and developing municipally owned green energy works and key commercial activity in local authority ownership. They are collaborating with large local institutions like hospitals and universities to encourage them to spend more locally, employ residents in deprived areas, and protecting their community-owned land and assets for progressive purposes rather than extractive, gentrifying development—a crucial aspect of maintaining local democracy.</span><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;">Recently they have brought forward a living wage increase benefitting municipal staff. They have registered five new worker-owned firms, with plans for more potentially involving retrofitters, translators, makers, and new cooperatives in partnership with minority communities and former prisoners. One, founded by members of Preston Trades Council, is being tasked to work with unions to support new cooperative businesses that their members will own and control. They are in the midst of developing a regional community bank and delivering regeneration of the city center, primarily in municipal ownership, including a cooperative housing project.</span><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><a class="" href="https://www.jacobinmag.com/2022/01/preston-england-matthew-brown-municipal-socialism-community-wealth-building?mc_cid=f8b25fae00&mc_eid=b2f3d85ae2" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;">https://www.jacobinmag.com/2022/01/preston-england-matthew-brown-municipal-socialism-community-wealth-building?mc_cid=f8b25fae00&mc_eid=b2f3d85ae2</a><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><br class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;" /><div class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;"><b class=""><span class="" style="font-size: medium;">Some things that have made me hopeful recently</span></b><br class="" /><br class="" />A landslide victory by Mexican General Motors Workers, voting in an independent union, breaking the vice grip of the employer-friendly unions that have long dominated Mexico’s labor movement.<br class="" /><a href="https://www.labornotes.org/2022/02/landslide-victory-mexican-gm-workers-vote-independent-union">https://www.labornotes.org/2022/02/landslide-victory-mexican-gm-workers-vote-independent-union</a><br class="" /><br class="" />Indigenous communities in Indonesia that are regaining management rights to their customary forests and teaching their youth how to care for them.<br class="" /><a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2022/02/field-school-teaches-young-indigenous-indonesians-how-to-care-for-their-forests/">https://news.mongabay.com/2022/02/field-school-teaches-young-indigenous-indonesians-how-to-care-for-their-forests/</a><br class="" /><br class="" />The successful movement in New York to add a green amendment to their state constitution, winning citizen rights to a healthful environment and providing a model for other states.<br class="" /><a href="https://www.sierraclub.org/sierra/how-new-yorkers-won-right-healthful-environment">https://www.sierraclub.org/sierra/how-new-yorkers-won-right-healthful-environment</a><br class="" /><br class="" />How cultivation of seaweed on the west coast is helping indigenous communities restore their connection to the ocean.<br class="" /><a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2022/01/by-cultivating-seaweed-indigenous-communities-restore-connection-to-the-ocean/">https://news.mongabay.com/2022/01/by-cultivating-seaweed-indigenous-communities-restore-connection-to-the-ocean/</a><br class="" /><br class="" /><br class="" /><br class="" /><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: medium;"><b class="">Resources</b></span><br class="" /><br class="" /><b class="">Alive in this World</b><br class="" />A book of poetry in three parts: A Home with the Trees, Commuter Encounters, and A Home with the Earth<br class="" /><blockquote class="" style="border-left-style: none; color: inherit; margin: inherit; padding: inherit;" type="cite"><a href="https://bookshop.org/books/alive-in-this-world/9789768273260">https://bookshop.org/books/alive-in-this-world/9789768273260</a><br class="" /></blockquote><br class="" /><b class="">That Clear and Certain Sound; Finding Solid Ground in Perilous Times</b><br class="" />A book of essays from this blog.<br class="" /><blockquote class="" style="border-left-style: none; color: inherit; margin: inherit; padding: inherit;" type="cite"><a href="https://bookshop.org/books/quaker-quicks-that-clear-and-certain-sound-finding-solid-ground-in-perilous-times/9781789047653">https://bookshop.org/books/quaker-quicks-that-clear-and-certain-sound-finding-solid-ground-in-perilous-times/9781789047653</a><br class="" /></blockquote><br class="" /><b class="">Public Banking Has the Potential to Truly Revolutionize Our Economy</b><br class="" />An article on my experience with the public banking movement as revolutionary reform.<br class="" /><a href="https://truthout.org/articles/public-banking-has-the-potential-to-truly-revolutionize-our-economy/">https://truthout.org/articles/public-banking-has-the-potential-to-truly-revolutionize-our-economy/</a><br class="" /><br class="" /><b class="">Envision or Perish; Why we must start imagining the world we want to live in </b><br class="" />An article I co-authored with George Lakey<br class="" /><a href="https://wagingnonviolence.org/2021/02/envision-or-perish-why-we-must-start-imagining-the-world-we-want/">https://wagingnonviolence.org/2021/02/envision-or-perish-why-we-must-start-imagining-the-world-we-want/</a> <br class="" /><br class="" /><b class="">The Financial Roots of the Climate Crisis </b><br class="" />Link to a talk I gave at a church in Houston <br class="" /><a href="https://vimeo.com/showcase/7910215">https://vimeo.com/showcase/7910215</a><br class="" /><br class="" /><b class="">Money and Soul; Quaker Faith and Practice and the Economy</b><br class="" />If money troubles your soul, try this down-to-earth Quaker perspective on economies large and small. <br class="" /><blockquote class="" style="border-left-style: none; color: inherit; margin: inherit; padding: inherit;" type="cite"><a href="https://bookshop.org/books/quaker-quicks-money-and-soul-quaker-faith-and-practice-and-the-economy/9781789040890">https://bookshop.org/books/quaker-quicks-money-and-soul-quaker-faith-and-practice-and-the-economy/9781789040890</a></blockquote><div class=""><br class="" /></div><b class="">Money, Debt and Liberation</b><br class="" />A video of a talk I gave at Pendle Hill in January, 2019<br class="" /><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f7nP8eJ5vy8">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f7nP8eJ5vy8</a> <br class="" /><br class="" /><b class="">Toward a Right Relationship with Finance; Debt, Interest, Growth and Security.</b><br class="" /><blockquote class="" style="border-left-style: none; color: inherit; margin: inherit; padding: inherit;" type="cite"><a href="https://bookshop.org/books/toward-a-right-relationship-with-finance-debt-interest-growth-and-security/9789768142887">https://bookshop.org/books/toward-a-right-relationship-with-finance-debt-interest-growth-and-security/9789768142887</a><br class="" /></blockquote>A book that I co-authored on Debt, Interest, Growth and Security.<br class="" />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:<br class="" /><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>• 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;<br class="" /><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>• frames the conversation within the context of our deepest values and beliefs;<br class="" /><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>• suggests plausible and historically grounded alternatives to the current system, particularly with regard to financing retirement; and<br class="" /><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>• 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.<br class="" />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?<br class="" />To read it on line, go to <a href="http://www.quakerinstitute.org/?page_id=5">http://www.quakerinstitute.org/?page_id=5</a> and scroll down.<br class="" /><br class="" /><b class="">Muscle Building for Peace and Justice; a Non-Violent Workout Routine for the 21st Century</b>--an integration of much of my experience and thinking over the years: New link: <a href="https://www.peaceworkersus.org/docs/muscle_building_for_peace_and_justice.pdf">https://www.peaceworkersus.org/docs/muscle_building_for_peace_and_justice.pdf</a> (or just google the title)</div><div class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;"><b class=""><br class="" /></b></div><div class="" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 14px;"><b class="">Finding Steady Ground</b><br class="" />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. <br class="" /><a href="http://www.findingsteadyground.com/">www.findingsteadyground.com</a> <br class="" /><br class="" />Other resources from my friend Daniel Hunter<br class="" />Building a Movement to End the New Jim Crow; An Organizing Guide. <a href="http://www.danielhunter.org/books/building-movement-end-new-jim-crow-organizing-guide">http://www.danielhunter.org/books/building-movement-end-new-jim-crow-organizing-guide</a> <br class="" />Climate Resistance Handbook, or I was part of a climate action. Now what? <a href="https://commonslibrary.org/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/</a> <br class="" />Leading Groups On-Line. <a href="https://www.trainingforchange.org/training_tools/leading-groups-online-book/">https://www.trainingforchange.org/training_tools/leading-groups-online-book/</a> <br class="" /><br class="" /><br class="" /><b class="">More resources</b><br class="" /><br class="" />Posts on other web/blog sites:<br class="" /><br class="" />In <a href="http://www.classism.org/gifts-american-dream/">http://www.classism.org/gifts-american-dream/</a>, Pamela Haines locates her family's homey DIY celebrations on a class spectrum of different connections to upward mobility.<br class="" /><br class="" /> <a href="http://www.transitionus.org/blog/unlikely-suspects-%E2%80%93-deep-outreach-diverse-initiating-groups-%E2%80%93-pace-building-trust">http://www.transitionus.org/blog/unlikely-suspects-–-deep-outreach-diverse-initiating-groups-–-pace-building-trust</a> <br class="" /><br class="" /><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> <a href="http://www.classism.org/demolition-derby">http://www.classism.org/demolition-derby</a><br class="" /><br class="" /></div>Pamela Living in this Worldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01728149865852062590noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2804921562771003682.post-68892345815599269812022-01-21T12:06:00.002-08:002022-01-21T12:06:26.350-08:00#222 Holidays and cultural appropriation<p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">Dear all,<br /><br />I’m thinking of the model of Martin Luther King, wishing us vision and strength to continue. And I’m pleased to offer my new website, all the way below.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">That said, I have to say that this has been among the roughest months of my adult life, with a cascading series of medical issues growing from Chucks radiation and chemo treatment sending us to the ER twice and leading to a five-day hospital stay. Thank goodness we’ve not only lived to tell the tale but are back home, with Chuck steadily regaining strength.<br /><br />Two learnings/reminders stand out. One is the importance of noticing every possible bit of color and joy in days that are full of gray, and building my capacity to absorb the support and love that surrounds me. The other is about the critical difference between noting that I may not get what I want at any particular point in time and giving up on wanting altogether.<br /><br />So thanks to everyone who has been sending love our direction, and to all that is life giving, including the earth—and to our moon which will be full tonight whether we can see it or not.<br /><br />Love,<br />Pamela<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><b>Holidays and cultural appropriation</b><br /><br />The waning moon, encircled by a visible ring in the clouds, is a stunning presence in the pre-dawn of this late December day. We’ve been in the midst of a rough patch at home, and I take comfort in that steady glow.<br /><br />At this time of year, I think of the Christmas traditions from my childhood that I hold so dear: Making gifts, thinking of what we could create that would give pleasure, and all the delicious secrets we kept from one another in the process. Cutting the tree, from a row my father planted close together years ago, knowing they could be thinned for just this purpose. Stringing the lights, decorating the tree, hanging stockings, singing traditional carols around the fire on Christmas Eve. The attention we all gave to the extended gift-giving process in a large family. The sweets.<br /><br />Aside from the carols, it was not a particularly Christian holiday for us. So one could question the passion I bring to my dislike of the secular commercialized holiday that we are sold so relentlessly these days. I can’t really advocate from my own experience for centering the story of the Christ child’s birth, though that seems far more wholesome than feeding an insatiable holiday consumption machine in the attempt to prove love.<br /><br />This year, COVID and health vulnerability kept other family members away, and energy was low, so our only outward signs of Christmas were the carols we listened to and the holly, ivy, yew branches and string of lights with which I decorated our bay window.<br /><br />I’m aware that Christmas was nested in ancient sacred ritual times around darkness and light and cycles of life. We’re sensitive these days to appropriation of indigenous and Black culture, but this Christian celebration is certainly an example of cultural appropriation. And our current secular celebration is yet another layer of appropriation of that tradition.<br /><br />My family of origin appropriated a bit of this and a bit of that. In my own family, I added a home-made manger complete with rough clay figures as a counterweight to the consumerism. Later we went to the Christmas Eve carol service at the Catholic church across the street, as another way to be present to the heart of the story. But I also added the holly and the ivy, which were their pagan precursors—as are the Christmas trees of course, and the lights.<br /><br />Where do we stand on cultural appropriation here? Is Christianity enough of an advance over what came before that its shaping of earlier rituals and celebrations to fit its own story is justified? I do find something compelling in the Christian message of radical love and hope and forgiveness, but the package of institutional religion with all its complicity in systems of power and domination seems pretty problematic. From another angle, if Christianity is an advance over that which came before, is the secular consumption that is replacing it even better?<br /><br />Maybe the way forward is as simple as looking deeply for what rings true in our hearts, and for what we can claim as our own. Not something that makes us feel part of the cool group, or distances us from what we’re rebelling against, or leans on somebody else’s convenient short-cut, but our own hard-won understanding of who we are, where we come from, and what feeds our souls. If we find our way to the spirit that animated our ancient ancestors then found a place in the Christian trinity, that is not appropriation. That is coming home.<br /><br />I’m curious what kinds of mid-winter holiday traditions would grow in such soil. Our son’s mixed Christian and Jewish family tried out a Solstice celebration this year, which I think will grow roots. I’m pretty sure that mine will always have home-made gifts, simple expressions of love, greenery that comes indoors in winter, lights and that music I love so deeply. And somehow, it will have to include the moon.<br /><br /> <br /><br /> <br /><br /><b>Middle room</b><br /><br />Our middle room, long empty<br />children grown<br />sometime guest room<br />gradually filled with junk<br /><br />Cleaned out this fall<br />to meet a young friend’s need<br />then transformed into a sick room<br />trach, radiation, chemo<br />hospital bed, equipment<br />boxes of supplies.<br /><br />We find a rhythm<br />separating our nights<br />into these two rooms until<br />a trip to the hospital,<br />extended for days,<br />changes it all again.<br /><br />I pass the middle room at night<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 12pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">lonely in its silent emptiness<br />willing it to be<br />restored to life.<br /><br /> <br /><br /><br /><br /><b>Dare to imagine—a new economy is possible!<br />Healthcare Anchor Network</b><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">The Healthcare Anchor Network was conceived by the Democracy Collaborative to leverage the hiring, purchasing, and investment practices of these local "anchor institutions” to contribute to equitable, local economic impact and to build community wealth. The network now includes more than 1,000 hospitals that employ more than 2 million people, purchase over $75 billion annually, and have over $150 billion in invested assets.<br /><br />Members signing the Place-based Investment Commitment commit to redirecting a portion of their investable assets toward impact investments that are place-based and address community conditions that create racial, economic and environmental disparities. Members signing the “Impact Purchasing Commitment”—to build healthy, equitable, and climate-resilient local economies through what and how they spend their dollars—commit to increasing spending with Minority and Women Owned Business Enterprises as well as local and employee-owned, cooperatively owned and/or nonprofit-owned enterprises, by at least $1 billion collectively over five years. <br /><br /><a href="https://democracycollaborative.org/"><span style="color: blue;">https://democracycollaborative.org/</span></a><br /><a href="https://www.hcinnovationgroup.com/population-health-management/health-equity/news/21252161/healthcare-anchor-network-movement-gains-momentum"><span style="color: blue;">https://www.hcinnovationgroup.com/population-health-management/health-equity/news/21252161/healthcare-anchor-network-movement-gains-momentum</span></a><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><b>Some things that have made me hopeful recently:</b><br /><br />A massive increase in the monarch butterfly count on the west coast. <br /><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/nov/21/western-monarch-butterflies-migration-increase-california"><span style="color: blue;">https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/nov/21/western-monarch-butterflies-migration-increase-california</span></a><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 12pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">The growth of momentum in building electrification in US cities.<br /><a href="https://www.utilitydive.com/news/building-electrification-momentum-cities-decarbonization-policies-denver-ithaca/611175/"><span style="color: blue;">https://www.utilitydive.com/news/building-electrification-momentum-cities-decarbonization-policies-denver-ithaca/611175/</span></a><br /><br />Wind power becoming Spain’s leading energy source for 2021, with renewable sources already covering almost half the country’s consumption needs.<br /><a href="https://english.elpais.com/economy-and-business/2021-12-14/wind-power-becomes-spains-leading-energy-source-for-2021.html?"><span style="color: blue;">https://english.elpais.com/economy-and-business/2021-12-14/wind-power-becomes-spains-leading-energy-source-for-2021.html?</span></a><br /><br />California’s enactment of the largest mandatory residential food waste recycling program in the US.<br /><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/dec/09/california-food-waste-recycling-program-us?"><span style="color: blue;">https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/dec/09/california-food-waste-recycling-program-us?</span></a><br /><br />More than 1,500 pension funds, universities and other organizations around the world that have announced that they will divest from fossil fuel assets, doubling from five years earlier.<br /><a href="https://asia.nikkei.com/Spotlight/Environment/Climate-Change/Global-exodus-from-fossil-fuel-holdings-tops-1-500-institutions"><span style="color: blue;">https://asia.nikkei.com/Spotlight/Environment/Climate-Change/Global-exodus-from-fossil-fuel-holdings-tops-1-500-institutions</span></a><br /><br /><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><br /><b>Resources</b><br /><br /><b>Alive in this World</b><br />A book of poetry in three parts: A Home with the Trees, Commuter Encounters, and A Home with the Earth<br /><br /><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><a href="https://bookshop.org/books/alive-in-this-world/9789768273260"><span style="color: blue;">https://bookshop.org/books/alive-in-this-world/9789768273260</span></a><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><br /><b>That Clear and Certain Sound; Finding Solid Ground in Perilous Times</b><br />A book of essays from this blog.<br /><br /><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><a href="https://bookshop.org/books/quaker-quicks-that-clear-and-certain-sound-finding-solid-ground-in-perilous-times/9781789047653"><span style="color: blue;">https://bookshop.org/books/quaker-quicks-that-clear-and-certain-sound-finding-solid-ground-in-perilous-times/9781789047653</span></a><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><br />Public Banking Has the Potential to Truly Revolutionize Our Economy<br />An article on my experience with the public banking movement as revolutionary reform.<br /><a href="https://truthout.org/articles/public-banking-has-the-potential-to-truly-revolutionize-our-economy/"><span style="color: blue;">https://truthout.org/articles/public-banking-has-the-potential-to-truly-revolutionize-our-economy/</span></a><br /><br />Envision or Perish; Why we must start imagining the world we want to live in <br />An article I co-authored with George Lakey<br /><a href="https://wagingnonviolence.org/2021/02/envision-or-perish-why-we-must-start-imagining-the-world-we-want/"><span style="color: blue;">https://wagingnonviolence.org/2021/02/envision-or-perish-why-we-must-start-imagining-the-world-we-want/</span></a> <br /><br />The Financial Roots of the Climate Crisis <br />Link to a talk I gave at a church in Houston <br /><a href="https://vimeo.com/showcase/7910215"><span style="color: blue;">https://vimeo.com/showcase/7910215</span></a><br /><br /><b>Money and Soul; Quaker Faith and Practice and the Economy</b><br />If money troubles your soul, try this down-to-earth Quaker perspective on economies large and small. <br /><br /><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><a href="https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/quaker-quicks-money-and-soul-pamela-haines/1129872483?ean=9781789040890"><span style="color: blue;">https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/quaker-quicks-money-and-soul-pamela-haines/1129872483?ean=9781789040890</span></a><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><br />Money, Debt and Liberation<br />A video of a talk I gave at Pendle Hill in January, 2019<br /><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f7nP8eJ5vy8"><span style="color: blue;">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f7nP8eJ5vy8</span></a> <br /><b><br />Toward a Right Relationship with Finance; Debt, Interest, Growth and Security.</b><br /><br /><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><a href="https://bookshop.org/books/toward-a-right-relationship-with-finance-debt-interest-growth-and-security/9789768142887"><span style="color: blue;">https://bookshop.org/books/toward-a-right-relationship-with-finance-debt-interest-growth-and-security/9789768142887</span></a><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">A book that I co-authored on Debt, Interest, Growth and Security.<br />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:<br /> • 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;<br /> • frames the conversation within the context of our deepest values and beliefs;<br /> • suggests plausible and historically grounded alternatives to the current system, particularly with regard to financing retirement; and<br /> • 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.<br />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?<br />To read it on line, go to <a href="http://www.quakerinstitute.org/?page_id=5"><span style="color: blue;">http://www.quakerinstitute.org/?page_id=5</span></a> and scroll down.<br /><br /><br /><b>Finding Steady Ground</b><br />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. <br /><a href="http://www.findingsteadyground.com/"><span style="color: blue;">www.findingsteadyground.com</span></a> <br /><br /><b>Other resources from my friend Daniel Hunter</b><br />Building a Movement to End the New Jim Crow; An Organizing Guide. <a href="http://www.danielhunter.org/books/building-movement-end-new-jim-crow-organizing-guide"><span style="color: blue;">http://www.danielhunter.org/books/building-movement-end-new-jim-crow-organizing-guide</span></a> <br />Climate Resistance Handbook, or I was part of a climate action. Now what? <a href="https://commonslibrary.org/climate-resistance-handbook-or-i-was-part-of-a-climate-action-now-what/"><span style="color: blue;">https://commonslibrary.org/climate-resistance-handbook-or-i-was-part-of-a-climate-action-now-what/</span></a> <br />Leading Groups On-Line. <a href="https://www.trainingforchange.org/training_tools/leading-groups-online-book/"><span style="color: blue;">https://www.trainingforchange.org/training_tools/leading-groups-online-book/</span></a> <br /><br /><br /><b>More resources</b><br /><br />Posts on other web/blog sites:<br /><br />In <a href="http://www.classism.org/gifts-american-dream/"><span style="color: blue;">http://www.classism.org/gifts-american-dream/</span></a>, Pamela Haines locates her family's homey DIY celebrations on a class spectrum of different connections to upward mobility.<br /><br /> <a href="http://www.transitionus.org/blog/unlikely-suspects-%E2%80%93-deep-outreach-diverse-initiating-groups-%E2%80%93-pace-building-trust"><span style="color: blue;">http://www.transitionus.org/blog/unlikely-suspects-–-deep-outreach-diverse-initiating-groups-–-pace-building-trust</span></a> <br /><br /> <a href="http://www.classism.org/demolition-derby"><span style="color: blue;">http://www.classism.org/demolition-derby</span></a><br /><br /><o:p></o:p></span></p><p><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">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: </span><a href="https://www.peaceworkersus.org/docs/muscle_building_for_peace_and_justice.pdf" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="color: blue;">https://www.peaceworkersus.org/docs/muscle_building_for_peace_and_justice.pdf</span></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"> (or just google the title)</span> </p>Pamela Living in this Worldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01728149865852062590noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2804921562771003682.post-85350651021961323032021-12-22T10:40:00.005-08:002022-01-11T09:25:38.843-08:00#221 Our story<p> <span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px;">Dear all,</span></p><br class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><span class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px;">Chuck and I are finding our way as we finish the second week of chemo and radiation—doing well and very thankful for the circle of love and care that surrounds us. It's a blessing to still have space for other parts of my life—a rich and heartwarming Thanksgiving with my siblings, being part of a City Council hearing where public banking legislation was voted out of committee with unanimous backing (!), hauling leaves to mulch the big front flower bed at the community garden, making gifts with grandchildren—all the while soaking up the goodness of relationships.</span><br class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><br class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><span class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px;">I’m not sure that my reflection below is done, but I think I’ll share it in this form rather than wait for perfection. And I look forward to taking in the moon, which I know is shining and full even though it’s currently covered by clouds.</span><br class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><br class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><span class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px;">Love,</span><br class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><span class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px;">Pamela</span><br class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><br class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><br class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><br class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><span class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: medium;"><b class="">Our story</b></span><br class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><br class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><span class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px;">At a training on race and equity at work, a lovely and thoughtful woman walked us through our country’s history of imperialism, colonialism and racism and the devastating impact that origin story continues to have on our lives today. In one small group we were invited to consider our responses to that history and reflect on what our country’s story is in the present. She closed with a provocative question. Can we recover from that damage? If so, how? If not, why not?</span><br class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><br class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><span class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px;">I’ve been pondering her questions. What is our story today? Of course we know the founding narrative, taught to schoolchildren generation after generation down through the years. We are the birthplace of freedom. We are a land of sturdy colonists, intrepid pioneers, fierce defenders of liberty—a melting pot that offers opportunity for all. A strong, coherent and compelling story, it has been a durable source of pride for many of us.</span><br class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><br class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><span class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px;">Yet here we are in the present, increasingly unable to ignore the unstable foundations on which it was built, or all of its structural weaknesses. Some of us are ready to just throw the whole thing out in horror and disgust. How can a story that was built on the wholesale dehumanization of black and indigenous people have a place in any mind or heart with a scrap of moral fiber? Others are clinging to this origin story fiercely, holding out for the ideals, willing it to be true ever more desperately as the weaknesses are exposed, shoring it up with intense loyalty and anger at those who would do the exposing.</span><br class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><br class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><span class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px;">Our conflict over this story is driving us apart. Those who have grown rich off the American Dream and want to hang onto its benefits, along with others who identify with those sturdy (mostly white male) settlers and still have some hope of benefiting, tend to inhabit one side. Those who never felt included in this dream or were explicitly excluded from it, along with others with the space or inclination to question or a desire to stand in solidarity with the oppressed, inhabit the other. If we would tell a new story going forward, what would it be?</span><br class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><br class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><span class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px;">My mind goes to our own family stories—many of which diverged significantly from our lived reality. My parents were from white first-generation college-educated families who had been in this country for a long time. Their story was of hardworking and upstanding citizens, with values better than most, raising a good and happy family. There is much about this story that is true. My parents certainly believed deeply in those ideals. They worked hard. They loved us. And yet all was not well. Unspoken conflicts simmered. Issues of domination played out, and we breathed in the oppressive messages that were in the air. Their judgment of others was harsh, and their need for us to be happy was a burden to carry. I wonder if any of us escaped that misalignment between story and lived reality.</span><br class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><br class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><span class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px;">What do we do with our broken family stories—and our broken families? We dare to face what really happened, even if it means digging through layers and years of denial. We work to heal what can be healed, and make right what can be made right. We love, staying connected to, or working to retrieve, that which is solid and good. We grieve that which is lost. And we reach to understand and forgive those whose struggles amidst scarcity and misinformation caused harm.</span><br class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><br class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><span class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px;">Could this be a model for a new story for our country? Flawed and misinformed people doing damaging things that left lasting scars, even as they held to big ideals and love as deeply as they were able? We can’t call people from the past to account for the things they did. We can be clear about what was wrong and put our feet on a different path, even as we strive for some kind of understanding of the context in which they did those things. Perhaps our country’s story going forward is that of a people with a fractured and blood-stained past, with ideals not yet fully realized but still worth striving for, trying to find our way together toward repair, healing, and ever greater integrity.</span><br class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><br class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><br class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><br class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><br class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><br class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><span class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: medium;"><b class="">At ease</b></span><br class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><br class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><span class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px;">The chrysanthemums you buy in pots</span><br class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><span class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px;">call out their magnificence—</span><br class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><span class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px;">great masses of bold color</span><br class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><span class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px;">each stem and flower trained</span><br class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><span class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px;">to play its role in that one glorious whole.</span><br class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><span class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px;">They stand at attention, in formation,</span><br class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><span class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px;">aim to please—until they dry up and are done.</span><br class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><br class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><span class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px;">The mums in our front garden</span><br class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><span class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px;">bloom luxuriantly year after year.</span><br class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><span class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px;">They claim the space that other flowers,</span><br class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><span class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px;">less hardy, have abandoned to the cold.</span><br class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><span class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px;">At ease, they spread and stretch</span><br class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><span class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px;">in softer loveliness, relaxed, at home</span><br class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><span class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px;">inviting all the neighbors in.</span><br class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><br class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><br class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><span class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px;"> </span><br class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><br class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><span class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px;"> </span><br class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><span class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: medium;"><b class="">Dare to imagine: A new economy is possible!</b></span><br class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><span class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16px;"><b class="">Buy Nothing</b></span><br class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><br class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><span class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px;">The Buy Nothing Project is a social movement that has over 6,500 groups worldwide. It's a network of hyper-local gift economies where neighbors can come together and share pretty much everything with each other, from a cup of sugar to corner sofas, without exchanging money. Founded in 2013 by two friends in Bainbridge Island, Washington, current numbers indicate 4.25 million participants in 44 countries. The purpose of the group is to be able to give and receive things for free among neighbors ("Give Where You Live” is the founding principle). It helps not only with decluttering and finding things you need, but also with recycling and community building.</span><br class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><span class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px;"><a class="" href="https://www.today.com/tmrw/how-buy-nothing-project-taught-me-rethink-how-i-shop-t228063">https://www.today.com/tmrw/how-buy-nothing-project-taught-me-rethink-how-i-shop-t228063</a></span><br class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><br class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><br class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><br class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><br class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><br class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><div class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><span class="" style="font-size: medium;"><b class="">Some things that have made me hopeful recently:</b></span></div><div class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;"><br class="" /></span></div><div class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;">Indian farmers, who have scored a big win after a year-long strike, forcing the prime minister to roll back laws that threatened to corporatize agriculture and threaten the food security of more than 800 million people.<br class="" /><a class="" href="https://inequality.org/research/indian-farmers-victory/?">https://inequality.org/research/indian-farmers-victory/?</a><br class="" /><br class="" />A young man from Sierra Leone who has developed a simple technology to create electricity from the impact of pedestrians’ feet and cars on local roads.<br class="" /><a href="https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20210713-how-pedestrians-are-lighting-homes-in-sierra-leone">https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20210713-how-pedestrians-are-lighting-homes-in-sierra-leone</a><br class="" /><br class="" />A landmark decision from Ecuador’s high court that affirms constitutional protections for the rights of nature.<br class="" /><a href="https://insideclimatenews.org/news/03122021/ecuador-rights-of-nature/?">https://insideclimatenews.org/news/03122021/ecuador-rights-of-nature/?</a><br class="" /><br class="" />How growing crops under solar panels proves to be advantageous for both harvests and energy production.<br class="" /><a href="https://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/agrivoltaics-of-solar-power-and-farming-are-a-big-success-on-this-boulder-farm/?">https://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/agrivoltaics-of-solar-power-and-farming-are-a-big-success-on-this-boulder-farm/?</a> </span><br class="" /><br class="" /><div class=""><br class="" /></div><div class=""><div class=""><div class=""> <br class="" /><br class="" /><div class=""><br class="webkit-block-placeholder" /></div><div class=""><div class=""><span class="" style="font-size: medium;"><span class=""><b class="">Resources</b></span></span><br class="" /><br class="" /></div><div class=""><div class=""><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;"><b class="">Alive in this World</b></span><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;">A book of poetry in three parts: A Home with the Trees, Commuter Encounters, and A Home with the Earth</span><br class="" /><blockquote class="" style="border-left-style: none; color: inherit; margin: inherit; padding: inherit;" type="cite"><div class="original-url"><a class="" href="https://bookshop.org/books/alive-in-this-world/9789768273260">https://bookshop.org/books/alive-in-this-world/9789768273260</a></div></blockquote><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;"><b class="">That Clear and Certain Sound; Finding Solid Ground in Perilous Times</b></span></div><div class=""><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;">A book of essays from this blog.</span></div><div class=""><blockquote class="" style="border-left-style: none; color: inherit; margin: inherit; padding: inherit;" type="cite"><div class=""><div class="original-url"><a class="" href="https://bookshop.org/books/quaker-quicks-that-clear-and-certain-sound-finding-solid-ground-in-perilous-times/9781789047653">https://bookshop.org/books/quaker-quicks-that-clear-and-certain-sound-finding-solid-ground-in-perilous-times/9781789047653</a></div></div></blockquote><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;"><b class=""><br class="" /></b></span><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;"><div class="" style="font-weight: bold;">Public Banking Has the Potential to Truly Revolutionize Our Economy</div><div class="">An article on my experience with the public banking movement as revolutionary reform.</div><div class="" style="font-weight: bold;"><b class=""><a class="" href="https://truthout.org/articles/public-banking-has-the-potential-to-truly-revolutionize-our-economy/" style="font-family: arial; font-weight: normal;">https://truthout.org/articles/public-banking-has-the-potential-to-truly-revolutionize-our-economy/</a></b></div><div class="" style="font-weight: bold;"><br class="" /></div></span></div></div><div class=""><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;"><b class="">Envision or Perish; Why we must start imagining the world we want to live in </b></span><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;">An article I co-authored with George Lakey</span><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;"><a class="" href="https://wagingnonviolence.org/2021/02/envision-or-perish-why-we-must-start-imagining-the-world-we-want/">https://wagingnonviolence.org/2021/02/envision-or-perish-why-we-must-start-imagining-the-world-we-want/</a> </span><br class="" /><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;"><b class=""><div class="" style="font-size: 12px; font-weight: normal;"><div class=""><b class="" style="font-size: 14px;">The Financial Roots of the Climate Crisis </b></div></div><div class="" style="font-size: 12px; font-weight: normal;"><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;">Link to a talk I gave at a church in Houston </span><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;"><a class="" href="https://vimeo.com/showcase/7910215">https://vimeo.com/showcase/7910215</a></span></div></b></span></div><div class=""><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;"><b class=""><br class="" /></b></span></div><div class=""><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;"><b class="">Money and Soul; Quaker Faith and Practice and the Economy</b></span></div><div class=""><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;">If money troubles your soul, try this down-to-earth Quaker perspective on economies large and small. </span><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;"><b class=""><br class="" /></b></span><blockquote class="" style="border-left-style: none; color: inherit; margin: inherit; padding: inherit;" type="cite"><a class="" href="https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/quaker-quicks-money-and-soul-pamela-haines/1129872483?ean=9781789040890">https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/quaker-quicks-money-and-soul-pamela-haines/1129872483?ean=9781789040890</a></blockquote><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;"><b class="">Money, Debt and Liberation</b></span><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;">A video of a talk I gave at Pendle Hill in January, 2019</span><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;"><a class="" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f7nP8eJ5vy8">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f7nP8eJ5vy8</a> </span><br class="" /><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;"><b class="">Toward a Right Relationship with Finance; </b></span><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;"><b class="">Debt, Interest, Growth and Security.</b></span><br class="" /><blockquote class="" style="border-left-style: none; color: inherit; margin: inherit; padding: inherit;" type="cite"><div class="original-url"><a class="" href="https://bookshop.org/books/toward-a-right-relationship-with-finance-debt-interest-growth-and-security/9789768142887">https://bookshop.org/books/toward-a-right-relationship-with-finance-debt-interest-growth-and-security/9789768142887</a></div></blockquote><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;">A book that I co-authored on Debt, Interest, Growth and Security.</span><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;">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:</span><br class="" /><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="font-size: 14px; white-space: pre;"> </span><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;">• 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;</span><br class="" /><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="font-size: 14px; white-space: pre;"> </span><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;">• frames the conversation within the context of our deepest values and beliefs;</span><br class="" /><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="font-size: 14px; white-space: pre;"> </span><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;">• suggests plausible and historically grounded alternatives to the current system, particularly with regard to financing retirement; and</span><br class="" /><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="font-size: 14px; white-space: pre;"> </span><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;">• 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.</span><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;">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?</span><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;">To read it on line, go to <a class="" href="http://www.quakerinstitute.org/?page_id=5">http://www.quakerinstitute.org/?page_id=5</a> and scroll down.</span><br class="" /><br class="" /><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;"><b class="">Finding Steady Ground</b></span><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;">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. </span><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;"><a class="" href="http://www.findingsteadyground.com/">www.findingsteadyground.com</a> </span><br class="" /><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;">Other resources from my friend Daniel Hunter</span><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;">Building a Movement to End the New Jim Crow; An Organizing Guide. <a class="" href="http://www.danielhunter.org/books/building-movement-end-new-jim-crow-">http://www.danielhunter.org/books/building-movement-end-new-jim-crow-</a>organizing-guide </span><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;">Climate Resistance Handbook, or I was part of a climate action. Now what? <a class="" href="https://commonslibrary.org/climate-resistance-handbook-or-i-was-part-of-a-">https://commonslibrary.org/climate-resistance-handbook-or-i-was-part-of-a-</a>climate-action-now-what/ </span><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;">Leading Groups On-Line. <a class="" href="https://www.trainingforchange.org/training_tools/leading-groups-online-book/">https://www.trainingforchange.org/training_tools/leading-groups-online-book/</a> </span><br class="" /><br class="" /><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;"><b class="">More resources</b></span><br class="" /><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;">Posts on other web/blog sites:</span><br class="" /><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;">In <a class="" href="http://www.classism.org/gifts-american-dream/">http://www.classism.org/gifts-american-dream/</a>, Pamela Haines locates her family's homey DIY celebrations on a class spectrum of different connections to upward mobility.</span><br class="" /><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;"> <a class="" href="http://www.transitionus.org/blog/unlikely-suspects-%E2%80%93-deep-outreach-diverse-initiating-groups-%E2%80%93-pace-building-trust">http://www.transitionus.org/blog/unlikely-suspects-–-deep-outreach-diverse-initiating-groups-–-pace-building-trust</a> </span><br class="" /><br class="" /><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="font-size: 14px; white-space: pre;"> </span><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;"> <a class="" href="http://www.classism.org/demolition-derby">http://www.classism.org/demolition-derby</a></span><br class="" /><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;">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: <a class="" href="https://www.peaceworkersus.org/docs/muscle_building_for_peace_and_justice.pdf">https://www.peaceworkersus.org/docs/muscle_building_for_peace_and_justice.pdf</a> (or just google the title)</span><br class="" /><br class="" /></div></div></div></div></div></div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline" />Pamela Living in this Worldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01728149865852062590noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2804921562771003682.post-26200141188603172021-11-20T14:25:00.003-08:002022-01-11T09:27:07.819-08:00#220 Efficiency<p> <span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px;">Dear all,</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><span style="font-size: 14px;">Well, a lot has been going on in our house since my last post. Chuck got diagnosed with a cancerous tongue/throat tumor, so we’ve been thrust headlong into a big and intense health journey. Fortunately, it’s a type that’s very responsive to treatment, and the supportive communities around us are both wide and deep.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><span style="font-size: 14px;">At the same time, I get to announce two writing milestones. My book of reflections, <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Quaker-Quicks-Certain-Finding-Perilous/dp/178904765X?fbclid=IwAR3A64qciPKOoveLvQbuYvi8m_XIRagtQO92xdHPAYCEkiL3_MPBJC5J4ZU">That Clear and Certain Sound; Finding Solid Ground in Perilous Times</a>, is now available for purchase, and I’ve learned that there’s a <a href="https://bookshop.org/">non-Amazon small business option</a>. I hope you keep it—and my <a href="https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/alive-in-this-world-pamela-haines/1139506943">poetry book</a>—in mind during this season of giving. And just yesterday I learned that an article I wrote on public banking for Waging Nonviolence got picked up not only by TruthOut, but by <a href="https://www.yesmagazine.org/economy/2021/11/18/public-banking-revolutionized-economy">YES Magazine</a>. I’m very pleased!<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><span style="font-size: 14px;">Then there is the full moon, and harvesting my sweet potato crop with our local grandchildren, and being part of the 50th reunion of the founding of the social change community we came of age in. In the midst of everything, it’s not hard to count my blessings.</span><span style="font-size: 9pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><span style="font-size: 14px;">Love,</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><span style="font-size: 14px;">Pamela</span></p><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><span class="" style="font-size: medium;"><b class="">Efficiency</b></span><br class="" /><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;">As I harvest my little crop of black-eyed peas in the community garden—inefficiently, I’m sure—I think also of the time I recently spent weeding an invasive and persistent weed out of a tiny section of the big flower bed in front. Considering all the other projects that should perhaps have a stronger claim to my attention, I can’t help but wonder about the choices we make about our time.</span><br class="" /><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;">I was raised on the value of efficiency—doing things with the least possible steps, time, or money: don’t expend any extra when there is an alternative. I’ve lived my life by this rule, cleaning without wasted motion, choosing the shortest route for travel, always on the lookout at a meeting for how we can wrap up a conversation and move on.</span><br class="" /><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;">It’s good to have the ability to do these things, but as a rule of life, I’m discovering that it has its flaws. Limiting the number of times I go up and down the steps as I clean also limits my exercise. Always taking the shortest route cuts out unexpected beauty and adventure. Keeping the group moving along means lost opportunities to stop and really hear everyone, or share the informal stories that will bind us together and make everything go better.</span><br class="" /><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;">On a larger scale, the problems with efficiency are just compounded. With cost-cutting division of labor come mind-numbing assembly jobs. With the standardization of products and “economies” of scale, delightful local quirks are squeezed out by behemoth monocultures. A focus on efficiency seems to favor pyramids, with money and power rising from the wide bottom to the tiny top.</span><br class="" /><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;">The costs and distortions are great. If I am in a position to organize others around a goal of my own choosing, yet have never fully considered what constitutes a meaningful life, how can I design a life-supporting system? If I have not invested time, energy and love in the caring economy—cooking, cleaning, tending to children and the elderly—how will that work be valued in the places where I wield power?</span><br class="" /><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;">I can see the lures of being too important for the little things. Looking back to earlier periods of my life I realize that, as I’ve increasingly discovered my ability to have a wider influence, I’ve spent less time on cleaning and repair and general attention to the calls of my immediate environment. Why prioritize such “low-level” work when I could spend the time writing a piece that might impact the lives of others?</span><br class="" /><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;">While I could argue that I’m using my skills and talents for the common good, if I’m too busy to tend to the needs right around me, there’s a way that I’m fundamentally off-balance—and contributing to imbalance in society at large. And, ultimately, if my skill with words leads me to spend all my time writing, when do I live the life that gives me something to say?</span><br class="" /><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;">Efficiency—at its heart a way of maximizing return on investment—may have its place, and may be useful in organizing us around small tasks and windows of time, but it simply lacks the breadth or depth to help with the big questions. There’s just too much we don’t know, too much that gets left out of the picture—and I can see no way to be efficient about caring.</span><br class="" /><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;">Reflecting on all of this, I’m inclined to defend my very inefficient black-eyed pea harvest, welcome extra trips up and down the stairs, enjoy the scenic route, and clean with greater appreciation. Perhaps I can organize myself around a simple intention to show up to the world as fully as I know how. Realizing that what this looks like will shift as I find ways to show up ever more fully, I can keep in mind that my significance may have less to do with measurable returns and more with my capacity to do small things with great love.</span><br class="" /><br class="" /><br class="" /><br class="" /><br class="" /><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: medium;"><b class="">Moon behind clouds</b></span><br class="" /><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;">Stepping outside to morning clouds</span><div class=""><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;">I wonder if I’ll glimpse the moon.</span><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;">Looking up to where I saw her yesterday</span><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;">I follow the arc of that day’s journey in my mind,</span><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;">pick a spot where she might be.</span><br class="" /><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;">I see a rounded light spot in the shifting clouds.</span><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;">I hold my gaze and wait, entranced.</span><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;">Could this be my moon? I think it could.</span><br class="" /><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;">Seen or unseen of course she’s there</span><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;">radiant, whole in the heavens above</span><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;">and will be there far on beyond my time—</span><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;">and yet it’s good to lift my eyes and look</span><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;">in love and hope.</span><br class="" /><br class="" /><br class="" /><br class="" /><br class="" /><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: medium;"><b class="">Dare to imagine: A new economy is possible!</b></span></div><div class=""><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;"><b class="">Worker-owned cooperatives creating their own funding networks</b><br class="" /><br class="" />Seed Commons is a national network of locally-rooted, non-extractive loan funds that brings the power of big finance under community control. Because of their unorthodox ownership structures, cooperatively owned businesses don’t fit neatly into most lenders’ boxes. So one group decided to build their own source of funding. Founded by a coop that was struggling to find financing, Seed Commons has grown to bring together worker co-op incubators and loan funds in cities across the country. Loans of as little as $15,000 or $20,000 can be transformational in getting a new co-op up and running; they have now made loans as large as $1 million. Seed Commons can also offer technical advice and training, and access to networks of resources, that are critical to the health of the co-op sector. Seed Commons has now invested over $15 million in a national network of worker-owned co-ops that are building their own non-extractive funding streams.<br class="" /><a class="" href="https://www.yesmagazine.org/economy/2021/02/12/worker-owned-cooperatives-investment-network?">https://www.yesmagazine.org/economy/2021/02/12/worker-owned-cooperatives-investment-network?</a><br class="" /> </span></div><div class=""><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;"><br class="" /></span></div><div class=""><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;"><br class="" /></span></div><div class=""><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;"><br class="" /></span></div><div class=""><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: medium;"><b class="">Some things that have made me hopeful recently: </b></span><br class="" /><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;">NYC taxi drivers who organized to take on predatory lenders and won, paving the way for future debt relief.</span><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;"><a class="" href="https://inequality.org/great-divide/nyc-taxi-drivers-hunger-strike/?">https://inequality.org/great-divide/nyc-taxi-drivers-hunger-strike/?</a></span><br class="" /><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;">New banking services that are offered by post offices, testing the possibility of a wider system that could benefit the unbanked.</span><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;"><a class="" href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/return-postal-banking-postal-service-tests-new-financial-services-rcna2502?">https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/return-postal-banking-postal-service-tests-new-financial-services-rcna2502?</a></span><br class="" /><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;">Uruguay’s journey from dependence on fossil fuel imports to becoming a renewable energy pioneer, with nearly 100% of its power now coming from renewable sources.</span><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;"><a class="" href="https://www.dw.com/en/uruguay-leads-green-energy-charge-in-latin-america/a-59492982">https://www.dw.com/en/uruguay-leads-green-energy-charge-in-latin-america/a-59492982</a></span><br class="" /><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;">The move by the Biden administration moving to bar federal oil and gas leasing around the Chaco Culture National Historical Park, siding with tribal heritage against economic interests.</span><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;"><a class="" href="https://www.santafenewmexican.com/content/tncms/live/">https://www.santafenewmexican.com/content/tncms/live/</a></span><br class="" /><br class="" /> <br class="" /> <br class="" /><br class="" /><div class=""><br class="webkit-block-placeholder" /></div><div class=""><div class=""><span class="" style="font-size: medium;"><span class=""><b class="">Resources</b></span></span><br class="" /><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;"><b class="">Alive in this World</b></span><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;">A book of poetry in three parts: A Home with the Trees, Commuter Encounters, and A Home with the Earth</span><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;"><a class="" href="https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/alive-in-this-world-pamela-haines/1139506943">https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/alive-in-this-world-pamela-haines/1139506943</a>.</span><br class="" /><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;"><b class="">That Clear and Certain Sound; Finding Solid Ground in Perilous Times</b></span></div><div class=""><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;">A book of essays, many from this blog, available for pre-order till late November</span><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;"><a class="" href="https://www.johnhuntpublishing.com/christian-alternative-books/our-books/quaker-quicks-that-clear-certain-sound">https://www.johnhuntpublishing.com/christian-alternative-books/our-books/quaker-quicks-that-clear-certain-sound</a>.</span><br class="" /><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;"><b class="">The Financial Roots of the Climate Crisis </b></span><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;">Link to a talk I gave at a church in Houston </span><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;"><a class="" href="https://vimeo.com/showcase/7910215">https://vimeo.com/showcase/7910215</a></span><br class="" /><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;"><b class="">Envision or Perish; Why we must start imagining the world we want to live in </b></span><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;">An article I co-authored with George Lakey</span><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;"><a class="" href="https://wagingnonviolence.org/2021/02/envision-or-perish-why-we-must-start-imagining-the-world-we-want/">https://wagingnonviolence.org/2021/02/envision-or-perish-why-we-must-start-imagining-the-world-we-want/</a> </span><br class="" /><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;"><b class="">Money and Soul</b></span><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;">My newish book (based on a pamphlet of the same name) available via QuakerBooks or other on-line distributors.</span><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;">("If money troubles your soul, try this down-to-earth Quaker perspective on economies large and small.") </span><br class="" /><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;"><b class="">Money, Debt and Liberation</b></span><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;">A video of a talk I gave at Pendle Hill in January, 2019</span><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;"><a class="" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f7nP8eJ5vy8">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f7nP8eJ5vy8</a> </span><br class="" /><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;"><b class="">Toward a Right Relationship with Finance </b></span><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;"> </span><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;">A book that I co-authored on Debt, Interest, Growth and Security.</span><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;">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:</span><br class="" /><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="font-size: 14px; white-space: pre;"> </span><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;">• 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;</span><br class="" /><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="font-size: 14px; white-space: pre;"> </span><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;">• frames the conversation within the context of our deepest values and beliefs;</span><br class="" /><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="font-size: 14px; white-space: pre;"> </span><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;">• suggests plausible and historically grounded alternatives to the current system, particularly with regard to financing retirement; and</span><br class="" /><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="font-size: 14px; white-space: pre;"> </span><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;">• 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.</span><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;">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?</span><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;">To order the book, or read it on line, go to <a class="" href="http://www.quakerinstitute.org/?page_id=5">http://www.quakerinstitute.org/?page_id=5</a> and scroll down.</span><br class="" /><br class="" /><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;"><b class="">Finding Steady Ground</b></span><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;">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. </span><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;"><a class="" href="http://www.findingsteadyground.com/">www.findingsteadyground.com</a> </span><br class="" /><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;">Other resources from my friend Daniel Hunter</span><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;">Building a Movement to End the New Jim Crow; An Organizing Guide. <a class="" href="http://www.danielhunter.org/books/building-movement-end-new-jim-crow-">http://www.danielhunter.org/books/building-movement-end-new-jim-crow-</a>organizing-guide </span><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;">Climate Resistance Handbook, or I was part of a climate action. Now what? <a class="" href="https://commonslibrary.org/climate-resistance-handbook-or-i-was-part-of-a-">https://commonslibrary.org/climate-resistance-handbook-or-i-was-part-of-a-</a>climate-action-now-what/ </span><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;">Leading Groups On-Line. <a class="" href="https://www.trainingforchange.org/training_tools/leading-groups-online-book/">https://www.trainingforchange.org/training_tools/leading-groups-online-book/</a> </span><br class="" /><br class="" /><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;"><b class="">More resources</b></span><br class="" /><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;">Posts on other web/blog sites:</span><br class="" /><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;">In <a class="" href="http://www.classism.org/gifts-american-dream/">http://www.classism.org/gifts-american-dream/</a>, Pamela Haines locates her family's homey DIY celebrations on a class spectrum of different connections to upward mobility.</span><br class="" /><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;"> <a class="" href="http://www.transitionus.org/blog/unlikely-suspects-%E2%80%93-deep-outreach-diverse-initiating-groups-%E2%80%93-pace-building-trust">http://www.transitionus.org/blog/unlikely-suspects-–-deep-outreach-diverse-initiating-groups-–-pace-building-trust</a> </span><br class="" /><br class="" /><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="font-size: 14px; white-space: pre;"> </span><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;"> <a class="" href="http://www.classism.org/demolition-derby">http://www.classism.org/demolition-derby</a></span><br class="" /><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;">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: <a class="" href="https://www.peaceworkersus.org/docs/muscle_building_for_peace_and_justice.pdf">https://www.peaceworkersus.org/docs/muscle_building_for_peace_and_justice.pdf</a> (or just google the title)</span><br class="" /><br class="" /></div></div></div></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><br /></div><div id="AppleMailSignature" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><br class="Apple-interchange-newline" /></div>Pamela Living in this Worldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01728149865852062590noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2804921562771003682.post-63731531723244993722021-10-21T05:26:00.003-07:002022-01-11T09:28:13.035-08:00#219 Fragility and healing<p> <span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px;">Dear all,</span></p><div class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><div class=""><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;">The seasons are finally changing, and the different parts of my life—so many parts!—seem to be fitting into a workable and satisfying whole.</span></div><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;">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.</span></p><div class=""><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;">I’ve had a precious opportunity this past month to spend several days at the shore with family, immersing myself in a wonderful ecosystem that is full of new delights and mysteries. And the moon is full.</span></div><div class=""><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;"><br class="" /></span></div><div class=""><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;">Love,</span></div><div class=""><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;">Pamela</span></div><div class=""><br class="" /></div><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="" style="font-size: medium;"><span class=""><b class=""><br class="" /></b></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="" style="font-size: medium;"><span class=""><b class=""><br class="" /></b></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="" style="font-size: medium;"><span class=""><b class="">Fragility and healing</b></span></span><o:p class=""></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;">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.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;"><o:p class=""></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;">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?</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;"><o:p class=""></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;">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?</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;"><o:p class=""></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;">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.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;"><o:p class=""></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;">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.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;"><o:p class=""></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;">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.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;"><o:p class=""></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;">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.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;"><o:p class=""></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;">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.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;"><o:p class=""></o:p></span></p></div><div class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;"><br class="" /></span></div><div class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;"><br class="" /></span></div><div class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;"><br class="" /></span></div><div class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;"><br class="" /></span></div><span class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: medium;"><span class=""><b class="">Portal</b></span></span><br class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><br class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><span class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px;">Sun after rain, the puddles</span><br class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><span class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px;">on this wooded trail are irresistible.</span><br class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><span class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px;">Jump in, jump over, wade through</span><br class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><span class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px;">test the depth of the biggest ones.</span><br class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><br class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><span class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px;">The six year old is captivated—</span><br class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><span class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px;">jumps and splashes, but sees more.</span><br class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><span class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px;">Look, he says, and points to a reflection:</span><br class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><span class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px;">It’s a portal to the sky.</span><br class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><br class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><div class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;"><br class="" /></span></div><div class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;"><br class="" /></span></div><div class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;"><br class="" /></span></div><div class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;"><br class="" /></span></div><div class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><span class="" style="font-size: medium;"><span class=""><b class="">Dare to Imagine: A New Economy is Possible!</b></span></span><br class="" /><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;"><b class="">Just Banking</b></span></div><div class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;"><b class=""><br class="" /></b>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.”</span><br class="" /><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;">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.</span><br class="" /><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;"><a class="" href="https://www.ethicalconsumer.org/company-profile/triodos-bank-nv">https://www.ethicalconsumer.org/company-profile/triodos-bank-nv</a></span><br class="" /><br class="" /><br class="" /><br class="" /><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: medium;"><span class=""><b class="">Some things that have made me hopeful recently:</b></span></span><br class="" /><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;">All the environmental rights struggles—and successes—across the country that are documented in The World We Need.</span><br class="" /><blockquote class="" style="border-left-style: none; color: inherit; margin: inherit; padding: inherit;" type="cite"><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;"><a class="" href="https://thenewpress.com/books/world-we-need">https://thenewpress.com/books/world-we-need</a><br class="" /></span></blockquote><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;"><br class="" /></span><blockquote class="" style="border-left-style: none; margin: inherit; padding: inherit;" type="cite"><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;">How the mineral rich Indian state of Chhattisgarh is moving away from mining, and giving fair prices for forest produce and creating more jobs.<br class="" /></span></blockquote><blockquote class="" style="border-left-style: none; color: inherit; margin: inherit; padding: inherit;" type="cite"><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;"><a class="" href="https://www.goodgoodgood.co/articles/indian-mining-state-shifting-from-coal-to-forest-fruits-and-flowers?">https://www.goodgoodgood.co/articles/indian-mining-state-shifting-from-coal-to-forest-fruits-and-flowers?</a><br class="" /></span></blockquote><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;"><br class="" />During the pandemic and recession, farmers are realizing they have more in common with immigrant meatpackers than agribusiness CEOs.<br class="" /><a class="" href="https://otherwords.org/farmers-and-meatpackers-are-teaming-up-for-pandemic-safety/">https://otherwords.org/farmers-and-meatpackers-are-teaming-up-for-pandemic-safety/</a><br class="" /><br class="" />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.<br class="" /></span><blockquote class="" style="border-left-style: none; color: inherit; margin: inherit; padding: inherit;" type="cite"><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;"><a class="" href="https://mymodernmet.com/bee-colony-increase/">https://mymodernmet.com/bee-colony-increase/</a></span><br class="" /></blockquote><div class=""><br class="webkit-block-placeholder" /></div><div class=""><br class="webkit-block-placeholder" /></div><div class=""><br class="webkit-block-placeholder" /></div><div class=""><br class="webkit-block-placeholder" /></div><div class=""><div class=""><span class="" style="font-size: medium;"><span class=""><b class="">Resources</b></span></span><br class="" /><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;"><b class="">Alive in this World</b></span><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;">A book of poetry in three parts: A Home with the Trees, Commuter Encounters, and A Home with the Earth</span><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;"><a class="" href="https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/alive-in-this-world-pamela-haines/1139506943">https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/alive-in-this-world-pamela-haines/1139506943</a>.</span><br class="" /><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;"><b class="">That Clear and Certain Sound; Finding Solid Ground in Perilous Times</b></span></div><div class=""><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;">A book of essays, many from this blog, available for pre-order till late November</span><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;"><a class="" href="https://www.johnhuntpublishing.com/christian-alternative-books/our-books/quaker-quicks-that-clear-certain-sound">https://www.johnhuntpublishing.com/christian-alternative-books/our-books/quaker-quicks-that-clear-certain-sound</a>.</span><br class="" /><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;"><b class="">The Financial Roots of the Climate Crisis </b></span><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;">Link to a talk I gave at a church in Houston </span><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;"><a class="" href="https://vimeo.com/showcase/7910215">https://vimeo.com/showcase/7910215</a></span><br class="" /><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;"><b class="">Envision or Perish; Why we must start imagining the world we want to live in </b></span><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;">An article I co-authored with George Lakey</span><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;"><a class="" href="https://wagingnonviolence.org/2021/02/envision-or-perish-why-we-must-start-imagining-the-world-we-want/">https://wagingnonviolence.org/2021/02/envision-or-perish-why-we-must-start-imagining-the-world-we-want/</a> </span><br class="" /><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;"><b class="">Money and Soul</b></span><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;">My newish book (based on a pamphlet of the same name) available via QuakerBooks or other on-line distributors.</span><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;">("If money troubles your soul, try this down-to-earth Quaker perspective on economies large and small.") </span><br class="" /><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;"><b class="">Money, Debt and Liberation</b></span><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;">A video of a talk I gave at Pendle Hill in January, 2019</span><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;"><a class="" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f7nP8eJ5vy8">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f7nP8eJ5vy8</a> </span><br class="" /><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;"><b class="">Toward a Right Relationship with Finance </b></span><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;"> </span><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;">A book that I co-authored on Debt, Interest, Growth and Security.</span><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;">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:</span><br class="" /><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="font-size: 14px; white-space: pre;"> </span><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;">• 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;</span><br class="" /><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="font-size: 14px; white-space: pre;"> </span><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;">• frames the conversation within the context of our deepest values and beliefs;</span><br class="" /><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="font-size: 14px; white-space: pre;"> </span><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;">• suggests plausible and historically grounded alternatives to the current system, particularly with regard to financing retirement; and</span><br class="" /><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="font-size: 14px; white-space: pre;"> </span><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;">• 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.</span><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;">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?</span><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;">To order the book, or read it on line, go to <a class="" href="http://www.quakerinstitute.org/?page_id=5">http://www.quakerinstitute.org/?page_id=5</a> and scroll down.</span><br class="" /><br class="" /><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;"><b class="">Finding Steady Ground</b></span><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;">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. </span><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;"><a class="" href="http://www.findingsteadyground.com/">www.findingsteadyground.com</a> </span><br class="" /><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;">Other resources from my friend Daniel Hunter</span><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;">Building a Movement to End the New Jim Crow; An Organizing Guide. <a class="" href="http://www.danielhunter.org/books/building-movement-end-new-jim-crow-">http://www.danielhunter.org/books/building-movement-end-new-jim-crow-</a>organizing-guide </span><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;">Climate Resistance Handbook, or I was part of a climate action. Now what? <a class="" href="https://commonslibrary.org/climate-resistance-handbook-or-i-was-part-of-a-">https://commonslibrary.org/climate-resistance-handbook-or-i-was-part-of-a-</a>climate-action-now-what/ </span><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;">Leading Groups On-Line. <a class="" href="https://www.trainingforchange.org/training_tools/leading-groups-online-book/">https://www.trainingforchange.org/training_tools/leading-groups-online-book/</a> </span><br class="" /><br class="" /><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;"><b class="">More resources</b></span><br class="" /><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;">Posts on other web/blog sites:</span><br class="" /><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;">In <a class="" href="http://www.classism.org/gifts-american-dream/">http://www.classism.org/gifts-american-dream/</a>, Pamela Haines locates her family's homey DIY celebrations on a class spectrum of different connections to upward mobility.</span><br class="" /><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;"> <a class="" href="http://www.transitionus.org/blog/unlikely-suspects-%E2%80%93-deep-outreach-diverse-initiating-groups-%E2%80%93-pace-building-trust">http://www.transitionus.org/blog/unlikely-suspects-–-deep-outreach-diverse-initiating-groups-–-pace-building-trust</a> </span><br class="" /><br class="" /><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="font-size: 14px; white-space: pre;"> </span><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;"> <a class="" href="http://www.classism.org/demolition-derby">http://www.classism.org/demolition-derby</a></span><br class="" /><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;">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: <a class="" href="https://www.peaceworkersus.org/docs/muscle_building_for_peace_and_justice.pdf">https://www.peaceworkersus.org/docs/muscle_building_for_peace_and_justice.pdf</a> (or just google the title)</span><br class="" /><br class="" /></div></div></div>Pamela Living in this Worldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01728149865852062590noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2804921562771003682.post-43483520403025438752021-09-24T16:02:00.003-07:002022-01-11T09:29:04.357-08:00#218 Knowledge<p> <span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px;">Dear all, </span></p><div class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;"><br class="" /></span></div><div class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;">I think all of us are finding it hard to keep our balance these days as we step into the fall. With both vaccinations and the delta variant, how do we balance new possibilities with caution? With signs of both progressive movement and strong backlash in our country, how do we balance hope and fear? </span></div><div class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;"><br class="" /></span></div><div class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;">In my personal life, I’m faced with balancing on-going commitments with new projects, including moving from deeply intuitive writing to deeply non-intuitive book marketing (and I just signed two more contracts—yay/yikes!) I’m proud, though, of how I’ve been asking for help, and thrilled with what I’m receiving.</span></div><div class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;"><br class="" /></span></div><div class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;">It’s been a pleasure to have two young grandchildren join me in our shared love for the moon, as we watched it grow this month from a sickle to stunning fullness. It reminds me of the constancy and beauty and power that are always there to be found.</span></div><div class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;"><br class="" /></span></div><div class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;">Love,</span></div><div class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;">Pamela</span></div><div class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><br class="" /></div><div class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;"><br class="" /></span></div><div class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;"><br class="" /></span></div><div class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;"><br class="" /></span></div><span class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: medium;"><b class="">Knowledge</b></span><br class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><br class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><span class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px;">My daughter-in-law was reading a challenging text for a course she was taking—a philosophical treatise on white supremacy, full of long complicated words and longer more complicated sentences. As she vented about the challenge, I was a little surprised at the intensity of my response. I got mad. I was ready to throw all philosophers and all their stupid long words and sentences into oblivion. But she held out for the validity of philosophy, and I was called to think through my position a little more clearly.</span><br class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><br class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><span class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px;">I realized that it wasn’t the field of philosophy that offended me so deeply. After all, there is nothing inherently wrong with “love of wisdom”! It is the weaponizing of wisdom that gets under my skin: presenting knowledge in a way that demonstrates how much more you understand than the deficient masses; protecting your vulnerable sense of self-worth with a show of importance; publicly claiming your membership in an elite superior group. It smells of domination, seems full of the seeds of oppression.</span><br class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><br class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><span class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px;">The field of economics has a similar story, where self-proclaimed “experts” created a complex mathematical system to explain the workings of the markets, then built a wall around their new discipline and required those who would enter to master the intricacies of their creation. Those on the outside came to feel that they just didn’t know enough to understand, that they had no choice but to cede the whole territory to the “experts”. Yet “economics”, from the Greek for “household management,” is something anybody can think about. It’s full of values and common sense that those who claim expertise have obscured rather than clarified. Everybody has the capacity and right to engage on this territory.</span><br class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><br class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><span class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px;">So, am I saying that there’s no place for expertise in this world? That putting in the effort to master complexity is, at its heart, suspect? Well, that couldn’t be right. We certainly wouldn’t want to hold out an expectation that nobody should know more than anybody else. But there is something about our attitude toward knowledge that needs closer examination.</span><br class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><br class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><span class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px;">If we see it as private property then it’s logical to use it to our own advantage, to prop up our egos, to keep it scarce so its value stays high, to hoard and to deploy it for mastery over others. Some may approach it privately, but pursue knowledge for the sheer joy of personal discovery—like my eight-year-old grandson. Others may be on a quest to uplift humanity. Theirs may be the hardest job, because their goal extends beyond the personal. They would choose to serve, yet if an idea is presented in language that blocks understanding it’s like giving and taking back in the same motion. If you really believe you’ve come across something important, then you either need to learn how to communicate it in words that people can understand, or you have to acknowledge that it will be useless unless somebody else does that job for you.</span><br class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><br class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><span class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px;">I would argue that, in the process of pushing the edges of human understanding, there is no place for ownership. Our knowledge is part of a shared cultural heritage, a common wealth. Everyone of us who has explored a new idea is standing on the shoulders of those who have come before. Our minds are our own, it is true, yet we do not exist in isolation. And for our thoughts to matter to anyone else they have to find a pathway not only out of our heads but into the heads of others. For that to happen, they have to be accessible.</span><br class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><br class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><span class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px;">Perhaps my passion here grows from the reality that I too have a love for wisdom. I am committed to seeking it and sharing what I find. So the text my daughter-in-law was reading grew from something that I love, but had been twisted into another shape, sharpened and misused. I think the way forward is simple—abandon the lures of private property, claim all our knowledge and wisdom as part of the commons, and keep access at its very heart.</span><br class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><br class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><span class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px;"> </span><div class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;"><br class="" /></span></div><div class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><br class="" /><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: medium;"><b class="">Strand of the web</b></span><br class="" /><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;">As I weeded at the trolley portal</span><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;">he would come by on his little city sidewalk vacuum sweeper</span><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;">and we would say hello—</span><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;">a small human moment to cherish</span><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;">as we both tended to beauty in the neighborhood.</span><br class="" /><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;">Years pass, those public beds make way for other city plans,</span><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;">our paths no longer cross.</span><br class="" /><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;">Then, deep in the winter of pandemic,</span><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;">I see him on my morning walk, closer to home.</span><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;">Perhaps his route has changed.</span><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;">Bundled and masked, I smile and wave.</span><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;">He waves back, but does he know it’s me?</span><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;">The months go by. I see him now and then</span><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;">look for a chance to catch his eye and say hello.</span><br class="" /><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;">Then one day the stars align—</span><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;">maskless and present, we connect.</span><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;">His cheerful greeting warms my heart—</span><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;">a strand in the web of life reclaimed, restored.</span><br class="" /><br class="" /><br class="" /><br class="" /><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: medium;"><b class=""><br class="" />Dare to imagine: A new economy is possible!<br class="" />Solidarity investing club supports coops</b></span><br class="" /><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;">The Vermont Solidarity Investing Club, with 27 members, has invested all of its more than $60,000 specifically in cooperatives. Each member owns a portion of the LLC, to which they contribute $20 to $200 on a monthly basis.</span><br class="" /><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;">The largest of VSIC’s current investments is in the Cooperative Fund of New England, which loans money to co-ops, democratic worker-owned businesses, and community organizations. VSIC also invests in other cooperative funds, existing coop businesses and new cooperative ventures, supporting the network of coops throughout the region.</span><br class="" /><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;"><a class="" href="https://www.shareable.net/solidarity-investing-club-helps-plant-a-new-crop-of-co-ops-in-vermont/">https://www.shareable.net/solidarity-investing-club-helps-plant-a-new-crop-of-co-ops-in-vermont/</a> </span><br class="" /><br class="" /><br class="" /><br class="" /><br class="" /><br class="" /><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: medium;"><b class="">Some things that have given me hope recently:</b></span><br class="" /><br class="" /><blockquote class="" style="border-left-style: none; color: inherit; margin: inherit; padding: inherit;" type="cite"><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;">Locals are interrupting violence in Minneapolis, by sitting in lawn chairs at dangerous corners.<br class="" /></span></blockquote><blockquote class="" style="border-left-style: none; color: inherit; margin: inherit; padding: inherit;" type="cite"><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;"><a class="" href="https://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/minneapolis-nashville-and-baltimore-violence-interrupters/?utm_campaign=newsletters&utm_medium=weekly_mailout&utm_source=22-09-2021">https://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/minneapolis-nashville-and-baltimore-violence-interrupters/?utm_campaign=newsletters&utm_medium=weekly_mailout&utm_source=22-09-2021</a><br class="" /></span></blockquote><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;"><br class="" />Farmers have been teaming up with meatpackers, realizing they have more in common with these immigrants than with agribusiness CEOs.<br class="" /></span><blockquote class="" style="border-left-style: none; color: inherit; margin: inherit; padding: inherit;" type="cite"><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;"><a class="" href="https://otherwords.org/farmers-and-meatpackers-are-teaming-up-for-pandemic-safety/">https://otherwords.org/farmers-and-meatpackers-are-teaming-up-for-pandemic-safety/</a><br class="" /></span></blockquote><blockquote class="" style="border-left-style: none; color: inherit; margin: inherit; padding: inherit;" type="cite"><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;"><br class="" />With Tunisia facing both climate and economic crises, a group of women have started cooperatives and small businesses to protect the environment and create a sustainable livelihood.<br class="" /><a class="" href="https://www.trtworld.com/magazine/saving-seeds-and-lives-tunisian-women-on-the-frontline-of-climate-change-49799?">https://www.trtworld.com/magazine/saving-seeds-and-lives-tunisian-women-on-the-frontline-of-climate-change-49799?</a></span></blockquote><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;"><br class="" /></span><blockquote class="" style="border-left-style: none; color: inherit; margin: inherit; padding: inherit;" type="cite"><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;">And a handful of fossil fuel victories!<br class="" /></span></blockquote><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;"><br class="" /></span><blockquote class="" style="border-left-style: none; color: inherit; margin: inherit; padding: inherit;" type="cite"><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;">Indigenous resistance has staved off 25% of U.S. and Canada’s annual emissions, the pollution equivalent of approximately 400 new coal-fired power plants.<br class="" /></span></blockquote><blockquote class="" style="border-left-style: none; color: inherit; margin: inherit; padding: inherit;" type="cite"><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;"><a class="" href="https://grist.org/protest/indigenous-resistance-has-cut-u-s-and-canadas-annual-emissions/">https://grist.org/protest/indigenous-resistance-has-cut-u-s-and-canadas-annual-emissions/</a><br class="" /></span></blockquote><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;"><br class="" />Student pressure on Harvard, the world’s richest university, to divest from fossil fuels has finally succeeded.<br class="" /></span><blockquote class="" style="border-left-style: none; color: inherit; margin: inherit; padding: inherit;" type="cite"><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;"><a class="" href="https://www.thenation.com/article/activism/harvard-fossil-fuel-divestment-won/">https://www.thenation.com/article/activism/harvard-fossil-fuel-divestment-won/</a></span></blockquote><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;"><br class="" />After intense grassroots pressure,15 insurers drop the Trans Mountain Pipeline <br class="" /><a class="" href="https://truthout.org/articles/15-insurers-drop-trans-mountain-pipeline-after-grassroots-pressure/">https://truthout.org/articles/15-insurers-drop-trans-mountain-pipeline-after-grassroots-pressure/</a><br class="" /><br class="" /></span><blockquote class="" style="border-left-style: none; color: inherit; margin: inherit; padding: inherit;" type="cite"><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;">A federal judge’s rejection of a huge Alaska oil drilling project is the latest reversal of Trump policy and a win for Indigenous and environmental activists.</span></blockquote><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;"><a class="" href="https://insideclimatenews.org/news/20082021/alaska-willow-oil-project-biden-trump/?">https://insideclimatenews.org/news/20082021/alaska-willow-oil-project-biden-trump/?</a><br class="" /></span><blockquote class="" style="border-left-style: none; color: inherit; margin: inherit; padding: inherit;" type="cite"><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;"><br class="" /><br class="" /><br class="" /></span></blockquote><blockquote class="" style="border-left-style: none; margin: inherit; padding: inherit;" type="cite"><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;"><br class="" /><br class="" /></span></blockquote><span class="" style="font-size: medium;"><b class="">Resources</b></span><br class="" /><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;"><b class="">Alive in this World</b></span><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;">A book of poetry in three parts: A Home with the Trees, Commuter Encounters, and A Home with the Earth</span><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;"><a class="" href="https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/alive-in-this-world-pamela-haines/1139506943">https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/alive-in-this-world-pamela-haines/1139506943</a>.</span><br class="" /><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;"><b class="">That Clear and Certain Sound; Finding Solid Ground in Perilous Times</b></span></div><div class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;">A book of essays, many from this blog, available for pre-order till November</span><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;"><a class="" href="https://www.johnhuntpublishing.com/christian-alternative-books/our-books/quaker-quicks-that-clear-certain-sound">https://www.johnhuntpublishing.com/christian-alternative-books/our-books/quaker-quicks-that-clear-certain-sound</a>.</span><br class="" /><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;"><b class="">The Financial Roots of the Climate Crisis </b></span><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;">Link to a talk I gave at a church in Houston </span><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;"><a class="" href="https://vimeo.com/showcase/7910215">https://vimeo.com/showcase/7910215</a></span><br class="" /><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;"><b class="">Envision or Perish; Why we must start imagining the world we want to live in </b></span><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;">An article I co-authored with George Lakey</span><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;"><a class="" href="https://wagingnonviolence.org/2021/02/envision-or-perish-why-we-must-start-imagining-the-world-we-want/">https://wagingnonviolence.org/2021/02/envision-or-perish-why-we-must-start-imagining-the-world-we-want/</a> </span><br class="" /><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;"><b class="">Money and Soul</b></span><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;">My newish book (based on a pamphlet of the same name) available via QuakerBooks or other on-line distributors.</span><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;">("If money troubles your soul, try this down-to-earth Quaker perspective on economies large and small.") </span><br class="" /><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;"><b class="">Money, Debt and Liberation</b></span><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;">A video of a talk I gave at Pendle Hill in January, 2019</span><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;"><a class="" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f7nP8eJ5vy8">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f7nP8eJ5vy8</a> </span><br class="" /><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;"><b class="">Toward a Right Relationship with Finance </b></span><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;"> </span><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;">A book that I co-authored on Debt, Interest, Growth and Security.</span><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;">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:</span><br class="" /><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="font-size: 14px; white-space: pre;"> </span><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;">• 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;</span><br class="" /><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="font-size: 14px; white-space: pre;"> </span><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;">• frames the conversation within the context of our deepest values and beliefs;</span><br class="" /><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="font-size: 14px; white-space: pre;"> </span><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;">• suggests plausible and historically grounded alternatives to the current system, particularly with regard to financing retirement; and</span><br class="" /><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="font-size: 14px; white-space: pre;"> </span><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;">• 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.</span><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;">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?</span><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;">To order the book, or read it on line, go to <a class="" href="http://www.quakerinstitute.org/?page_id=5">http://www.quakerinstitute.org/?page_id=5</a> and scroll down.</span><br class="" /><br class="" /><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;"><b class="">Finding Steady Ground</b></span><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;">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. </span><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;"><a class="" href="http://www.findingsteadyground.com/">www.findingsteadyground.com</a> </span><br class="" /><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;">Other resources from my friend Daniel Hunter</span><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;">Building a Movement to End the New Jim Crow; An Organizing Guide. <a class="" href="http://www.danielhunter.org/books/building-movement-end-new-jim-crow-organizing-guide">http://www.danielhunter.org/books/building-movement-end-new-jim-crow-organizing-guide</a> </span><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;">Climate Resistance Handbook, or I was part of a climate action. Now what? <a class="" href="https://commonslibrary.org/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/</a> </span><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;">Leading Groups On-Line. <a class="" href="https://www.trainingforchange.org/training_tools/leading-groups-online-book/">https://www.trainingforchange.org/training_tools/leading-groups-online-book/</a> </span><br class="" /><br class="" /><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;"><b class="">More resources</b></span><br class="" /><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;">Posts on other web/blog sites:</span><br class="" /><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;">In <a class="" href="http://www.classism.org/gifts-american-dream/">http://www.classism.org/gifts-american-dream/</a>, Pamela Haines locates her family's homey DIY celebrations on a class spectrum of different connections to upward mobility.</span><br class="" /><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;"> <a class="" href="http://www.transitionus.org/blog/unlikely-suspects-%E2%80%93-deep-outreach-diverse-initiating-groups-%E2%80%93-pace-building-trust">http://www.transitionus.org/blog/unlikely-suspects-–-deep-outreach-diverse-initiating-groups-–-pace-building-trust</a> </span><br class="" /><br class="" /><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="font-size: 14px; white-space: pre;"> </span><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;"> <a class="" href="http://www.classism.org/demolition-derby">http://www.classism.org/demolition-derby</a></span><br class="" /><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;">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: <a class="" href="https://www.peaceworkersus.org/docs/muscle_building_for_peace_and_justice.pdf">https://www.peaceworkersus.org/docs/muscle_building_for_peace_and_justice.pdf</a> (or just google the title)</span><br class="" /><br class="" /></div>Pamela Living in this Worldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01728149865852062590noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2804921562771003682.post-51737542773700235072021-08-14T15:30:00.001-07:002022-01-11T09:29:46.359-08:00#217. In common<p> <span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px;">Dear all, </span></p><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><span style="font-size: 14px;"><br /></span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><span style="font-size: 14px;">After moving a much-anticipated in-person work event online earlier this month, my mind is on new COVID challenges—how much we don’t know, and how hard it is to re-pace ourselves when we thought we were almost home. I’ve also had the opportunity this month to listen to a group of passionate childcare workers sharing stories about their frontline work in struggling communities, then to assemble a newsletter for work with a focus on race and equity in childcare, another opportunity to interact closely with wonderful people’s stories of injustice, humanity, perseverance and hope.</span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><span style="font-size: 14px;"><br /></span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><span style="font-size: 14px;">In the midst of these compelling stories, I also want to make space for my own voice, as we prepare for my book/birthday celebration this coming Friday evening. If you didn’t get an invitation and would like to be present, just drop me a line and I’ll sent a link.</span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><span style="font-size: 14px;"><br /></span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><span style="font-size: 14px;">Love,</span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><span style="font-size: 14px;">Pamela</span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><span style="font-size: 14px;"><br /></span></div><b style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><span style="font-size: small;"><div><b><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></b></div><div><b><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></b></div><div><b><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></b></div><div><b><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></b></div>In common</span></b><br style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><br style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px;">To focus on what we have in common seems like a radical notion these days. In a hyper-individualized and divisive culture, most of our energy is divided between amassing and protecting what we can claim as our own, and sharpening the lines between us and them. Yet giving up what we have in common is a tendency with far-reaching and damaging consequences.</span><br style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><br style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px;">The enclosure of the English commons—a town’s shared meadows and grazing lands—for private ownership and profit was a fateful step toward landless wage labor and urban poverty in the industrial west. Current battles around the enclosure of the commons are being waged on equally far-reaching and ominous fronts—the privatization of our waters, the pollution of our air and oceans, the claim of rights to ownership over cyberspace and even our shared genome. This is a time like no other to vigorously claim a shared right to that which supports all life.</span><br style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><br style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px;">How do we stake a claim to our common rights even as we are experiencing a great surge of othering? Perhaps this is a job of building critical muscles, but in two very different kinds of exercise. On the one hand we practice flexing our muscles of courage, voice and solidarity as we work to ensure common control over the air, water, soil and communication space that support life in our common home. On the other hand we practice relaxing our muscles around the differences among us—disarming our protections and letting down our defenses against the “other” as we reach for a shared humanity.</span><br style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><br style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px;">On the relaxing front, I was struck recently by a story about a couple of men who started up a business that catered to veterans. They chose products that would appeal to that conservative base, and used political humor to market their brand. They supported a man for president that I find depraved and dangerous—in part with an eye toward their own gain.</span><br style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><br style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px;">At this point in the story, I was ready to write them off in disgust. What could we possibly have in common? But adopting this easy and obvious choice as my go-to strategy comes at a cost. If that’s my best tool for handling behavior that I don’t like, and I use it with full-blown righteousness in the direction of these people, what habits am I developing? Who else do I write off? Where do I draw the line?</span><br style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><br style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px;">I think there is a line. Some behavior is so damaging to the commons that it just has to stop—like seeking power or profit from fossil fuel extraction, whipping people up into a frenzy of hate, mass incarceration, voter suppression, worker exploitation. But that’s not these guys.</span><br style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><br style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px;">As I read on, I learned that these are also men who have reached out with consistency and compassion, and at considerable personal expense, to offer returning veterans an alternative to the open pipeline to militarized police work, a pathway to a decent livelihood in the context of caring and community.</span><br style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><br style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px;">We have something in common here. If I want it to grow, uncomfortable as it might be, I think I have to love them. There are lots of things you can change without love, particularly if you have a habit of righteousness and a taste for domination. You can change people’s outer shape and their public face. You can stunt personalities, feed fears, manipulate behavior and oppress whole groups. You can certainly destroy ecosystems. But you can’t get at that internal place that allows for transformation. This requires an openness to touching the heart of the other, and to appreciating the mystery of what we can’t understand.</span><br style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><br style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px;">There is much that is mysterious to me about angry white men, but these guys invite my curiosity. What is it like to come home traumatized from war, to witness the disappearance of your traditional means of livelihood, to have your people’s central place in a country’s history slipping away? What allows some people to hold on to their humanity in the face of great adversity? How can we find each other and fight together for the commons, for our common humanity, for our shared interest in a livable world?</span><br style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><br style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px;"> </span><br style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><br style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><br style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><br style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><br style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: small;"><b>Sing</b></span><br style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><br style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px;">A simple pleasure lost to the pandemic—</span><br style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px;">gathering round the piano to sing.</span><br style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px;">In May, with vaccinations</span><br style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px;">comes a seed of cautious hope.</span><br style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px;">Would it be irresponsible?</span><br style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px;">Could we be safe?</span><br style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><br style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px;">Just to be inside another house</span><br style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px;">seems bold, but we don’t linger there—</span><br style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px;">push the piano out the open door</span><br style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px;">onto the deck, bring out kitchen chairs.</span><br style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><br style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px;">Sing through the twilight, sing with the birds</span><br style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px;">Sing to the neighbors (who clap unseen in the dark)</span><br style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px;">Sing up hope.</span><br style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><br style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><br style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><br style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><br style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><br style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><br style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: small;"><b>Dare to imagine: A new economy is possible!<br />Community Land Trusts and Racial/Economic Justice</b></span><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><span style="font-size: 14px;"><br />The Community Land Trust (CLT) model was first created and implemented during the late 1960s by African American leaders in rural Albany, Georgia, who were responding to the harsh reality of oppression, violence, and eviction endured by Black tenant farmers across the American South. The goal was to support African American families to own and control land, achieve greater economic security, and fully exercise their legal voting rights without obstruction. Modern CLT organizations are part of a broader shared-equity housing sector typically developing, selling, and stewarding affordable homes that provide security and stability for low- and moderate-income families. CLTs are most impactful when they can steward land on behalf of the community for the uses desired by a majority of local residents. Examples of CLTs partnering with cities to vision, plan, and implement revitalization strategies that prevent displacement are evident in areas such as </span><a href="https://nonprofitquarterly.org/historic-fruit-belt-buffalo-moves-forward-community-led-plan-land-trust/" rel="nofollow noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #1696d2; font-family: LatoRegular, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">Buffalo</a><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(92, 88, 89); color: #5c5859; font-family: LatoRegular, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;"> and </span><a href="https://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/houston-texas/houston/article/City-plan-to-expand-affordable-housing-will-rely-13656027.php" rel="nofollow noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #1696d2; font-family: LatoRegular, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">Houston</a><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(92, 88, 89); color: #5c5859; font-family: LatoRegular, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">.</span><div><br /></div><span style="font-size: 14px;">https://housingmatters.urban.org/articles/how-community-land-trusts-can-advance-racial-and-economic-justice</span><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><span style="font-size: small;"><b>Somethings that have made me hopeful recently (all domestic this time):</b></span><br /><div><blockquote style="border-left-style: none; margin: inherit; padding: inherit;" type="cite"><span style="font-size: 14px;"><br /></span></blockquote><span style="font-size: 14px;">The state of Maine is leading the way both in banning “forever chemicals” in an effort to stop climate change, and in shifting costs of recycling from taxpayers to companies.<br />https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/jul/15/maine-law-pfas-forever-chemicals-ban?<br />https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/maine-becomes-first-state-to-shift-costs-of-recycling-from-taxpayers-to-companies/2021/07/13/aa6fbe44-e416-11eb-8aa5-5662858b696e_story.html<br /></span><blockquote style="border-left-style: none; color: inherit; margin: inherit; padding: inherit;" type="cite"><span style="font-size: 14px;"><br />In a dramatic victory for the American labor movement, last fall1,800 nurses at Asheville, North Carolina-based Mission Hospital voted by 70% to be represented by a union, National Nurses United, and this summer they celebrated ratification of their first ever union contract. The victory is the largest at a nonunion hospital in the South since 1975, and is the first private sector hospital union win ever in North Carolina. </span></blockquote><span style="font-size: 14px;">https://www.nationalnursesunited.org/press/largest-hospital-union-victory-south-1975<br />https://www.beckershospitalreview.com/hr/mission-hospital-nurses-approve-1st-union-contract.html<br /><br /></span><blockquote style="border-left-style: none; color: inherit; margin: inherit; padding: inherit;" type="cite"><span style="font-size: 14px;">Local heritage seeds are now available to anyone in Tuscan with a library card.</span></blockquote><blockquote class="" style="border-left-style: none; color: inherit; margin: inherit; padding: inherit;" type="cite"><span style="font-size: 14px;">https://www.yesmagazine.org/environment/2018/04/06/how-tucson-preserves-its-native-food-heritage/?<br /></span></blockquote><blockquote style="border-left-style: none; color: inherit; margin: inherit; padding: inherit;" type="cite"><span style="font-size: 14px;">https://www.library.pima.gov/seedlibrary/<br /></span></blockquote><div><br /></div><span style="font-size: 14px;">Kentuckians for the Commonwealth, started in 1981 in citizen outrage around tax and property laws that favored coal companies, continues to organize for a new balance of power and a just society in Kentucky.<br /></span><blockquote style="border-left-style: none; margin: inherit; padding: inherit;" type="cite"><span style="font-size: 14px;">https://www.kftc.org/about-us/our-history</span></blockquote><div><span style="font-size: 14px;"><br /></span></div><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><span style="font-size: small;"><b>Resources</b></span><br /><br /><span style="font-size: 14px;"><b>Alive in this World</b></span><br /><span style="font-size: 14px;">A book of poetry in three parts: A Home with the Trees, Commuter Encounters, and A Home with the Earth</span><br /><span style="font-size: 14px;">Available in paperback and e-book at barnesandnoble.com and Amazon.com.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-size: 14px;"><b>That Clear and Certain Sound; Finding Solid Ground in Perilous Times</b></span><br /><span style="font-size: 14px;">A book of my essays, available via QuakerBooks or other on-line distributors</span><br /><br /><span style="font-size: 14px;"><b>The Financial Roots of the Climate Crisis </b></span><br /><span style="font-size: 14px;">Link to a talk I gave at a church in Houston </span><br /><span style="font-size: 14px;">https://vimeo.com/showcase/7910215</span><br /><br /><span style="font-size: 14px;"><b>Envision or Perish; Why we must start imagining the world we want to live in </b></span><br /><span style="font-size: 14px;">An article I co-authored with George Lakey</span><br /><span style="font-size: 14px;">https://wagingnonviolence.org/2021/02/envision-or-perish-why-we-must-start-imagining-the-world-we-want/ </span><br /><br /><span style="font-size: 14px;"><b>Money and Soul</b></span><br /><span style="font-size: 14px;">My newish book (based on a pamphlet of the same name) available via QuakerBooks or other on-line distributors.</span><br /><span style="font-size: 14px;">("If money troubles your soul, try this down-to-earth Quaker perspective on economies large and small.") </span><br /><br /><span style="font-size: 14px;"><b>Money, Debt and Liberation</b></span><br /><span style="font-size: 14px;">A video of a talk I gave at Pendle Hill in January, 2019</span><br /><span style="font-size: 14px;">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f7nP8eJ5vy8 </span><br /><br /><span style="font-size: 14px;"><b>Toward a Right Relationship with Finance </b></span><br /><span style="font-size: 14px;">A book that I co-authored on Debt, Interest, Growth and Security.</span><br /><span style="font-size: 14px;">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:</span><br /><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="font-size: 14px; white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="font-size: 14px;">• 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;</span><br /><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="font-size: 14px; white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="font-size: 14px;">• frames the conversation within the context of our deepest values and beliefs;</span><br /><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="font-size: 14px; white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="font-size: 14px;">• suggests plausible and historically grounded alternatives to the current system, particularly with regard to financing retirement; and</span><br /><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="font-size: 14px; white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="font-size: 14px;">• 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.</span><br /><span style="font-size: 14px;">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?</span><br /><span style="font-size: 14px;">To order the book, or read it on line, go to http://www.quakerinstitute.org/?page_id=5 and scroll down.</span><br /><br /><br /><span style="font-size: 14px;"><b>Finding Steady Ground</b></span><br /><span style="font-size: 14px;">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. </span><br /><span style="font-size: 14px;">www.findingsteadyground.com </span><br /><br /><span style="font-size: 14px;">Other resources from my friend Daniel Hunter</span><br /><span style="font-size: 14px;">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 </span><br /><span style="font-size: 14px;">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/ </span><br /><span style="font-size: 14px;">Leading Groups On-Line. https://www.trainingforchange.org/training_tools/leading-groups-online-book/ </span><br /><br /><br /><span style="font-size: 14px;"><b>More resources</b></span><br /><br /><span style="font-size: 14px;">Posts on other web/blog sites:</span><br /><br /><span style="font-size: 14px;">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.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-size: 14px;"> http://www.transitionus.org/blog/unlikely-suspects-–-deep-outreach-diverse-initiating-groups-–-pace-building-trust </span><br /><br /><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="font-size: 14px; white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="font-size: 14px;"> http://www.classism.org/demolition-derby</span><br /><br /><span style="font-size: 14px;">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)</span><br /><br /></div></div>Pamela Living in this Worldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01728149865852062590noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2804921562771003682.post-53056916295191121422021-08-06T08:25:00.001-07:002022-01-11T09:30:34.465-08:00#116. In motion<p> <span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14.399999618530273px;">Dear all,</span></p><br class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><span class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14.399999618530273px;">it was a blessing to be in the midst of woods and water with family members last week, and to offer a set of workshops at a national Quaker gathering earlier in the month on “muscle-building for peace, justice and an earth restored”. Now my attention is turning to getting the word out about my new books (more in the Resource section). I’m planning to introduce them at an online birthday celebration (72—a good strong number) on Friday evening August 20. Save the date if you’d like to participate, and stay tuned.</span><br class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><span class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14.399999618530273px;">Love,</span><br class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><br class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><span class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14.399999618530273px;">Pamela</span><br class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><br class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><br class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><br class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><br class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><span class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: medium;"><b class="">In motion</b></span><br class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><br class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><span class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14.399999618530273px;">When a pond is still, the filamentous pond weed and the tiny dots of duckweed on the surface will multiply and take over, ultimately filling it in. When there is a strong enough current, however, they are washed through the outlet and the pond clears. While I don’t have the power, as one individual, to clean this pond, I can keep unclogging the outlet. As I free up the currents that would naturally be there, the weed flows steadily through. The motion that is critical for ongoing cleaning has been released.</span><br class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><br class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><span class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14.399999618530273px;">The metaphor between pond weed and the world’s ills is not precise, but there is something about motion that I find compelling. Water in motion has the capacity to clean. Molecules in motion have the capacity of change their structure. People in motion have the capacity to transform—both themselves and the world around them. </span><br class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><br class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><span class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14.399999618530273px;">Yet the forces in our society that push us toward immobility around big social and environmental issues are immense. A competitive and individualist culture focuses our efforts on personal goals. With extreme economic injustice, the energies of a few at the top go toward protecting the status quo, many at the bottom are putting all their attention to just getting by. As unrelenting and escalating bad news collides with our culture’s deep-rooted narrative of inevitable progress, we find ourselves disoriented—shell-shocked even—and desperate for relief. This narrative provides little space for engaging with loss and fear, leaving us vulnerable to the ever-growing lures of consumption, distraction and addiction—anything to numb us to emotions too painful to feel.</span><br class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><br class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><span class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14.399999618530273px;">So what can we do to encourage motion? Water metaphors keep coming to mind. We can start by mining through those layers of consumption, distraction and addiction to the cool clear water of caring—in ourselves and others around us—and be refreshed by this good life-giving water. We all care. Each of us has stories about connection—to the natural world of which we are part, to the communities that nurture us, to a desire to align with justice. Scared by the depths of grief and fear, we can also look for ways to stick our toes in these big waters as a first step. Admit to a little fear. Pay attention to a little loss. Hold hands as we take another step.</span><br class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><br class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><span class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14.399999618530273px;">Then we can start imagining the possibility of something being better, more whole. If we can’t imagine anything different, we’re stuck where we are. But the “what might be” calls forth motion from the “what is”, creating the beginnings of a current. (Imagining the apocalypse is a different story; though it may be easier, there is no agency involved and if there is any current it leads only to despair.)</span><br class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><br class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><span class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14.399999618530273px;">We need a vision to hold in our mind—like that clear lovely pond—and we need some sense of ourselves as actors, as part of what creates the current. I think this may be at the heart of the work I am called to—inviting people to motion. Breaking through the story line of the permanence of what is, and holding out a vision of what could be—communities building their own wealth, non-extractive social relationships, regenerated soil, rewoven webs of life. Reminding others of their goodness and capacity. Staying in motion myself, both in ongoing efforts that call my name, and shorter-term calls to action too compelling to be ignored. Listening for what calls out to others and encouraging them to take the first step, knowing that one will lead to another. Broadcasting different possibilities of action linked to vision, hoping that some will land on fertile ground. Celebrating every tiny bit of new motion, while also tending to the well-being of those who have stepped out into the roughest currents, providing an anchor of solidity, a place to unload fears and losses and reconnect to possibilities.</span><br class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><br class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><span class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14.399999618530273px;">I love freeing up that current at the pond. In a very similar way, I am passionate about helping each other out of the sticky immobility in which we have been ensnared, back into our true nature and in motion toward a world that rings true.</span><br class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><br class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><br class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><br class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><br class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><br class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><span class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: medium;"><b class="">Canoe on a still pond</b></span><br class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><br class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><div class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><span class="" style="font-size: 14.399999618530273px;">Eight year old in the stern,<br class="" />radiating concentration<br class="" />as the feel of navigation<br class="" />finds its way into his bones<br class="" /><br class="" /></span></div><div class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><span class="" style="font-size: 14.399999618530273px;">Five year old, too scared<br class="" />to venture in just days before<br class="" />now gamely paddling in the bow<br class="" /><br class="" /></span></div><div class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><span class="" style="font-size: 14.399999618530273px;">They wobble</span><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14.399999618530273px;">circle</span><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14.399999618530273px;">straighten</span><br class="" /><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14.399999618530273px;">The universe breathes in</span><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14.399999618530273px;">exhales</span><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14.399999618530273px;">and is glad.</span><br class="" /><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14.399999618530273px;"> </span></div><div class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><span class="" style="font-size: 14.399999618530273px;"><br class="" /></span><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: medium;"><b class="">Dare to imagine: A new economy is possible!</b></span><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14.399999618530273px;"><b class="">Divine Chocolate in Ghana</b></span></div><div class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><span class="" style="font-size: 14.399999618530273px;"><br class="" />The cocoa farmers of the Kuapa Kokoo co-operative in Ghana own 44% of their Divine Chocolate company. Their cocoa is not grown on plantations, which may require clearing of rainforest trees, but on individual smallholder farms which have been in farming families for generations. Cocoa grows best in the shade of the rainforest canopy and the humid environment the rainforest creates is best for the midges that pollinate the cocoa. This is a major reason why these farmers are actively conserving the tall forest trees. They are replacing old cocoa trees with new seedlings, and actually planting new hardwood trees. Divine chooses not to use palm oil in any of their products because of its destructive impact on virgin forest and its wildlife.<br class="" /></span><blockquote class="" style="border-left-style: none; color: inherit; margin: inherit; padding: inherit;" type="cite"><span class="" style="font-size: 14.399999618530273px;"><a class="" href="https://www.divinechocolate.com/us/divine-story">https://www.divinechocolate.com/us/divine-story</a><br class="" /></span></blockquote><br class="" /><br class="" /><br class="" /><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: medium;"><b class="">Some things that have made me hopeful recently</b></span><br class="" /><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14.399999618530273px;">The passage of a law in San Jose, California, requiring gun owners to carry liability insurance.</span><br class="" /><blockquote class="" style="border-left-style: none; color: inherit; margin: inherit; padding: inherit;" type="cite"><span class="" style="font-size: 14.399999618530273px;"><a class="" href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2021/06/30/san-jose-california-gun-owners-liability-insurance/7822623002/">https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2021/06/30/san-jose-california-gun-owners-liability-insurance/7822623002/</a><br class="" /></span></blockquote><blockquote class="" style="border-left-style: none; color: inherit; margin: inherit; padding: inherit;" type="cite"><span class="" style="font-size: 14.399999618530273px;"><br class="" />The pledge by the European Central Bank to inject climate considerations into its decisions, the first central bank to do so.<br class="" /><a class="" href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-07-08/ecb-pledges-to-inject-climate-considerations-into-its-decisions">https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-07-08/ecb-pledges-to-inject-climate-considerations-into-its-decisions</a><br class="" /></span></blockquote><span class="" style="font-size: 14.399999618530273px;"><br class="" />A new law in Maine making it the first state to require its public employee pension fund and state treasury system to divest from fossil fuels. <br class="" /></span><blockquote class="" style="border-left-style: none; color: inherit; margin: inherit; padding: inherit;" type="cite"><span class="" style="font-size: 14.399999618530273px;"><a class="" href="https://www.sierraclub.org/maine/blog/2021/06/maine-becomes-first-state-pass-law-divest-fossil-fuels">https://www.sierraclub.org/maine/blog/2021/06/maine-becomes-first-state-pass-law-divest-fossil-fuels</a></span></blockquote><span class="" style="font-size: 14.399999618530273px;"><br class="" />The Welsh government's suspension of all future road-building plans.<br class="" /></span><blockquote class="" style="border-left-style: none; color: inherit; margin: inherit; padding: inherit;" type="cite"><span class="" style="font-size: 14.399999618530273px;"><a class="" href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/jun/22/welsh-government-to-suspend-all-future-road-building-plans?">https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/jun/22/welsh-government-to-suspend-all-future-road-building-plans?</a></span><br class="" /></blockquote> <br class="" /><br class="" /><br class="" /><br class="" /><div class=""><span class="" style="font-size: medium;"><b class="">Resources</b></span></div><div class=""><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;"><b class=""><br class="" /></b></span></div><div class=""><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;"><b class="">Alive in this World</b></span></div><div class=""><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;">A book of poetry in three parts: A Home with the Trees, Commuter Encounters, and A Home with the Earth</span></div><div class=""><span class="" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">Available in paperback and e-book at <a class="" href="http://barnesandnoble.com/">barnesandnoble.com</a> and <a class="" href="http://amazon.com/">Amazon.com</a>.</span></div><div class=""><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;"><br class="" /></span></div><div class=""><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;"><b class="">That Clear and Certain Sound; Finding Solid Ground in Perilous Times</b></span></div><div class=""><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;">A book of my essays, available via QuakerBooks or other on-line distributors</span></div><div class=""><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;"><b class=""><br class="" /></b></span></div><div class=""><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;"><b class="">The Financial Roots of the Climate Crisis</b> </span><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;">Link to a talk I gave at a church in Houston </span><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;"><a class="" href="https://vimeo.com/showcase/7910215">https://vimeo.com/showcase/7910215</a></span><br class="" /><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;"><b class="">Envision or Perish</b>; Why we must start imagining the world we want to live in </span><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;">An article I co-authored with George Lakey</span><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;"><a class="" href="https://wagingnonviolence.org/2021/02/envision-or-perish-why-we-must-start-imagining-the-world-we-want/">https://wagingnonviolence.org/2021/02/envision-or-perish-why-we-must-start-imagining-the-world-we-want/</a> </span><br class="" /><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;"><b class="">Money and Soul</b></span><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;">My newish book (based on a pamphlet of the same name) available via QuakerBooks or other on-line distributors.</span><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;">("If money troubles your soul, try this down-to-earth Quaker perspective on economies large and small.") </span><br class="" /><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;"><b class="">Money, Debt and Liberation</b></span><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;">A video of a talk I gave at Pendle Hill in January, 2019</span><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;"><a class="" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f7nP8eJ5vy8">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f7nP8eJ5vy8</a> </span><br class="" /><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;"><b class="">Toward a Right Relationship with Finance</b> </span><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;">A book that I co-authored on Debt, Interest, Growth and Security.</span><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;">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:</span><br class="" /><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="font-size: 14px; white-space: pre;"> </span><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;">• 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;</span><br class="" /><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="font-size: 14px; white-space: pre;"> </span><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;">• frames the conversation within the context of our deepest values and beliefs;</span><br class="" /><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="font-size: 14px; white-space: pre;"> </span><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;">• suggests plausible and historically grounded alternatives to the current system, particularly with regard to financing retirement; and</span><br class="" /><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="font-size: 14px; white-space: pre;"> </span><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;">• 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.</span><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;">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?</span><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;">To order the book, or read it on line, go to <a class="" href="http://www.quakerinstitute.org/?page_id=5">http://www.quakerinstitute.org/?page_id=5</a> and scroll down.</span><br class="" /><br class="" /><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;"><b class="">Finding Steady Ground</b></span><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;">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. </span><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;"><a class="" href="http://www.findingsteadyground.com/">www.findingsteadyground.com</a> </span><br class="" /><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;">Other resources from my friend Daniel Hunter</span><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;">Building a Movement to End the New Jim Crow; An Organizing Guide. <a class="" href="http://www.danielhunter.org/books/building-movement-end-new-jim-crow-">http://www.danielhunter.org/books/building-movement-end-new-jim-crow-</a>organizing-guide </span><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;">Climate Resistance Handbook, or I was part of a climate action. Now what? <a class="" href="https://commonslibrary.org/climate-resistance-handbook-or-i-was-part-of-a-">https://commonslibrary.org/climate-resistance-handbook-or-i-was-part-of-a-</a>climate-action-now-what/ </span><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;">Leading Groups On-Line. <a class="" href="https://www.trainingforchange.org/training_tools/leading-groups-online-book/">https://www.trainingforchange.org/training_tools/leading-groups-online-book/</a> </span><br class="" /><br class="" /><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;"><b class="">More resources</b></span><br class="" /><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;">Posts on other web/blog sites:</span><br class="" /><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;">In <a class="" href="http://www.classism.org/gifts-american-dream/">http://www.classism.org/gifts-american-dream/</a>, Pamela Haines locates her family's homey DIY celebrations on a class spectrum of different connections to upward mobility.</span><br class="" /><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;"> <a class="" href="http://www.transitionus.org/blog/unlikely-suspects-%E2%80%93-deep-outreach-diverse-initiating-groups-%E2%80%93-pace-building-trust">http://www.transitionus.org/blog/unlikely-suspects-–-deep-outreach-diverse-initiating-groups-–-pace-building-trust</a> </span><br class="" /><br class="" /><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="font-size: 14px; white-space: pre;"> </span><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;"> <a class="" href="http://www.classism.org/demolition-derby">http://www.classism.org/demolition-derby</a></span><br class="" /><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;">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: <a class="" href="https://www.peaceworkersus.org/docs/muscle_building_for_peace_and_justice.pdf">https://www.peaceworkersus.org/docs/muscle_building_for_peace_and_justice.pdf</a> (or just google the title)</span><br class="" /><br class="" /></div></div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline" />Pamela Living in this Worldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01728149865852062590noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2804921562771003682.post-84748024309064753932021-07-29T06:18:00.001-07:002022-01-11T09:31:15.081-08:00#215. First Words<p> <span style="font-size: 14px;">Dear all,</span></p><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;">What I have loved most about having a little more discretionary time this month has been the freedom I’ve felt to reach out to people in my web of caring—feeling like I have time to respond if they suggest more. We’ve had a string of incredibly beautiful days, my garden has been producing (my newest discovery is lambsquarter and parsley pesto), and I am ever more aware of the creativity, wisdom, imagination and hard work of birthing a new era that is there to be found among people all over the world. I’m feeling deeply grateful to be alive in this world.</span><br class="" /><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;">Speaking of which, <i class="">Alive in this World</i> is the title of a book of my poetry that has just been published! Check it out at Barnes and Noble or Amazon. I have a series of essays as well, drawn from this column over the years: <i class="">That Clear and Certain Sound; Finding Solid Ground in Perilous Times.</i> If you’d like to help me think about marketing, or have ideas about ways to spread the word, I would be thrilled to hear from you!</span><br class="" /><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;">Love,</span><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;">Pamela</span><br class="" /><br class="" /><br class="" /><br class="" /><br class="" /><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: medium;"><b class="">First Words</b></span><br class="" /><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;">As I root a native thanksgiving address—"the words that come before all else”—into my daily life, I find it steadily growing me. Traditionally, when Haudenosaunee people (formally known as Iroquois) gather, they start with these words which help orient everyone in the same direction. Thanks are offered to the earth in all its manifestations—water, plant and animal life—to the sun moon and stars, and to the ancient wisdom carriers and the Spirit Creator. The recurring phrase—"and now are minds are one”—binds the community together in shared thanks.</span><br class="" /><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;">I first experienced these words in a native context. It was early morning on the Six Nation Reserve in southern Ontario. A group of Six Nations people and allies had gathered to honor the treaties and protect the earth in a ten-day paddle down the Grand River. We stood in a big circle as the thanksgiving address started our day. That first morning a translated summary was offered to the non-native speakers. For the rest of the trip, we listened to these first words in Mohawk, Cayuga and Oneida. (For some who were reclaiming their language, these were first words in more ways than one.)</span><br class="" /><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;">I couldn’t retain all the contents, so when I found them in a children’s book at a pow-wow I bought a copy. I read it, brought it home, and propped it up in my workspace—where it sat till a retreat of my Quaker meeting on right relationship with native peoples this spring. The leaders were determined to get us engaged not just with our heads, but with our hearts and bodies. There were long breaks where we were encouraged to walk with attention to the land and the people who walked this land for thousands of years before us. When asked how we could extend the experience of this retreat, I realized I could take my morning walk with native people in my heart.</span><br class="" /><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;">My first attempts left me puzzled. How could I join with the original people on these city streets? What would I see and experience that would have been familiar to them? I was distracted by how completely the land had been transformed. Then I remember the book, propped up, patiently waiting for my attention. I could take the words that come before all else on my morning walk. For the first couple of times I was mostly just trying to remember the list of things, the order. I used the book as a reference when I got home, and when a phrase puzzled me I thought to look up the original and was reminded of the full content.</span><br class="" /><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;">As I settled in with this practice, the gifts started coming. I already knew about being thankful for the water and the food plants and the trees and the moon, so initially it felt like a simple frame for familiar content. But then one morning, the prepositions hit me. The first words call us to be thankful not <i class="">for </i>these parts of our world, but <i class="">to</i> them. They call us to direct relationship. All of a sudden I could see how being thankful<i class=""> for</i>, though certainly much better than nothing, carries with it a sense of separation. Here was a profound shift toward right relationship with the world around me.</span><br class="" /><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;">Another morning I was struck by the obvious: I am trying to craft a private practice from what is, at heart, a communal experience. I think of the recurring phrase at the end of each section: “And now our minds are one.” <i class="">We gather to find a way forward together, and start with the words that come before all else. We send thanks to the earth that provides everything we need, to the water and the animals and the plants for giving us life. In whatever decisions or actions we take, we do so with this shared understanding in the front of our minds.</i></span><br class="" /><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;">What if these words started every board meeting, every gathering of people where decisions are made that affect the web of life that supports us all? Knowing that they are powerfully communal, I commit to absorbing their wisdom deep into my bones, and seeing how they might lead me in community.</span><br class="" /><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;">Most recently I have found myself moved to send not only greetings and thanks, but love. As I walk and connect and send love, I find my body opening up, moving in new ways. It’s like a dance is growing inside me. I think of all the restraint with which I have held myself all these years, and give more thanks to the Haudenosaunee and the words that come before all else.</span><br class="" /><br class="" /><br class="" /><br class="" /><br class="" /><br class="" /><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: medium;"><b class="">Gifts and needs</b></span><br class="" /><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;">Kale that made it through the cold has gone to seed.</span><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;">Big leaves I used for pesto early in the spring</span><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;">have made way for stalk and flower.</span><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;">Order and logic suggest I pull them out—</span><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;">let old make way for new.</span><br class="" /><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;">I could use the space, it’s true. And yet, and yet</span><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;">these little buds are just the thing in salad greens</span><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;">bees are buzzing round the flowers</span><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;">and I would save some for the seeds.</span><br class="" /><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;">Could we find a way to honor all these gifts and needs?</span><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;">Pull one great plant, but pick the buds for salad,</span><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;">try for one last batch of pesto with the leaves</span><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;">plant new basil in that space,</span><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;">leave the second plant for bees and buds and seeds,</span><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;">maybe think again when basil needs more space?</span><br class="" /><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;">This dance is complex, yet I would choose it every time</span><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;">over straight rows, bare soil and mastery.</span><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;">My soul is nourished by the company.</span><br class="" /><br class="" /><br class="" /><div class=""><span class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px;"> </span><br class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><br class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><br class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><br class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><span class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: medium;"><b class="">Imagine: A new economy is possible!</b></span><br class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><span class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px;"><b class="">A growing circular food system in Sao Paulo, Brazil</b></span><br class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><br class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><span class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px;">Family farmers in São Paulo’s rural south grow food that is healthy for consumers, for the environment and for themselves. A chef in the bustling urban center designs his menu around fresh food that is on offer each week. And another sells affordable organic meals in the outskirts of the city. These are just a few faces of a circular economy transformation that is reshaping São Paulo’s food system.</span><br class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><br class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><span class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px;">A circular economy redesign of São Paulo’s food system represents a $140 million opportunity with the potential to drive down CO2 emissions and enhance local biodiversity. Navigating between its rural and urban territories, the short video, ‘A taste of circular economy in São Paulo’, shows how different actors within the city are working together to realize this opportunity in building a more regenerative, distributed and inclusive food system.</span><br class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><br class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><span class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px;"><a class="" href="https://www.ellenmacarthurfoundation.org/news/new-mini-documentary-showcases-s%C3%A3o-paulos-circular-food-system-transformation">https://www.ellenmacarthurfoundation.org/news/new-mini-documentary-showcases-são-paulos-circular-food-system-transformation</a></span><br class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><br class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><br class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><br class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><br class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><br class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><br class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><span class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: medium;"><b class="">Some things that have made me hopeful recently:</b></span><div class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;">Alaska voters’ adoption of ranked-choice voting as a way to combat polarization and increase voter choice.</span><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;"><a class="" href="https://www.vox.com/2020/11/19/21537126/alaska-measure-2-ranked-choice-voting-results">https://www.vox.com/2020/11/19/21537126/alaska-measure-2-ranked-choice-voting-results</a></span><br class="" /><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;">The successes of a campaign to get apparel companies to pay $22 billion owed to factories and workers throughout the global south.</span><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;"><a class="" href="https://wagingnonviolence.org/2021/03/payup-garment-workers-won-stolen-wages-fashion-industry/">https://wagingnonviolence.org/2021/03/payup-garment-workers-won-stolen-wages-fashion-industry/</a></span><br class="" /><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;">A stunning set of recent victories of climate activists over fossil fuel companies:</span><br class="" /><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;">The cancellation by its owner of the Keystone XL pipeline after years of opposition from climate campaigners</span><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;"><a class="" href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/jun/09/keystone-xl-pipeline-canceled">https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/jun/09/keystone-xl-pipeline-canceled</a></span><br class="" /><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;">A remarkable set of shareholder votes and court rulings that have scrambled the future of three of the world’s largest oil companies. </span><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;"><a class="" href="https://link.newyorker.com/view/5c92fd0e24c17c329bfe869be9uu1.n2e/d8d6252a">https://link.newyorker.com/view/5c92fd0e24c17c329bfe869be9uu1.n2e/d8d6252a</a></span><br class="" /><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;">A victory for Dutch environmental groups in a court ruling that gives Shell nine years to cut its carbon emissions by 45% from 2019 levels in order to comply with the Paris climate agreement.</span><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;"><a class="" href="https://insideclimatenews.org/news/26052021/dutch-court-gives-shell-nine-years-to-cut-its-carbon-emissions-by-45-percent-from-2019-levels/?">https://insideclimatenews.org/news/26052021/dutch-court-gives-shell-nine-years-to-cut-its-carbon-emissions-by-45-percent-from-2019-levels/?</a></span><br class="" /><br class="" /><br class="" /><br class="" /><br class="" /><br class="" /><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: medium;"><b class="">Resources</b></span></div><div class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;"><b class=""><br class="" /></b></span></div><div class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;"><b class="">Alive in this World</b></span></div><div class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;">A book of poetry in three parts: A Home with the Trees, Commuter Encounters, and A Home with the Earth</span></div><div class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><span class="" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">Available in paperback and e-book at <a class="" href="http://barnesandnoble.com/">barnesandnoble.com</a> and <a class="" href="http://amazon.com/">Amazon.com</a>.</span></div><div class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;"><br class="" /></span></div><div class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;"><b class="">That Clear and Certain Sound; Finding Solid Ground in Perilous Times</b></span></div><div class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;">A book of my essays, available via QuakerBooks or other on-line distributors</span></div><div class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;"><b class=""><br class="" /></b></span></div><div class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;"><b class="">The Financial Roots of the Climate Crisis</b> </span><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;">Link to a talk I gave at a church in Houston </span><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;"><a class="" href="https://vimeo.com/showcase/7910215">https://vimeo.com/showcase/7910215</a></span><br class="" /><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;"><b class="">Envision or Perish</b>; Why we must start imagining the world we want to live in </span><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;">An article I co-authored with George Lakey</span><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;"><a class="" href="https://wagingnonviolence.org/2021/02/envision-or-perish-why-we-must-start-imagining-the-world-we-want/">https://wagingnonviolence.org/2021/02/envision-or-perish-why-we-must-start-imagining-the-world-we-want/</a> </span><br class="" /><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;"><b class="">Money and Soul</b></span><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;">My newish book (based on a pamphlet of the same name) available via QuakerBooks or other on-line distributors.</span><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;">("If money troubles your soul, try this down-to-earth Quaker perspective on economies large and small.") </span><br class="" /><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;"><b class="">Money, Debt and Liberation</b></span><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;">A video of a talk I gave at Pendle Hill in January, 2019</span><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;"><a class="" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f7nP8eJ5vy8">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f7nP8eJ5vy8</a> </span><br class="" /><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;"><b class="">Toward a Right Relationship with Finance</b> </span><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;">A book that I co-authored on Debt, Interest, Growth and Security.</span><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;">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:</span><br class="" /><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="font-size: 14px; white-space: pre;"> </span><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;">• 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;</span><br class="" /><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="font-size: 14px; white-space: pre;"> </span><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;">• frames the conversation within the context of our deepest values and beliefs;</span><br class="" /><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="font-size: 14px; white-space: pre;"> </span><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;">• suggests plausible and historically grounded alternatives to the current system, particularly with regard to financing retirement; and</span><br class="" /><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="font-size: 14px; white-space: pre;"> </span><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;">• 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.</span><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;">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?</span><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;">To order the book, or read it on line, go to <a class="" href="http://www.quakerinstitute.org/?page_id=5">http://www.quakerinstitute.org/?page_id=5</a> and scroll down.</span><br class="" /><br class="" /><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;"><b class="">Finding Steady Ground</b></span><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;">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. </span><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;"><a class="" href="http://www.findingsteadyground.com/">www.findingsteadyground.com</a> </span><br class="" /><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;">Other resources from my friend Daniel Hunter</span><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;">Building a Movement to End the New Jim Crow; An Organizing Guide. <a class="" href="http://www.danielhunter.org/books/building-movement-end-new-jim-crow-">http://www.danielhunter.org/books/building-movement-end-new-jim-crow-</a>organizing-guide </span><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;">Climate Resistance Handbook, or I was part of a climate action. Now what? <a class="" href="https://commonslibrary.org/climate-resistance-handbook-or-i-was-part-of-a-">https://commonslibrary.org/climate-resistance-handbook-or-i-was-part-of-a-</a>climate-action-now-what/ </span><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;">Leading Groups On-Line. <a class="" href="https://www.trainingforchange.org/training_tools/leading-groups-online-book/">https://www.trainingforchange.org/training_tools/leading-groups-online-book/</a> </span><br class="" /><br class="" /><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;"><b class="">More resources</b></span><br class="" /><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;">Posts on other web/blog sites:</span><br class="" /><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;">In <a class="" href="http://www.classism.org/gifts-american-dream/">http://www.classism.org/gifts-american-dream/</a>, Pamela Haines locates her family's homey DIY celebrations on a class spectrum of different connections to upward mobility.</span><br class="" /><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;"> <a class="" href="http://www.transitionus.org/blog/unlikely-suspects-%E2%80%93-deep-outreach-diverse-initiating-groups-%E2%80%93-pace-building-trust">http://www.transitionus.org/blog/unlikely-suspects-–-deep-outreach-diverse-initiating-groups-–-pace-building-trust</a> </span><br class="" /><br class="" /><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="font-size: 14px; white-space: pre;"> </span><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;"> <a class="" href="http://www.classism.org/demolition-derby">http://www.classism.org/demolition-derby</a></span><br class="" /><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;">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: <a class="" href="https://www.peaceworkersus.org/docs/muscle_building_for_peace_and_justice.pdf">https://www.peaceworkersus.org/docs/muscle_building_for_peace_and_justice.pdf</a> (or just google the title)</span><br class="" /><br class="" /></div></div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline" />Pamela Living in this Worldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01728149865852062590noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2804921562771003682.post-7127539466293453192021-05-24T14:10:00.001-07:002022-01-11T09:31:53.159-08:00#214. Repair<p> <span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px;">Dear all,</span></p><br class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><span class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px;">I’m finding myself a little disoriented in this in-between time: Between avoiding human contact in the pandemic and the possibility that it might be safe again. Between the end of a very challenging and fulfilling project—teaching an understanding economics class to over a hundred non-economists from around the world—and what come next. Between the promise of spring and the reality of summer. Between the promise of a new administration and the reality of its limitations. Between ever-clearer glimpses of the possibility of living outside the constraints of conflict aversion and the weight of the Protestant work ethic, while the patterns of a lifetime still exert their force.</span><br class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><br class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><span class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px;">And so I focus on the present, with all its hour- and day-sized joys and challenges and opportunities. Wishing you grace in your in-between times as well.</span><br class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><br class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><span class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px;">Love,</span><br class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><span class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px;">Pamela</span><br class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><br class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><br class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><br class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><br class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><br class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><span class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: small;"><b class="">Creating the conditions for repair</b></span><br class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><br class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><span class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px;">Our grandson fell and broke a folding wooden table that holds a computer when we work in the bedroom. This table has served us well for decades, though never more intensively than during these months of pandemic. I finger the broken pieces and moving parts, wondering if I have the skill to make it whole again. Yet I value it and am not willing to just declare its usefulness over and throw it out—wherever “out” might be. So I get out the wood glue and the clamps, and fit the pieces together as best I can. The next day it still wobbles and I work on it some more. The repair is far from perfect, yet we are back in a working relationship and I am thankful.</span><br class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><br class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><span class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px;">I have struggled in a new relationship that crosses divisions of race and class. The opportunity to be close to this person is a precious gift. I am astonished at how she moves in the world—it is so different from my experience. We take on a project together and come to a point of conflict. Wishing in every bone in my body that this were not the reality, I wade in, knowing beyond a shadow of doubt that keeping my distance could easily be a mortal blow to the life of the relationship. I do my best, but the way I approach it leaves her feeling unseen and disrespected. I feel devastated.</span><br class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><br class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><span class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px;">I listen, try to understand, hold off on my urge to explain and defend, focus on the part that is mine to work on. I try hard to stay open to to everyone’s goodness, including mine, open to new perspectives and opportunities for growth, open to truth. As I learn, acknowledge, apologize, responding in the most open-hearted way I can summon, power dynamics are illuminated, the hard knot of conflict loosens, and the rift begins to mend. Incredibly, we find ourselves stronger on the other side.</span><br class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><br class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><span class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px;">I’ve known repairs that were simpler—sewing a button back on, taping a torn page, making an apology for a small thing in a solid relationship. These two were at the edge of my abilities and included some pretty rough edges. If we raise our sights to the repairs that are needed in the world, how much more daunting is that prospect? Trust has been shattered. Entire peoples—and the very earth—have been grievously wronged. We see damage so great that wholeness can seem like an impossible dream.</span><br class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><br class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><span class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px;">Yet I believe that the principles remain the same. And I can see only two choices here: to despair and give up, or to gather all the lessons we can from what makes repair possible and turn out lives in that direction. What does this look like? It means valuing what has been broken, understanding how the break has happened, feeling a sense of connection to our place in the brokenness, and being able to imagine the possibility of wholeness.</span><br class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><br class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><span class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px;">Ultimately, it involves believing we have the capacity, individually and collectively, to engage in the process of repair. This means not being so focused on our own grief, shame, or guilt at the break that we are immobilized and can’t pay attention to anything except ourselves. It means not being so intent on avoiding the pain of looking straight at great damage that we can’t grieve the loss. It means having access to the relationships that are key to the repair—including with those that we or our people have wronged. Finally, it means deciding to stay awake and alert to possibility, to stay in motion in the direction of repair.</span><br class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><br class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><span class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px;">As I reflect on that good little table, on that priceless relationship, and on all the possibilities for wholeness in a broken world, I can’t help but wonder if there is any more important skill than that of repair.</span><br class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><br class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><br class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><br class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><br class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><br class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><span class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: small;"><b class="">Hope in flight</b></span><br class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><br class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><span class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px;">The fate of the bald eagle shadowed my childhood.</span><br class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><span class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px;">Could we allow this great bird to go extinct</span><br class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><span class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px;">through careless inattention,</span><br class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><span class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px;">blind pursuit of lesser goals?</span><br class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><br class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><span class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px;">Their comeback sent a message:</span><br class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><span class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px;">maybe we could be redeemed.</span><br class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><span class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px;">I read of nest sites</span><br class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><span class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px;">slowly growing closer to this populated place.</span><br class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><span class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px;">Would I ever catch a glimpse of one myself?</span><br class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><br class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><span class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px;">A nearby bit of woods and water</span><br class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><span class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px;">ringed by airport, oil refineries, development</span><br class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><span class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px;">has managed to endure against all odds.</span><br class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><span class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px;">Late April, the day alive in every way</span><br class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><span class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px;">blue sky, spring green, high wind</span><br class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><span class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px;">I sighted one, then two</span><br class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><span class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px;">circling the water, beating back against the wind.</span><br class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><br class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><span class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px;">Decades of grieving laid to rest</span><br class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><span class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px;">waiting over, hope fulfilled</span><br class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><span class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px;">in that soaring flight.</span><br class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><br class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><br class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><div class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;"><br class="" /></span></div><div class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;"><br class="" /></span></div><div class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;"><br class="" /></span></div><div class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><b class=""><span class="" style="font-size: small;">Dare to imagine: A new economy is possible!</span></b></div><div class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><b class="" style="font-size: 14px;">Coop internet service provider</b><br class="" /><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;">Hundreds of cable technicians have banded together to create an affordable, pro-people telecom option in New York City. People’s Choice Communications is the culmination of years of research, organizing, and outreach by striking Charter-Spectrum workers as a lower-cost, publicly-owned alternative to the big players. “We are the workers who built a large part of New York City’s internet infrastructure in the first place,” PCC’s website explains. This employee-owned social enterprise is intended to “bridge the digital divide and help our neighbors get connected to the Internet during the COVID-19 pandemic.” So far, PCC has installed mass WiFi hubs at multiple schools and supportive housing buildings in the Bronx and Manhattan, allowing the group and its customer-owners to make use of thousands of miles of free conduit there, among other available infrastructure.</span><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;"><a class="" href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/janetwburns/2021/04/13/spectrum-strikers-launch-public-isp-for-and-by-the-people-of-nyc/?sh=321a5ed46494">https://www.forbes.com/sites/janetwburns/2021/04/13/spectrum-strikers-launch-public-isp-for-and-by-the-people-of-nyc/?sh=321a5ed46494</a></span><br class="" /><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;"> </span><br class="" /><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;"> </span><br class="" /><br class="" /><b class=""><span class="" style="font-size: small;">Some things that have made me hopeful recently: </span></b><br class="" /><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;">How a union drive at Amazon’s warehouse in Bessemer, Alabama, though unsuccessful, made global headlines, with workers in Italy, Germany and India joining into an international struggle against the company’s harsh working conditions.</span><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;"><a class="" href="https://inthesetimes.com/article/workers-world-unite-amazon-union-busting-organizing-labor-rights">https://inthesetimes.com/article/workers-world-unite-amazon-union-busting-organizing-labor-rights</a></span><br class="" /><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;">A river in Quebec that has been granted legal rights as part of global 'personhood' movement.</span></div><div class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;"><a class="" href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/magpie-river-quebec-canada-personhood-1.5931067">https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/magpie-river-quebec-canada-personhood-1.5931067</a><br class="" /><br class="" />Progressive gains in Philadelphia’s primaries for judges and District Attorney, indicating widespread support for broader reforms in the criminal legal system.<br class="" /><a class="" href="https://theappeal.org/politicalreport/philadelphia-results-krasner-wins-judges/">https://theappeal.org/politicalreport/philadelphia-results-krasner-wins-judges/</a><br class="" /><br class="" />The small town of Batesville, Arkansas, which installed fifteen hundred solar panels in and around a school, saving it more than $600,000, and allowing for massive salary raises for teachers. <br class="" /><a class="" href="https://www.kristv.com/news/local-news/solar-panel-saves-arkansas-school-enough-for-teachers-get-up-to-15k-in-raises?">https://www.kristv.com/news/local-news/solar-panel-saves-arkansas-school-enough-for-teachers-get-up-to-15k-in-raises?</a><br class="" /><br class="" /><br class="" /></span><div class=""><blockquote class="" style="border-left-style: none; color: inherit; margin: inherit; padding: inherit;" type="cite"><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;"><br class="" /><br class="" /></span></blockquote><br class="" /><b class=""><span class="" style="font-size: small;">Resources </span></b><br class="" /><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;"><b class="">The Financial Roots of the Climate Crisis </b></span><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;">Link to a talk I gave at a church in Houston </span><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;"><a class="" href="https://vimeo.com/showcase/7910215">https://vimeo.com/showcase/7910215</a></span><br class="" /><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;"><b class="">Envision or Perish; Why we must start imagining the world we want to live in </b></span><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;">An article I co-authored with George Lakey</span><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;"><a class="" href="https://wagingnonviolence.org/2021/02/envision-or-perish-why-we-must-start-imagining-the-world-we-want/">https://wagingnonviolence.org/2021/02/envision-or-perish-why-we-must-start-imagining-the-world-we-want/</a> </span><br class="" /><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;"><b class="">Money and Soul</b></span><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;">My new book (based on a pamphlet of the same name) available via QuakerBooks or other on-line distributors.</span><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;">("If money troubles your soul, try this down-to-earth Quaker perspective on economies large and small.") </span><br class="" /><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;"><b class="">Money, Debt and Liberation</b></span><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;">A video of a talk I gave at Pendle Hill in January, 2019</span><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;"><a class="" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f7nP8eJ5vy8">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f7nP8eJ5vy8</a> </span><br class="" /><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;"><b class="">Toward a Right Relationship with Finance </b></span><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;">A book that I co-authored on Debt, Interest, Growth and Security.</span><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;">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:</span><br class="" /><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="font-size: 14px; white-space: pre;"> </span><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;">• 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;</span><br class="" /><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="font-size: 14px; white-space: pre;"> </span><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;">• frames the conversation within the context of our deepest values and beliefs;</span><br class="" /><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="font-size: 14px; white-space: pre;"> </span><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;">• suggests plausible and historically grounded alternatives to the current system, particularly with regard to financing retirement; and</span><br class="" /><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="font-size: 14px; white-space: pre;"> </span><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;">• 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.</span><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;">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?</span><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;">To order the book, or read it on line, go to <a class="" href="http://www.quakerinstitute.org/?page_id=5">http://www.quakerinstitute.org/?page_id=5</a> and scroll down.</span><br class="" /><br class="" /><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;"><b class="">Finding Steady Ground</b></span><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;">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. </span><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;"><a class="" href="http://www.findingsteadyground.com/">www.findingsteadyground.com</a> </span><br class="" /><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;">Other resources from my friend Daniel Hunter</span><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;">Building a Movement to End the New Jim Crow; An Organizing Guide. <a class="" href="http://www.danielhunter.org/books/building-movement-end-new-jim-crow-organizing-guide">http://www.danielhunter.org/books/building-movement-end-new-jim-crow-organizing-guide</a> </span><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;">Climate Resistance Handbook, or I was part of a climate action. Now what? <a class="" href="https://commonslibrary.org/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/</a> </span><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;">Leading Groups On-Line. <a class="" href="https://www.trainingforchange.org/training_tools/leading-groups-online-book/">https://www.trainingforchange.org/training_tools/leading-groups-online-book/</a> </span><br class="" /><br class="" /><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;"><b class="">More resources</b></span><br class="" /><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;">Posts on other web/blog sites:</span><br class="" /><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;">In <a class="" href="http://www.classism.org/gifts-american-dream/">http://www.classism.org/gifts-american-dream/</a>, Pamela Haines locates her family's homey DIY celebrations on a class spectrum of different connections to upward mobility.</span><br class="" /><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;"> <a class="" href="http://www.transitionus.org/blog/unlikely-suspects-%E2%80%93-deep-outreach-diverse-initiating-groups-%E2%80%93-pace-building-trust">http://www.transitionus.org/blog/unlikely-suspects-–-deep-outreach-diverse-initiating-groups-–-pace-building-trust</a> </span><br class="" /><br class="" /><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="font-size: 14px; white-space: pre;"> </span><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;"> <a class="" href="http://www.classism.org/demolition-derby">http://www.classism.org/demolition-derby</a></span><br class="" /><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;">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: <a class="" href="https://www.peaceworkersus.org/docs/muscle_building_for_peace_and_justice.pdf">https://www.peaceworkersus.org/docs/muscle_building_for_peace_and_justice.pdf</a> (or just google the title)</span></div></div>Pamela Living in this Worldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01728149865852062590noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2804921562771003682.post-70084975773643510092021-04-18T05:30:00.002-07:002022-01-11T09:32:37.725-08:00#213 Lines and Circles<p> <span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14px;">Dear all,</span></p><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-size: 14px;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-size: 14px;">In April it’s always hard to think about anything but spring—and we’re having a beautiful one—but I’ll try! </span></span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-size: 14px;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-size: 14px;">As more people get vaccinated, we are cautiously considering that more contact might be possible. Working with a great team to teach a six-session course on economics to co-counselors around the world has challenged my deep-seated habit of solo-functioning, and required me to imagine the possibilities of having even great impact by gathering others around. And I keep finding more ways to share the invitation to focus not just on what is desperately wrong and needs to be changed in this world, but on what is right and needs to be nourished.</span></span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-size: 14px;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-size: 14px;">Wishing you the nourishment that you need.</span></span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-size: 14px;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-size: 14px;">Love,</span></span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-size: 14px;">Pamela</span></span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-size: 14px;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-size: 14px;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-size: 14px;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-size: 14px;"><br /></span></span></div><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b>Lines and circles</b></span><br /><br /><span style="font-size: 14px;">In spring, my mind and heart come full circle. Here we are again in the most miraculous of seasons. Just as the earth turns every night toward the morning, it has been steadily turning all through the winter toward this rebirth. If I don’t catch the fullness of this transformation—if I miss a new bud, or the unfolding of a tiny leaf, or a bird song, if I fail to fully take in the freshness of a spring breeze, it is a loss. But there is always next year. Perhaps by then I will be even more attentive, more in tune. (And of course there are all the joys of summer, fall and winter to take in before spring comes around again.)</span><br /><br /><span style="font-size: 14px;">There is a richness to this circle that makes me wonder at our collective commitment to the line. This shows most clearly in our undying allegiance to the idea of progress, the idea that we’re on an ever-upward trajectory. The past deserves only our condescending sympathy. The future will be bigger, better, brighter. (I wonder, would we want the seasons to march on to every greater heights?) Even our clocks have abandoned the circle and joined with the line.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-size: 14px;">This allegiance to the march of progress comes at a cost. The linear model of extract, consume, discard, then extract even more is wreaking havoc on our economies, our planet and our psyches. The line on the graph that heads steadily upward often leaves out more than it shows. The rising yields of the Green Revolution also brought increased fossil fuel dependence, soil and water degradation and, with seeds that could not be saved, the threat to small farm sustainability. The steady expansion of the economy brings ever-increasing, and now intolerable, stress to the planet. The incredible growth of the stock market is mirrored by the ever-growing weight of debt that supports it. The staggering number of new products that are available to consumers (who have the means) has a stubbornly neutral, if not negative, impact on well-being. And what has been the cost of monotheism, in its replacement of earth wisdom with a dominant patriarchal authority?</span><br /><br /><span style="font-size: 14px;">I think it’s time to shift our allegiance from the line back to the circle. In agriculture, this means investing back in the soil and the farmers and farm communities. In production, it means planning so that the waste product of one process are the resources for another. In finance, it means lending in a way that reliably increases the wealth of the borrower.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-size: 14px;">Are there places where a commitment to the line still makes sense? Human evolution can certainly be shaped to fit the story line of progress, with ever-increasing domination and mastery. But isn’t evolution ultimately about developing the characteristics that best equip us to flourish within the circle of life? It could be argued that as a species we are on a linear, if uneven, path toward ever-greater enlightenment. Yet wouldn’t this better be seen as an unfolding of understanding from right where we are—a movement that is not directional, but up and out and down to the roots? Not an endless extraction of new truth from the universe and a discarding of the old, but a greater clarity, a settling into the wisdom that was always right there, waiting to be revealed? </span><br /><br /><span style="font-size: 14px;">If we commit to the line, can we ever mature and become wise? It’s unclear if this was ever a good fit for the human condition. The scientific and industrial revolutions, fueled by the gift of stored sunlight from ancient times, have certainly allowed for an explosion of knowledge and access to each other. Maybe we needed this blip in history, this experiment with the line, to provide us with some of the means of surviving what it has created.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-size: 14px;">But the costs now clearly outweigh the benefits. Our long-term survival depends on reclaiming our allegiance to the circle: to recommit to generation and regeneration rather than extraction, to thriving rather than growing, to embracing the constraints of the circle rather than remaining enslaved to the allure of the ever-rising line. It means coming around full circle to the indigenous wisdom in which all of us have our roots, cultivating an ever-deeper appreciation of that which comes around, and then comes around again. It means settling into the great circle of life.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-size: 14px;"> </span><br /><br /><br /><br /><span style="font-size: small;"><b>Will to live</b></span><br /><br /><span style="font-size: 14px;">I have a plan for this front garden plot,</span><br /><span style="font-size: 14px;">no more than four feet square—</span><br /><span style="font-size: 14px;">a narrow band of flowers in the front</span><br /><span style="font-size: 14px;">peas to climb the fence behind</span><br /><span style="font-size: 14px;">kale and basil in between</span><br /><span style="font-size: 14px;">all protected by a layer of mulch.</span><br /><span style="font-size: 14px;">A modest plan to balance beauty,</span><br /><span style="font-size: 14px;">nourishment and care of soil.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-size: 14px;">The peas are up.</span><br /><span style="font-size: 14px;">I crouch down to plant my kale—</span><br /><span style="font-size: 14px;">and am undone.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-size: 14px;">There’s no blank canvas here.</span><br /><span style="font-size: 14px;">Two earthworms with their thick bands joined</span><br /><span style="font-size: 14px;">have claimed the space to make new life.</span><br /><span style="font-size: 14px;">Countless tiny parsley leaves uncurl</span><br /><span style="font-size: 14px;">across the bed, from seeds that fell to earth last fall</span><br /><span style="font-size: 14px;">eager for the chance to grow,</span><br /><span style="font-size: 14px;">and I find poppies sprouting up as well.</span><br /><span style="font-size: 14px;">There’s life abundant here without my plans.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-size: 14px;">A layer of mulch laid thick would win</span><br /><span style="font-size: 14px;">against their will to grow.</span><br /><span style="font-size: 14px;">But do I want that victory?</span><br /><br /><span style="font-size: 14px;">The worms are fine, no need to worry there.</span><br /><span style="font-size: 14px;">I set four kale plants in amid the parsley,</span><br /><span style="font-size: 14px;">transplant some poppies to a planter by the street</span><br /><span style="font-size: 14px;">to make more room for basil down the road,</span><br /><span style="font-size: 14px;">abandon plans for mulch, at least for now.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-size: 14px;">We’ll find our way together in this bed,</span><br /><span style="font-size: 14px;">somehow.</span><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><span style="font-size: small;"><b>Dare to imagine: A new economy is possible</b></span><br /><span style="font-size: 14px;"><b>Investing in worker coops</b></span></span><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-size: 14px;"><b><br /></b>Seed Commons is a national network of locally rooted, non-extractive loan funds that brings the power of big finance under community control. By taking guidance from the grassroots and sharing capital and resources to invest in local coops, they are building the infrastructure necessary for a truly just, democratic and sustainable new economy. Non-extraction is one of the key principles of Seed Commons, and it dictates the terms for all of their loans and investments: <i>returns to the lender will never exceed the wealth created by the borrower using the capital.</i> This is often colloquially said as “a borrower will never be worse off than before working with us.” Seed Commons is a 501(c)(3) community development financial institution (CDFI).</span></span><div><span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-size: 14px;">https://seedcommons.org/about-seed-commons/ </span><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><span style="font-size: small;"><b>Some things that have made me hopeful recently:</b></span><br /><br /><span style="font-size: 14px;">The Chicago suburb of Evanston approving reparations for Black residents, a likely first.</span><br /><span style="font-size: 14px;">https://www.npr.org/2021/03/23/980277688/in-likely-first-chicago-suburb-of-evanston-approves-reparations-for-black-reside </span><br /><br /><span style="font-size: 14px;">How Mexico’s decision to ban Glyphosate has rocked the agribusiness world.</span><br /><span style="font-size: 14px;">https://www.commondreams.org/views/2021/02/24/mexicos-decision-ban-glyphosate-has-rocked-agribusiness-world </span><br /><br /><span style="font-size: 14px;">The response to rising anti-immigrant sentiment by a Danish group working to integrate new arrivals to Copenhagen by taking care of honeybees.</span></span><div><span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-size: 14px;">https://www.yesmagazine.org/social-justice/2021/04/02/denmark-refugees-honeybees?</span></span><blockquote style="border-left-style: none; color: inherit; margin: inherit; padding: inherit;" type="cite"><span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-size: 14px;"><br />The sign from the University of Michigan’s decision to divest from fossil fuels that change is here.</span></span></blockquote><blockquote style="border-left-style: none; color: inherit; margin: inherit; padding: inherit;" type="cite"><span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-size: 14px;">https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/mar/27/university-of-michigan-divesting-fossil-fuels-change-is-here<br /></span></span></blockquote><span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-size: 14px;"><br /></span></span><blockquote style="border-left-style: none; color: inherit; margin: inherit; padding: inherit;" type="cite"><span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-size: 14px;"><br /><br /></span></span></blockquote><br /><span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-size: 14px;"><br /></span></span><div id="AppleMailSignature"><span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b>Resources </b></span><br /><br /><span style="font-size: 14px;">The Financial Roots of the Climate Crisis </span><br /><span style="font-size: 14px;">Link to a talk I gave at a church in Houston </span><br /><span style="font-size: 14px;">https://vimeo.com/showcase/7910215</span><br /><br /><span style="font-size: 14px;">Envision or Perish; Why we must start imagining the world we want to live in </span><br /><span style="font-size: 14px;">An article I co-authored with George Lakey</span><br /><span style="font-size: 14px;">https://wagingnonviolence.org/2021/02/envision-or-perish-why-we-must-start-imagining-the-world-we-want/ </span><br /><br /><span style="font-size: 14px;">Money and Soul</span><br /><span style="font-size: 14px;">My new book (based on a pamphlet of the same name) available via QuakerBooks or other on-line distributors.</span><br /><span style="font-size: 14px;">("If money troubles your soul, try this down-to-earth Quaker perspective on economies large and small.") </span><br /><br /><span style="font-size: 14px;">Money, Debt and Liberation</span><br /><span style="font-size: 14px;">A video of a talk I gave at Pendle Hill in January, 2019</span><br /><span style="font-size: 14px;">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f7nP8eJ5vy8 </span><br /><br /><span style="font-size: 14px;">Toward a Right Relationship with Finance </span><br /><span style="font-size: 14px;">A book that I co-authored on Debt, Interest, Growth and Security.</span><br /><span style="font-size: 14px;">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:</span><br /><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="font-size: 14px; white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="font-size: 14px;">• 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;</span><br /><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="font-size: 14px; white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="font-size: 14px;">• frames the conversation within the context of our deepest values and beliefs;</span><br /><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="font-size: 14px; white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="font-size: 14px;">• suggests plausible and historically grounded alternatives to the current system, particularly with regard to financing retirement; and</span><br /><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="font-size: 14px; white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="font-size: 14px;">• 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.</span><br /><span style="font-size: 14px;">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?</span><br /><span style="font-size: 14px;">To order the book, or read it on line, go to http://www.quakerinstitute.org/?page_id=5 and scroll down.</span><br /><br /><br /><span style="font-size: 14px;">Finding Steady Ground</span><br /><span style="font-size: 14px;">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. </span><br /><span style="font-size: 14px;">www.findingsteadyground.com </span><br /><br /><span style="font-size: 14px;">Other resources from my friend Daniel Hunter</span><br /><span style="font-size: 14px;">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 </span><br /><span style="font-size: 14px;">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/ </span><br /><span style="font-size: 14px;">Leading Groups On-Line. https://www.trainingforchange.org/training_tools/leading-groups-online-book/ </span><br /><br /><br /><span style="font-size: 14px;"><b>More resources</b></span><br /><br /><span style="font-size: 14px;">Posts on other web/blog sites:</span><br /><br /><span style="font-size: 14px;">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.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-size: 14px;"> http://www.transitionus.org/blog/unlikely-suspects-–-deep-outreach-diverse-initiating-groups-–-pace-building-trust </span><br /><br /><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="font-size: 14px; white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="font-size: 14px;"> http://www.classism.org/demolition-derby</span><br /><br /><span style="font-size: 14px;">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)</span><br /><br /></span></div></div></div></div>Pamela Living in this Worldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01728149865852062590noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2804921562771003682.post-68689104826330576222021-02-20T05:47:00.003-08:002022-01-11T09:33:20.632-08:00#211 Taking and Joining<p> <span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">Dear all,</span></p><br style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">In the midst of a very cold and snowy February, I’ve found myself cultivating and harvesting some unexpected fruits. </span><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><ul><li>The seed of a reflection on dandelions grew and ended up being published in <i>Friends Journal</i>, https://www.friendsjournal.org/dandelions-and-domination/ . </li><li>A conversation with my friend George Lakey about the importance of tending to vision grew into an article in <i>Waging Nonviolence</i>, https://wagingnonviolence.org/2021/02/envision-or-perish-why-we-must-start-imagining-the-world-we-want/. </li><li>And a conviction that those who care about climate need to understand economics has generated an online class series for our peer counseling community, starting with a robust and well-received intro with folks from across the world! </li></ul></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">I’m reminded of all the different kinds of seeds that are out there, just lying in waiting for the right conditions to sprout and grow. <div><br /></div><div>And here is a reflection that I’ve been holding for a while, as our collective attention has been riveted on the national scene.<br /><br />Love,<br />Pamela<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><span style="font-size: 14px;"><b>Taking and joining</b></span><br /><br />I may have heard of the Navajo in my childhood. I undoubtedly saw images that got lodged in my brain. I do remember, as a young adult, driving through a reservation in the Southwest, and feeling uncomfortably like a voyeur. My most substantial introduction came with a series of mystery novels set in Navajo land. They were well-written, sympathetic, full of details of daily life, and I was captivated.<br /><br />I had picked up a critical overall perspective on our country’s past and present treatment of its native population as a young adult, but was well past middle age before I decided that more was required of me in this area. I began reading in more depth. Following my sister, I took steps that eventually grew into rich connections and real relationships with members of the Haudenosaunee nation. I started the painful work of confronting my settler identity. I looked for and found ways to engage in the struggle around Standing Rock.<br /><br />During this time, I picked up a book of short stories set on a native reservation, by an author whose name was familiar, prepared to deepen my experience in yet another way. When something about the tone didn’t sit well I looked him up, to discover that he was of European descent and had chosen the genre for its market appeal. The feeling of violation was visceral. The people whom he claimed to be representing had been used, in a way that turned my stomach. My trust in the integrity of the storyteller had been violated as well. The painful shock of this up close and personal experience with Native cultural appropriation helped me to recognize it in other places and be clear about the harm it caused, whether as a punch in the gut to a Native person or through the insidious distortion of history and reality for the rest of us.<br /><br />Finding myself with all my pores open to Native experience, a news item that COVID was spreading on the Navajo Nation, and that they were struggling to contain the flow of outside traffic through the reservation, went to my heart. This was at the same time that my partner and I were working our way through an archive of Native films that a friend had shared with us. Three were about the Navajo—a girls’ basketball saga; a coming-of-age story told by a woman who was returning to the reservation in search of her roots; and one with a rich mix of the experience of acting in old westerns, losing a child to missionaries, and the health impacts of uranium mining. Though I could no longer enjoy those well-plotted mysteries set by an outsider in the Four Corners, I was finally getting to see through the eyes of trustworthy sources.<br /><br />And then two more things happened. I had been getting to know a lovely and passionate young woman, and just as I had found a way to invite her into even closer connection she said that she was heading back to the Navajo reservation to be with her grandfather who was dying of COVID. Within a week I got a message out of the blue from a rabble-rousing friend from my young-adult years who had gone into public health and adventured in Cuba and Guatemala along the way. He was now at the federal Center for Disease Control, working on containing COVID with the health department of the Navajo Nation.<br /><br />For so many years, my relationship to the Navajo had been all about me. From a mixture of incomplete history, fragmented and romanticized images, and tales of questionable authenticity, I had constructed a story that satisfied my needs for some kind of safe familiarity. While I wasn’t engaged in cultural appropriation for fame or profit, I was essentially a taker.<br /><br />Now, having immersed myself in Native voices, done some work, and gained the benefits of relationship building closer to home, I was finding my way toward more solid ground. Through the people who shared themselves in those videos, my new friend and her grieving family, my old friend and the health care workers he is getting to know, I could connect with real people, with their love for a real place, with real present-time joys and sorrows. I could hear the echoes from the past, and glimpse a place for me in a future that includes us all.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><span style="font-size: 14px;"><b>Kind and nice</b></span><br /><br />Nice is a coating, an armor<br />It tends to outer things, can soothe or scare.<br />Who knows what lies beneath?<br /><br />Kind has a power source deep inside<br />It pushes out from inner realms<br />Can pierce through nice.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><b><span style="font-size: 14px;">Dare to Imagine: A new economy is possible!</span><br />Zero Waste</b><br /><br />The roots of Zero Waste in Europe were in Capannori, a town of 46,700 in Northern Italy. After a successful citizen-led movement against a proposed incinerator, the town committed in 2007 to send zero waste to landfills by 2020. Residents were consulted door to door; bins, bags and composting kits were provided; a new tariff on measured waste was introduced; composting, recycling, reuse and upcycling were encouraged; disposable diapers were subsidized; milk was provided direct from farmers with almost all customers providing their own containers; cloth shopping bags were distributed to all households; the use of disposable cutlery was halted in schools and other government settings.<br /><br />With this proactive, holistic approach and the involvement of residents in all stages of policy development, the municipality now has one of the highest waste segregation rates in Europe, with 82% of its waste sorted. The money city council has saved on waste recycling has been spent on a reduction in waste tax per capita and building a composting plant, and new workplaces have been created in the region. Everybody benefits: the cheapest waste for buyers, municipalities and the environment is that which is never created. Today hundreds of European municipalities are following the example of Capannori.<br /><br />https://www.downtoearth.org.in/news/waste/ten-zero-waste-cities-how-capannori-inspired-other-european-municipalities-on-zero-waste-68623<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><span style="font-size: 14px;"><b>Some things that have made me hopeful recently</b></span><br /><br />The city of Paris, France, is launching a new participatory budgeting project that will allow 25% of the city’s budget from now until 2026 to be decided with citizen input. https://citymonitor.ai/government/civic-engagement/how-paris-participatory-budget-is-reinvigorating-democracy?<br /><br />Tribal biologists have confirmed that chinook salmon are spawning in the upper-Columbia River system in Washington state for the first time in 80 years.<br />https://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/salmon-spawn-again-on-colville-tribes-sanpoil-river/?<div><br /></div><div>In a global first, women will make up half the constitutional convention to write Chile’s new constitution.<br />https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/10/30/chile-voted-write-new-constitution-will-it-promise-more-than-government-can-deliver/<br /><blockquote style="border-left-style: none; color: inherit; margin: inherit; padding: inherit;" type="cite"><br />Illinois is poised to become the first state in the country to completely end the use of cash bail, with a law passed by the state legislature that is expected to be signed by the governor into law. <br /></blockquote><div id="AppleMailSignature"><blockquote style="border-left-style: none; color: inherit; margin: inherit; padding: inherit;" type="cite">https://inthesetimes.com/article/money-bond-pretrial-fairness-freedom-incarceration-jail-illinois<br /></blockquote><div id="AppleMailSignature"><br /></div><div id="AppleMailSignature"><br /></div><div id="AppleMailSignature"><br /></div><div id="AppleMailSignature"><br /></div><div class=""><div class=""><br class="" /><br class="" /><div class=""><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;"><b class="">Resources </b></span><br class="" /><br class="" /><b class="">Finding Steady Ground</b><br class="" />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. <br class="" /><a href="http://www.findingsteadyground.com/">www.findingsteadyground.com</a> <br class="" /><br class="" />Other resources from my friend Daniel Hunter<br class="" />Building a Movement to End the New Jim Crow; An Organizing Guide. <a href="http://www.danielhunter.org/books/building-movement-end-new-jim-crow-organizing-guide">http://www.danielhunter.org/books/building-movement-end-new-jim-crow-organizing-guide</a> <br class="" />Climate Resistance Handbook, or I was part of a climate action. Now what? <a href="https://commonslibrary.org/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/</a><br class="" />Leading Groups On-Line. <a href="https://www.trainingforchange.org/training_tools/leading-groups-online-book/">https://www.trainingforchange.org/training_tools/leading-groups-online-book/</a> <br class="" /><br class="" /><b class=""><i class="">Money and Soul</i></b><br class="" />My new book (based on a pamphlet of the same name) available via QuakerBooks or other on-line distributors.<br class="" />("If money troubles your soul, try this down-to-earth Quaker perspective on economies large and small.") <br class="" /><br class="" /><b class="">Money, Debt and Liberation</b><br class="" />A video of a talk I gave at Pendle Hill in January, 2019<br class="" /><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f7nP8eJ5vy8">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f7nP8eJ5vy8</a><br class="" /><br class="" /><b class="">Toward a Right Relationship with Finance</b> <br class="" />A book that I co-authored on Debt, Interest, Growth and Security.<br class="" />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:<br class="" /><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>• 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;<br class="" /><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>• frames the conversation within the context of our deepest values and beliefs;<br class="" /><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>• suggests plausible and historically grounded alternatives to the current system, particularly with regard to financing retirement; and<br class="" /><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>• 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.<br class="" />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?<br class="" />To order the book, or read it on line, go to <a href="http://www.quakerinstitute.org/?page_id=5">http://www.quakerinstitute.org/?page_id=5</a> and scroll down.<br class="" /><br class="" /><br class="" /><b class="">More resources</b><br class="" /><br class="" />Posts on other web/blog sites:<br class="" /><br class="" />In <a href="http://www.classism.org/gifts-american-dream/">http://www.classism.org/gifts-american-dream/</a>, Pamela Haines locates her family's homey DIY celebrations on a class spectrum of different connections to upward mobility.<br class="" /><br class="" /> <a href="http://www.transitionus.org/blog/unlikely-suspects-%E2%80%93-deep-outreach-diverse-initiating-groups-%E2%80%93-pace-building-trust">http://www.transitionus.org/blog/unlikely-suspects-–-deep-outreach-diverse-initiating-groups-–-pace-building-trust</a> <br class="" /><br class="" /><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> <a href="http://www.classism.org/demolition-derby">http://www.classism.org/demolition-derby</a><br class="" /><br class="" />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: <a href="https://www.peaceworkersus.org/docs/muscle_building_for_peace_and_justice.pdf">https://www.peaceworkersus.org/docs/muscle_building_for_peace_and_justice.pdf</a> (or just google the title)<br class="" /><br class="" /><br class="" /></div></div></div></div></div></div></div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline" />Pamela Living in this Worldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01728149865852062590noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2804921562771003682.post-64581866530872875442021-01-24T05:55:00.002-08:002022-01-11T09:34:06.485-08:00#210 Coarse and smooth<p> <span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">Dear all,</span></p><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">What a time we’ve been through! Now that the inauguration is behind us, we’re no longer waiting to exhale, and are breathing some better air, I’m looking forward to being able to turn our attention to other things. But I think it might still be too early. So I’m going to wait till next month to share some thinking about settler relationships with indigenous experience, and go with a brief reflection on the transition we are currently in.</div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">I’m continuing to love being out in the mornings when darkness turns to light, and am thankful for all the points of goodness, hope and connection that are there to be found when I put my attention in their direction.</div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">Love,</div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">Pamela</div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><br /></div><div class="ApplePlainTextBody" dir="auto" style="-webkit-nbsp-mode: space; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;"><br /></div><div class="ApplePlainTextBody" dir="auto" style="-webkit-nbsp-mode: space; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;"><br /></div><div class="ApplePlainTextBody" dir="auto" style="-webkit-nbsp-mode: space; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; line-break: after-white-space; word-wrap: break-word;"><br /></div><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px;"><b>Coarse and smooth</b></span><br style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><br style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">With a new administration, many of us are feeling great</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"> </span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">relief in the break from unrelenting coarseness and constant</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"> </span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">abrasion in our</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"> </span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">public discourse. Yet I can’t help but reflect on the reality that many others among</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"> </span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">us actually found this</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"> </span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">tone attractive. As I wondered what there could be to</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"> </span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">love about coarseness, I began to consider that its opposite—</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">smooth—can be</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"> </span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">problematic as well.</span><br style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><br style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">Think of those slick politicians whose oily speeches cover</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"> </span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">real issues with a slippery coat of fine-sounding words that</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"> </span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">leaves no place to</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"> </span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">get a grip. Or think of the smooth surface of a carefully crafted, but</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"> </span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">ultimately false, pseudo-reality that</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"> </span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">provides its inhabitants with no way to see,</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"> </span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">much less challenge, its lies. Or just think of an icy sidewalk, the ultimate</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"> </span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">in</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"> </span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">smoothness, and how good it would be to have a little grit beneath your</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"> </span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">feet.</span><br style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><br style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">As someone who has done my share of wood repair, I know that</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"> </span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">sometimes you need to first abrade the surfaces you</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"> </span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">want to join before applying</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"> </span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">the glue. Two smooth surfaces cannot easily come together in a strong bond. Those</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"> </span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">little</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"> </span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">wood fibers need to be sticking out, to give the glue something to hold</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"> </span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">onto.</span><br style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><br style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">Now make no mistake. I am thrilled to be free from the unrelenting</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"> </span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">coarseness that was the hallmark of our last</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"> </span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">president. The continual abrasion</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"> </span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">was painful, like having one’s elbows and knees freshly scraped each day, constantly</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"> </span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">raw and unprotected. I rest deeply in a new tone of civility and kindness. And</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"> </span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">I have a great respect for the power of</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"> </span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">courtesy in helping the complex mechanisms</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"> </span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">of social interaction to function smoothly. Yet I’m not prepared to give up on</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"> </span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">grit, or on the people who would choose it over smoothness.</span><br style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><br style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">What would it mean for all of us who are feeling such relief</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"> </span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">on the departure of Trump to commit with equal intensity to</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"> </span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">cutting through</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"> </span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">nice words to expose painful truths, to challenge a smoothness that chooses</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"> </span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">comfort over justice, to</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"> </span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">willingly follow anger to its source? Maybe there’s something to be learned about</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"> the abrasion of the sandpaper as well as the</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"> </span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">smoothness of</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"> the glue that together create the conditions for a stronger mend. </span><br style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><br style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><br style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><br style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><br style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><br style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px;"><b>Community service</b></span><br style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"> </span><br style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">When COVID came</span><br style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">the only reading source nearby</span><br style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">was the tiny free library box</span><br style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">at the corner of the park.</span><br style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><br style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">Our house was stuffed with books</span><br style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">we’d never read again</span><br style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">so every morning on my walk</span><br style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">I took three or four to share</span><br style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">all through the spring.</span><br style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><br style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">I loved to see them gone,</span><br style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">knowing they’d been chosen,</span><br style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">adding value to a stranger’s life.</span><br style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><br style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">By June I finish culling every shelf,</span><br style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">begin to look for free books on my walks,</span><br style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">to save them from the rain </span><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">and from the trash, for higher use.<br /><br />All fall I bring my little offering<br />each early morning, straighten shelves<br />notice what has come in<br />what has gone.<br /><br />Then one day, deep in winter,<br />I see a woman stop, consider<br />choose a book, walk on—<br />a human face to this need I have served<br />for all these months.<br /><br /><br /> <div><br /></div><div><span style="font-size: 14px;"><b><br />Dare to imagine: a new economy is possible!</b></span><br /><b><br /></b></div><div><b>Battery recycling</b><br /><br />With the demand for batteries soaring, especially in the growing electric car market, and more than 500,000 tons of lithium batteries being tossed worldwide, we need a “circular” system that builds the next generation of batteries from the materials of the last.<br /><br />Start-up, Redwood Materials, currently handles all the waste materials and defective batteries coming out of the nearby Tesla Gigafactory, using proprietary processes involving a combination of burning batteries to melt their contents and submerging them in liquids that leach out desired elements, recovering 95% to 98% of the nickel, cobalt, aluminum, graphite, and more than 80% of the lithium. Much of those materials are sold back to make new Tesla batteries.<br /><br />Another start-up, Li-Cycle, collects batteries at local “spoke” facilities, which shred them into three components: plastic casings, mixed metals (such as foils), and the active materials like cobalt and nickel at the battery’s heart — a dark dust known as “black mass.” Li-Cycle can sell these materials directly or ship the black mass to a central “hub” factory and immerse it in liquids in a process that extracts the metals, including lithium, at 90% to 95% efficiency. <br /><br />A more efficient route may be to recycle batteries at a level of renovation rather than demolition, salvaging their larger molecular structure as opposed to their atoms. In the case of lithium-ion batteries, this means replacing the lithium, a little bit of which gets stuck to the battery’s molecular scaffolding during every charge and discharge until the battery runs out of freely flowing lithium. OnTo Technology, a battery research firm, has disassembled recalled Apple batteries, and soaked their active materials in a lithium-rich bath to restore them to pristine condition, with the final product marking the first full fuel cell re-assembled from an industrial source.<br /><br />https://www.cnbc.com/2020/12/12/amazon-panasonic-preparing-for-demand-of-battery-recycling.html<br /><br /><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><span style="font-size: 14px;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: 14px;"><b>Some things that have made me hopeful recently</b></span>. (This month I find myself thinking of groups, rather than events)</div><div><br /></div><div>The Public Banking Institute is the umbrella under which a remarkable movement is taking place, for reclaiming our public resources from private profit-maximizing financial institutions back to public use for public good.</div><div>https://www.publicbankinginstitute.org/<br /><br />Friends Peace Teams, Asia West Pacific, supports peace workers in areas of conflict and suffering, seeking to restore and nurture peace, share stories of nonviolence, healing and reconciliation, discover our common humanity and celebrate our rich cultural diversity.<br />https://friendspeaceteams.org/awp/<br /><br /></div><div>Ekta Parishad, a mass-based Gandhian peoples' movement for land rights in India, with an active membership of 250,000 landless poor, promotes nonviolence as a way for the struggle, dialogue, and constructive actions towards building a peaceful and just society.</div><div>https://www.ektaparishadindia.org/oursuccess<br /><br />Germantown Residents for Economic Alternatives Together (GREAT), a grassroots and visionary group of neighbors in Philadelphia sharing common interest in working toward cooperative ownership, resource/skill-sharing, and active citizenship where people of the community shape the development that occurs. <br />https://www.greatgtown.org/<br /><br /> <br /><br /><br /><div id="AppleMailSignature"><span style="font-size: 14px;"><b>Resources </b></span><br /><br /><b>Finding Steady Ground</b><br />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. <br />www.findingsteadyground.com <br /><br />Other resources from my friend Daniel Hunter<br />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 <br />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/<br />Leading Groups On-Line. https://www.trainingforchange.org/training_tools/leading-groups-online-book/ <br /><br /><b><i>Money and Soul</i></b><br />My new book (based on a pamphlet of the same name) available via QuakerBooks or other on-line distributors.<br />("If money troubles your soul, try this down-to-earth Quaker perspective on economies large and small.") <br /><br /><b>Money, Debt and Liberation</b><br />A video of a talk I gave at Pendle Hill in January, 2019<br />https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f7nP8eJ5vy8<br /><br /><b>Toward a Right Relationship with Finance</b> <br />A book that I co-authored on Debt, Interest, Growth and Security.<br />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:<br /><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>• 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;<br /><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>• frames the conversation within the context of our deepest values and beliefs;<br /><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>• suggests plausible and historically grounded alternatives to the current system, particularly with regard to financing retirement; and<br /><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>• 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.<br />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?<br />To order the book, or read it on line, go to http://www.quakerinstitute.org/?page_id=5 and scroll down.<br /><br /><br /><b>More resources</b><br /><br />Posts on other web/blog sites:<br /><br />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.<br /><br /> http://www.transitionus.org/blog/unlikely-suspects-–-deep-outreach-diverse-initiating-groups-–-pace-building-trust <br /><br /><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> http://www.classism.org/demolition-derby<br /><br />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)<br /><br /><br /></div></div></div>Pamela Living in this Worldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01728149865852062590noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2804921562771003682.post-55331872459624466752020-12-19T05:24:00.004-08:002022-01-11T09:34:52.152-08:00#209 Well-being and the commons<p> <span style="font-family: Arial;">Dear all,</span></p><div><span style="font-family: Arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: Arial;">I’ve been surprised by how unsettled I’ve felt since the election. Maybe it’s like the lull between storms; you’ve made it through a big one, but are feeling a little battered and not quite ready to face what’s surely coming next. We’re all so tired. It’s been very good for me to start my day with an early morning walk, being present to the world as it turns from darkness to light. And here we are almost at the solstice, another opportunity to celebrate!</span></div><div><span style="font-family: Arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: Arial;">As many of us head into winter holidays, I wish us all good nourishment and refreshment, and times that help ground our spirits for the year ahead.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: Arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: Arial;">Love,</span></div><div><span style="font-family: Arial;">Pamela </span></div><div><span style="font-family: Arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: Arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: Arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: Arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px;"><br /><span style="font-size: 14px;"><b>Well-being and the commons</b></span><br /><br />A young woman I know is deeply engaged in the climate struggle. She has found a home, and increasing responsibility, in a youth movement that is playing a significant role in pushing climate issues toward the center of our political conversation. It’s hard. She works long hours. The stakes are high, there are many setbacks and it’s easy to get discouraged. She misses her family who live far away. She wonders if she’s doing the right thing, worries that she’s not doing enough.<br /><br />Her therapist tries to steer her toward greater attention to her well-being: Think about yourself for a change. Don’t work so hard. Close your computer at 5:00. Do things that bring you joy. This all has the sound of good advice, yet she feels unheard somehow, dissatisfied.<br /><br />As I listen to her explore this sense that something has not been acknowledged, the theme of individualism begins to rise to the surface. Everything the therapist has suggested assumes that the solutions will be personal: You are having a unique and separate problem of overwork and accompanying depression. We need to find ways that you, as an individual, can craft decisions and actions that will address this problem and make you feel better.<br /><br />But what if the problem is not individual? The underlying reason that she is working so hard and feeling so badly about not doing enough is the threat of the climate emergency—the threat to the future of human life on earth. In the face of this threat, many people have responded by resolutely looking the other way, willing themselves to believe that they have no role to play, and pulling their attention away from the reality of what is unfolding around them through pleasurable distractions.<br /><br />I imagine the therapist wasn’t suggesting that this young woman give up the work altogether. I imagine she was just trying for balance. But in her emphasis on finding a set of individual solutions, she was missing an obvious alternative perspective. If the problem is one that is widely shared, maybe the solution lies in community as well.<br /><br />It may make sense for this young woman to do all the things the therapist suggests at times. It certainly wouldn’t be good for her to just put her head down, ignore the signs and continue down a path toward deeper depression, burnout and abandonment of the goal altogether. But there’s a third path, a way between endless lonely work for the public good and endless pursuit of private pleasures. It’s not well trodden, but her group is working in that direction, and it may be the one with the most promise for enduring happiness. This is the path of working together for a compelling cause, agreeing to long hours together during stretches when the stakes are particularly high, making shared agreements to rest deeply at other times, helping each other recognize what brings individual joy, and backing each other to do those things, all with a shared eye both on the goal and on each other’s welfare.<br /><br />This is a path where everyone in a group effort is encouraged to stop and breathe, to share the tiniest successes widely, to leave no possible appreciation of someone else on the team unspoken; where small halts are called for everyone to pursue a private pleasure before getting back to work; where there is enough perspective to discern when longer breaks will add to the overall effort rather than hold it back; where everyone celebrates with abandon at times.<br /><br />People used to work together to bring in the harvest. We now have a different form of common work to ensure our future. Not all of us will be full-time climate activists. But we could all benefit from bringing more of our work and our pleasures back into the commons. As we find our part in that work, we can sweat together through the crunch times, then dance and sing together in the lulls, gathering strength for what lies ahead.<br /><br /> <br /><br /><br /><br /><span style="font-size: 14px;"><b> Crescent</b></span><br /><br />The waning crescent floating low at dawn<br />fills me as I start my day.<br /><br />To hope to see her one more time<br />before she turns away seems bold.<br /><br />Braced for a moonless morning walk<br />I almost miss her<br /><br />Such a tiny sliver, hung so low<br />my breath is caught.<br /><br />New moon, then turn my sights to sunset<br />chafe at all that keeps me in.<br /><br />Next night I plan an evening walk<br />timed for after dark, before moonset.<br /><br />Heading west, I scan for gaps in buildings<br />knowing she’ll be low.<br /><br />Press on and on, then find her<br />hanging beautiful<br /><br />Serene and constant, steadying<br />a treasure to behold.<br /><br /> <br /><br /><br /><br /></span><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-size: 14px;"><b>Dare to imagine: a new economy is possible!</b></span></span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-size: 14px;"><b>Cooperative Energy</b></span></span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><span style="font-family: Arial;"><br /></span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">Cooperative Energy Futures is a Minnesota-based community-owned for-profit clean energy cooperative that focuses on developing renewable energy, energy efficiency, and other clean energy solutions while building community wealth. CEF has financed and developed 6.9 megawatts (about $16 million) of low-income-accessible community solar arrays that are cooperatively-owned-and-operated across urban, suburban, and rural Minnesota, offsetting the utility bills of over 700 Minnesota households for the next 25 years.<br /><br />As the co-op generates profit, whatever is not reinvested is distributed as dividends to members through a combination of cash and equity. For equity, we invest in new activities that preserve and grow the wealth, for example by financing home insulation and other home upgrades to our members. The co-op creates a democratic process of deciding how much net profit we want to reinvest together versus distribute individually. We also pay community-based organizations for the service of helping us find subscribers, require all of our installation contractors to use at least 50 percent minority labor, and support partner organizations who provide solar workforce training by helping place trainees.<br /><br />CEF is creating a model where teams of people in every community are working to produce, manage, and wisely use the energy that they need to thrive. We strive to give people and communities agency, power, and decision-making authority over the energy systems that sustain their homes, their communities, and their economy.<br /><br />https://ips-dc.org/a-minnesota-cooperative-shares-the-wealth-while-advancing-a-clean-energy-future/?utm_campaign=ipsnews-120420&emci=d1f78969-5536-eb11-9fb4-00155d43b2cd&emdi=12d4c45d-5f36-eb11-9fb4-00155d43b2cd&ceid=4288612<br /><br /></span><br /><br /><blockquote style="border-left-style: none; margin: inherit; padding: inherit;" type="cite"><blockquote class="" style="border-left-style: none; margin: inherit; padding: inherit;" type="cite"></blockquote><span style="font-family: Arial;"><br /></span><blockquote class="" style="border-left-style: none; margin: inherit; padding: inherit;" type="cite"></blockquote><span style="font-family: Arial;"><br /></span><blockquote class="" style="border-left-style: none; margin: inherit; padding: inherit;" type="cite"></blockquote><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-size: 14px;"><b>Some things that made me hopeful about the election:</b></span><br /></span><blockquote class="" style="border-left-style: none; margin: inherit; padding: inherit;" type="cite"></blockquote><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial;"><br /></span><blockquote class="" style="border-left-style: none; margin: inherit; padding: inherit;" type="cite"></blockquote><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial;">How Native American voters helped swing crucial states in the 2020 election.</span><blockquote class="" style="border-left-style: none; margin: inherit; padding: inherit;" type="cite"></blockquote><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial;">https://www.colorlines.com/articles/native-american-voters-helped-swing-crucial-states-2020-presidential-election <br /></span><blockquote class="" style="border-left-style: none; margin: inherit; padding: inherit;" type="cite"></blockquote><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial;"><br /></span><blockquote class="" style="border-left-style: none; margin: inherit; padding: inherit;" type="cite"></blockquote><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial;">Orange County, Florida, the largest municipality in the United States, where voters overwhelmingly approved a "rights of nature” initiative,, recognizing rights of the county's rivers and streams, along with a right to clean water for its residents. </span><blockquote class="" style="border-left-style: none; margin: inherit; padding: inherit;" type="cite"></blockquote><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial;">https://bioneers.org/orange-county-fl-voters-overwhelmingly-approve-rights-of-nature-initiative/?mc_cid=fba9ad1555&mc_eid=862e32f332<br /></span><blockquote class="" style="border-left-style: none; margin: inherit; padding: inherit;" type="cite"></blockquote><blockquote class="" style="border-left-style: none; margin: inherit; padding: inherit;" type="cite"><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial;"><br /></span></blockquote><blockquote class="" style="border-left-style: none; margin: inherit; padding: inherit;" type="cite"></blockquote><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial;">Louisiana voters, who rejected a new corporate tax break in a landslide, after their lawmakers earlier this year voted overwhelmingly to ask voters to add a new tax break to the state constitution that would allow manufacturers to negotiate lower tax bills with local governments. Almost as many Louisiana voters rejected the proposed amendment as voted for President Trump.<br /></span><blockquote class="" style="border-left-style: none; margin: inherit; padding: inherit;" type="cite"></blockquote><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial;">https://www.theadvocate.com/content/tncms/live/ <br /></span><blockquote class="" style="border-left-style: none; margin: inherit; padding: inherit;" type="cite"></blockquote><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial;"><br /></span><blockquote class="" style="border-left-style: none; margin: inherit; padding: inherit;" type="cite"></blockquote><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial;">The vote in Portland Oregon’s county, Multnomah, to tax wealth to pay for childcare, including a pay raise for childcare workers.<br />https://inequality.org/research/tax-rich-school-children-pay-teachers/?</span><br /><blockquote style="border-left-style: none; color: inherit; margin: inherit; padding: inherit;" type="cite"></blockquote></blockquote><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div class=""><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;"><b class="">Resources </b></span><br class="" /><br class="" /><b class="">Finding Steady Ground</b><br class="" />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. <br class="" /><a href="http://www.findingsteadyground.com/">www.findingsteadyground.com</a> <br class="" /><br class="" />Other resources from my friend Daniel Hunter<br class="" />Building a Movement to End the New Jim Crow; An Organizing Guide. <a href="http://www.danielhunter.org/books/building-movement-end-new-jim-crow-organizing-guide">http://www.danielhunter.org/books/building-movement-end-new-jim-crow-organizing-guide</a> <br class="" />Climate Resistance Handbook, or I was part of a climate action. Now what? <a href="https://commonslibrary.org/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/</a><br class="" />Leading Groups On-Line. <a href="https://www.trainingforchange.org/training_tools/leading-groups-online-book/">https://www.trainingforchange.org/training_tools/leading-groups-online-book/</a> <br class="" /><br class="" /><b class="">Money and Soul</b><br class="" />My new book (based on a pamphlet of the same name) available via QuakerBooks or other on-line distributors.<br class="" />("If money troubles your soul, try this down-to-earth Quaker perspective on economies large and small.") <br class="" /><br class="" /><b class="">Money, Debt and Liberation</b><br class="" />A video of a talk I gave at Pendle Hill in January, 2019<br class="" /><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f7nP8eJ5vy8">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f7nP8eJ5vy8</a><br class="" /><br class="" /><b class="">Toward a Right Relationship with Finance</b> <br class="" />A book that I co-authored on Debt, Interest, Growth and Security.<br class="" />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:<br class="" /><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>• 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;<br class="" /><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>• frames the conversation within the context of our deepest values and beliefs;<br class="" /><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>• suggests plausible and historically grounded alternatives to the current system, particularly with regard to financing retirement; and<br class="" /><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>• 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.<br class="" />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?<br class="" />To order the book, or read it on line, go to <a href="http://www.quakerinstitute.org/?page_id=5">http://www.quakerinstitute.org/?page_id=5</a> and scroll down.<br class="" /><br class="" /><br class="" /><b class="">More resources</b><br class="" /><br class="" />Posts on other web/blog sites:<br class="" /><br class="" />In <a href="http://www.classism.org/gifts-american-dream/">http://www.classism.org/gifts-american-dream/</a>, Pamela Haines locates her family's homey DIY celebrations on a class spectrum of different connections to upward mobility.<br class="" /><br class="" /> <a href="http://www.transitionus.org/blog/unlikely-suspects-%E2%80%93-deep-outreach-diverse-initiating-groups-%E2%80%93-pace-building-trust">http://www.transitionus.org/blog/unlikely-suspects-–-deep-outreach-diverse-initiating-groups-–-pace-building-trust</a> <br class="" /><br class="" /><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> <a href="http://www.classism.org/demolition-derby">http://www.classism.org/demolition-derby</a><br class="" /><br class="" />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: <a href="https://www.peaceworkersus.org/docs/muscle_building_for_peace_and_justice.pdf">https://www.peaceworkersus.org/docs/muscle_building_for_peace_and_justice.pdf</a> (or just google the title)<br class="" /><br class="" /><div class=""><br class="" /></div></div></div></div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline" />Pamela Living in this Worldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01728149865852062590noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2804921562771003682.post-29318204282461607782020-11-14T13:41:00.003-08:002022-01-11T09:36:00.649-08:00#208 Fear, love and leadership<p> Dear all,</p><br />What a time we’ve been through! What an uncertain future we face together! I hope everybody is breathing deeply, finding ways to cherish connections, and taking joy in small pleasures.<br />I wasn’t sure what I had to offer this month till this came to me as I was waking up. It will be available to be shared on my blog site: <a href="http://pamelalivinginthisworld.blogspot.com/2020/11/fear-love-and-leadership.htm">http://pamelalivinginthisworld.blogspot.com/2020/11/fear-love-and-leadership.htm</a><br /><br />And if you’re looking to pay attention to something else entirely, here’s an opportunity to learn about and contribute to the urban farm that I have been working with for many years, Mill Creek Farm. If anybody would like to contribute to<b style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> <a href="https://www.gofundme.com/f/mill-creek-urban-farm?utm_source=customer&utm_medium=copy_link&utm_campaign=p_cf+share-flow-1" target="_blank">this fundraiser</a></b> in my name, I would be honored!<div><br /></div><div>Love,</div><div><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">Pamela</span><br style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><br style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><br style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><br style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><br style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><br style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px;"><b>Fear, love and leadership</b></span><br style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><br style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">In the wake of this stormy election, and as the waters continue to swirl, what I can’t stop thinking about is how scared we all are. In a bitterly divided country millions of us have been</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"> </span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">scared that</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"> </span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">the other side would win. We are so separated, and the more separated we are, the easier it</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"> </span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">is to demonize. Our deepest fears get projected on the “other”.</span><br style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><br style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">I know this is an issue that has caused bitter conflict and</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"> </span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">divided families. So it was enormously heartening to hear from two people I know with family members who are</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"> </span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">solidly in the category of</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"> </span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">“other”. But these two women simply refuse to be</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"> </span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">divided. They decided that love could win over fear. They dug deep to stay</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"> </span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">grounded in their love, to stay confident that we are all good, to hold</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"> </span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">to a belief</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"> </span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">that ultimately we all want the same things. They decided not to try to</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"> </span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">convince their family members about the rightness or logic of certain beliefs</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"> </span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">or points of view, but to tend deeply to</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"> </span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">the relationships.</span><br style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><br style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">This is what I want for all of us. It requires a lot. When we’re scared, it’s easy to</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"> </span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">feel like victims, to feel jerked around by others who have more power, or are</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"> </span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">led by people who have more power.</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"> </span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">And when we feel jerked around, it’s not</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"> </span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">easy to stay grounded in love. It’s certainly not easy to practice new forms of</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"> </span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">leadership—to lead in places where we’re not used to leading, or to follow</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"> </span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">leadership</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"> </span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">that we’re not used to following. Yet our times are calling out for the courage to</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"> </span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">try.</span><br style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><br style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">In this process, we’ll have to give up some assumptions about “the other”. To lead well, we have to like people. We have to</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"> </span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">hold out a vision that includes them. We have to have some</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"> </span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">compassionate and</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"> </span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">respectful understanding of the ground on which their beliefs have grown. We have</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"> </span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">to cultivate the humility to be open to learning from them, even as we may continue</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"> </span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">to hold</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"> </span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">out a different perspective.</span><br style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><br style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">To be led may be even harder. What would it take to listen</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"> </span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">for truth in someone we’ve never considered as an equal, or have learned to</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"> </span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">despise? Can we face the possibility of being changed?</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"> </span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">What would it mean to be</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"> </span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">genuinely curious to learn how someone ticks—either from a position of trying</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"> </span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">to lead, or trying to follow? Can we imagine finding a heart connection with</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"> </span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">somebody we</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"> </span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">had thought was outside the fold and lost to us forever?</span><br style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><br style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">I have to believe that whatever we might be required to give</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"> </span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">up in this process is something that we would be better off without. No matter</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"> </span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">how closely we have clung to it, no matter how central it</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"> </span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">has seemed to our</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"> </span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">definition of who we are, if we approach this project of “de-othering” with</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"> </span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">integrity. nothing of enduring value will be lost and we will emerge more fully</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"> </span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">human.</span><br style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><br style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">This doesn’t mean everything else has to stop. We get to continue to mobilize around policies we care about.</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"> </span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">We get</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"> to share our thinking as clearly</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"> </span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">and compellingly as we know how. We get to</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"> </span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">strategize about how to win. But ultimately,</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"> </span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">this deeper work of the heart may be what saves us as a people.</span><br style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><br style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><br style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><br style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><br style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><br style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px;"><b>Election Day evening </b></span><br style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><br style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">After that great storm of effort</span><br style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">comes a lull. Nerves are jangled</span><br style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">nothing left now but to wait.</span><br style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">The color of the sky calls out.</span><br style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">Another storm? I step outside</span><br style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">into a sunset so intense</span><br style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">it takes my breath away.</span><br style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">A man around the corner stands and looks.</span><br style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">I had to come outside, he says.</span><br style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">All around the block</span><br style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">beauty greets me every way I turn.</span><br style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">Heading west into its glowing fire</span><br style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">a stranger stops me, calls a blessing.</span><br style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">Touched, I take it in</span><br style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">and then continue, drawn on by the light.</span><br style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">Another block, another greeting</span><br style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">What goodness has this night called out?</span><br style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">The color slowly fades.</span><br style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">Back in the dark to neighbors on their porches</span><br style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">all amazed, connected, moved</span><br style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">by such a gift from earth and sun.</span><br style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">I breathe, then go inside and settle in to wait.</span><br style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><br style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><br style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><br style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><br style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><br style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><br style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px;"><b>Dare to imagine: A new economy is possible!</b></span><br style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><b>A citizen’s right to food</b></span><br style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><br style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">Belo Horizonte, a city of 2.5 million in southeastern</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"> </span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">Brazil, has pioneered a food security system that has effectively eliminated</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"> </span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">hunger in the city. In 1993 Belo Horizonte enacted a municipal law</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"> </span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">that</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"> </span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">established a citizen’s right to food. Today, twenty interconnected programs connect</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"> </span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">food-producers directly to consumers; offer healthy, fresh food at fixed, low</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"> </span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">costs at public restaurants;</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"> </span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">provide food directly to schools, childcare</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"> </span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">centers, clinics and nursing homes, shelters, and charitable organizations;</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"> </span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">establish farmers’ markets and stands to allow farmers to sell directly to</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"> </span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">residents; regulate food prices for 25 specific items, which must be sold at</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"> </span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">20-50% below market price; create food banks to distribute unused produce from</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"> </span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">those markets; and establish</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"> </span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">community and school gardens, in addition to</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"> </span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">providing nutrition education. The entire program requires less than 2% of</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"> </span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">the city’s annual budget.</span><br style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">https://www.yesmagazine.org/social-justice/2020/11/09/covid-brazil-food-security/</span><br style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><br style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"> </span><br style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><br style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"> </span><br style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><br style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px;"><b>Some things that have made me hopeful recently</b></span><br style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><br style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">The overwhelming vote in San Francisco to tax companies</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"> </span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">whose CEOs make a hundred more than their lowest paid workers—or more.</span><br style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">https://inequality.org/great-divide/san-francisco-ceo-pay-tax/</span><br style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><br style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">How co-ops are showing resilience and community spirit as</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"> </span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">the pandemic goes on. </span><br style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">https://blog.equalexchange.coop/pandemic-resilience/</span><br style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><br style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">The world’s largest seagrass restoration project, where</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"> </span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">600 acres planted in waters off Virginia have grown to 9,000. </span><br style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">https://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/largest-seagrass-meadow-restoration-in-the-world-in-virginia/</span><br style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><br style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">After months of organizing that included the establishment</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"> </span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">of two protest encampments, Philadelphia’s unhoused people successfully pushed</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"> </span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">the city to agree to provide housing through a</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"> </span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">community land trust.</span><br style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">https://truthout.org/articles/philadelphia-agrees-to-provide-community-housing-amid-unhoused-activist-push/</span><br style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"> </span><br style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><br style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><br style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><br style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"> </span><br style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px;"><b>Resources </b></span><br style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><br style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><b>Finding Steady Ground</b></span><br style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">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. </span><br style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">www.findingsteadyground.com</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"> </span><br style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><br style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">Other resources from my friend Daniel Hunter</span><br style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">Building a Movement to End the New Jim Crow; An Organizing Guide. </span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">http://www.danielhunter.org/books/building-movement-end-new-jim-crow-organizing-guide</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"> </span><br style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">Climate Resistance Handbook, or I was part of a climate action. Now what? </span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">https://commonslibrary.org/climate-resistance-handbook-or-i-was-part-of-a-climate-action-now-what/</span><br style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">Leading Groups On-Line. </span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">https://www.trainingforchange.org/training_tools/leading-groups-online-book/</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"> </span><br style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><br style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><b>Money and Soul</b></span><br style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">My new book (based on a pamphlet of the same name) available via QuakerBooks or other on-line distributors.</span><br style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">("If money troubles your soul, try this down-to-earth Quaker perspective on economies large and small.") </span><br style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><br style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><b>Money, Debt and Liberation</b></span><br style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">A video of a talk I gave at Pendle Hill in January, 2019</span><br style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f7nP8eJ5vy8</span><br style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><br style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><b>Toward a Right Relationship with Finance</b></span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"> </span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"> </span><br style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">A book that I co-authored on Debt, Interest, Growth and Security.</span><br style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">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</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"> </span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">that same growth economy. This book:</span><br style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">• 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</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"> </span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">ecological overshoot;</span><br style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">• frames the conversation within the context of our deepest values and beliefs;</span><br style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">• suggests plausible and historically grounded alternatives to the current system, particularly with regard to financing retirement; and</span><br style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">• 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.</span><br style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">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</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"> </span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">our dependence on financial speculation and build up new structures of security in a transformed, life-centered economy?</span><br style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">To order the book, or read it on line, go to </span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">http://www.quakerinstitute.org/?page_id=5</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"> and scroll down.</span><br style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><br style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><br style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><b>More resources</b></span><br style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><br style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">Posts on other web/blog sites:</span><br style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><br style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">In </span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">http://www.classism.org/gifts-american-dream/</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">, Pamela Haines locates her family's homey DIY celebrations on a class spectrum of different connections to upward mobility.</span><br style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><br style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"> </span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">http://www.transitionus.org/blog/unlikely-suspects-–-deep-outreach-diverse-initiating-groups-–-pace-building-trust</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"> </span><br style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><br style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"> </span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">http://www.classism.org/demolition-derby</span><br style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><br style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">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:</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"> </span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">https://www.peaceworkersus.org/docs/muscle_building_for_peace_and_justice.pdf</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"> (or just google the title)</span><br style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><br style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /></div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline" />Pamela Living in this Worldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01728149865852062590noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2804921562771003682.post-74635674157472218712020-11-14T13:32:00.002-08:002020-11-14T13:32:40.661-08:00Fear, love and leadership<p> </p><br style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px;"><b>Fear, love and leadership</b></span><br style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><br style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">In the wake of this stormy election, and as the waters continue to swirl, what I can’t stop thinking about is how scared we all are. In a bitterly divided country millions of us have been</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"> </span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">scared that</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"> </span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">the other side would win. We are so separated, and the more separated we are, the easier it</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"> </span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">is to demonize. Our deepest fears get projected on the “other”.</span><br style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><br style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">I know this is an issue that has caused bitter conflict and</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"> </span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">divided families. So it was enormously heartening to hear from two people I know with family members who are</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"> </span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">solidly in the category of</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"> </span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">“other”. But these two women simply refused to be</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"> </span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">divided. They decided that love could win over fear. They dug deep to stay</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"> </span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">grounded in their love, to stay confident that we are all good, to hold</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"> </span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">to a belief</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"> </span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">that ultimately we all want the same things. They decided not to try to</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"> </span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">convince their family members about the rightness or logic of certain beliefs</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"> </span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">or points of view, but to tend deeply to</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"> </span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">the relationships.</span><br style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><br style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">This is what I want for all of us. It requires a lot. When we’re scared, it’s easy to</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"> </span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">feel like victims, to feel jerked around by others who have more power, or are</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"> </span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">led by people who have more power.</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"> </span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">And when we feel jerked around, it’s not</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"> </span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">easy to stay grounded in love. It’s certainly not easy to practice new forms of</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"> </span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">leadership—to lead in places where we’re not used to leading, or to follow</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"> </span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">leadership</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"> </span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">that we’re not used to following. Yet our times are calling out for the courage to</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"> </span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">try.</span><br style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><br style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">In this process, we’ll have to give up some assumptions about “the other”. To lead well, we have to like people. We have to</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"> </span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">hold out a vision that includes them. We have to have some</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"> </span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">compassionate and</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"> </span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">respectful understanding of the ground on which their beliefs have grown. We have</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"> </span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">to cultivate the humility to be open to learning from them, even as we may continue</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"> </span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">to hold</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"> </span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">out a different perspective.</span><br style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><br style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">To be led may be even harder. What would it take to listen</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"> </span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">for truth in someone we’ve never considered as an equal, or have learned to</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"> </span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">despise? Can we face the possibility of being changed?</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"> </span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">What would it mean to be</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"> </span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">genuinely curious to learn how someone ticks—either from a position of trying</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"> </span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">to lead, or trying to follow? Can we imagine finding a heart connection with</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"> </span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">somebody we</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"> </span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">had thought was outside the fold and lost to us forever?</span><br style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><br style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">I have to believe that whatever we might be required to give</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"> </span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">up in this process is something that we would be better off without. No matter</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"> </span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">how closely we have clung to it, no matter how central it</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"> </span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">has seemed to our</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"> </span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">definition of who we are, if we approach this project of “de-othering” with</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"> </span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">integrity. nothing of enduring value will be lost and we will emerge more fully</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"> </span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">human.</span><br style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><br style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">This doesn’t mean everything else has to stop. We get to continue to mobilize around policies we care about.</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"> </span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">We get</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"> to share our thinking as clearly</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"> </span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">and compellingly as we know how. We get to</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"> </span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">strategize about how to win. But ultimately,</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"> </span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">this deeper work of the heart may be what saves us as a people.</span><br style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><br style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" />Pamela Living in this Worldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01728149865852062590noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2804921562771003682.post-30909232978051794212020-09-27T13:26:00.003-07:002022-01-11T09:37:14.617-08:00#206 Wood chips, elections and miracles<p> <span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">Dear all,</span></p><br class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">As we continue to be battered by bad news, back-to-school challenges, and growing fears around the election, I wanted to share a perspective on staying active and grounded. A gift for me recently has been the opportunity to get out each evening for over a week to greet the moon as it has steadily grown from the thinnest crescent on its way to fullness.</span><br class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><br class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">I wish you all the best as we find ways to stay upright, connected, and alert to the joy and beauty that is there to be claimed.</span><br class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><br class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">Love,</span><br class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">Pamela</span><br class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><br class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><br class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><br class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><br class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><span class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px;"><b class="">Wood chips, elections and miracles</b></span><br class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><br class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">It’s a small dilemma. An enormous pile of woodchips has been dumped in the lot by the community garden, and needs to be moved quickly. We’re urged to all come out on Saturday to weed and haul loads of chips to mulch the paths and common areas. I want to do my part, but am not eager to work in a crowd. On a morning walk I look at the front garden. I know that garden better than anybody. I could come early, commit to finish weeding before the crowds so it would be ready to mulch. I breathe a sigh of relief. That’s the part of the job with my name on it.</span><br class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><br class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">What if we all could do the same on a larger scale? As we approach a momentous election, I keep being reminded of a message from theologian Walter Wink—that our job in this world is to listen for what is ours to do; do it faithfully, no less and no more; and then wait in quiet confidence for a miracle.</span><br class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><br class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">If we don’t take the first step, our plates can easily be filled with activities that ultimately have little meaning. If we listen but hold back because of our fears and do less than what is ours to do, then we are settling for a version of ourselves that disrespects our inherent power. If we try to do more, we are likely to end up vibrating to the siren of urgency, or laboring under the weight of guilt or obligation, which not only damages the quality of our lives, but limits our effectiveness.</span><br class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><br class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">The last step—to wait in quiet confidence for a miracle—seems hopelessly naïve yet somehow profoundly right. If we’ve done our best, then what choice do we have but to wait? And what more powerful way to wait than in quiet confidence? And why settle for anything less than the possibility of a miracle?</span><br class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><br class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">So let’s take a stand against the grip of helplessness and hopelessness, and stay open to the reality that there is always something for each of us to do. Hold on to the fact that what we do matters, even though it may be a small part of the whole. Then do it. Be willing to try hard things. Welcome the feelings of fear, loss and outrage that are loosened free as we push against old limits. Do more than we thought we were capable of.</span><br class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><br class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">But if we begin to be caught up in the whirlwind of urgency, or pulled down into the quicksand of burdened obligation, it’s time to stop and take a breath. We have entered into the territory of too much. Whether it’s too much work or too much unprocessed emotion, it’s a sign that we need to stop, get some attention, and listen freshly for what belongs on our plate.</span><br class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><br class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">I spend about four hours a week helping to ground a handful of climate activists in Sunrise who are mobilizing thousands of young people around the election. Rather than doing direct electoral work myself, I committed to actively sharing opportunities with people who were casting around for something to do. I’ve stayed in close with a diverse circle of friends, and when one shared her plan to encourage voting in a poor urban neighborhood, I did a little fundraising campaign to support her efforts. I decided to prioritize a weekly check in with a friend who is teetering on the brink of overwhelm in her youth work. I invited members of a class I teach to listen to each other on the stupidest things they could do this election season, and things that might be smarter. I decided to respond with an unqualified yes to a dear friend’s request for my thinking and writing support for his project on preparing for a possible coup.</span><br class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><br class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">All of this has a rightful place on my plate. It fits my unique circumstances and strengths, and it is not too much. Everyone’s plate will look different; everyone’s work will count. And I really believe that if I do what is mine to do, cheerfully, fully, and to the best of my ability, grounded and alert to the possibility that there may be something else with my name on it, there’s nothing left but to wait in quiet confidence for a miracle.</span><br class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><br class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">The pile of wood chips did not disappear that Saturday, despite the good intentions and hard work of many people. So I have had more opportunities to consider my part. The latest came early this morning when I was happily hauling mulch and reflecting on this question of what is ours to do. As phrases—about no more and no less, about the sirens of urgency and the weight of obligation—started coming into my brain, I realized that what was mine to do right then was to stop, go home, and write.</span><br class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><br class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"> </span><br class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><br class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><br class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><br class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><span class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px;"><b class="">Hemlock cathedral</b></span><br class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><br class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">Step out of the bright hot sunshine</span><br class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">busy with sights and sounds</span><br class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">into the cool cathedral hush</span><br class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">of hemlock gorge</span><br class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">tall ceiling of green filtered light</span><br class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">quiet forest floor.</span><br class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><br class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><br class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><br class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><br class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><br class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><span class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px;"><b class="">Dare to imagine: A new economy is possible!<br class="" /></b></span><br class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><b class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">A People’s Economy in Toronto: </b><br class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><br class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">The Parkdale People’s Economy is a network of over 30 community-based organizations focused on building just local economies and community wealth in the Parkdale neighborhood of Toronto. During the pandemic, members of Parkdale’s People's Economy have been active in the fight against evictions in their neighborhood as they continue their long-term work to build a local solidarity economy ecosystem with participatory planning, community land trusts, community food distribution, local currencies, and more. Get policy tools to advance a People’s Economy in your own community.</span><br class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><a class="" href="http://parkdalepeopleseconomy.ca/" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">http://parkdalepeopleseconomy.ca/</a><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"> </span><br class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"> </span><br class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><br class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"> </span><div class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><br class="" /><br class="" /><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;"><b class="">Some things that have made me hopeful recently:</b></span><div class=""><br class="" />California Governor Gavin Newsom’s recently announced plans to ban sales of gas cars by 2035 in a state that has the fifth-largest economy in the world.<br class="" /><a class="" href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/california-to-ban-sales-of-new-gas-powered-cars-starting-in-2035-11600882738">https://www.wsj.com/articles/california-to-ban-sales-of-new-gas-powered-cars-starting-in-2035-11600882738</a><br class="" /><br class="" />How one small stretch of Italian coastline went from a hotbed of drug smuggling to a model of ecological restoration, with the fishing community playing a critical role<br class="" /><a href="https://www.yesmagazine.org/environment/2020/08/24/how-to-save-the-ocean-fishing-community-lessons/">https://www.yesmagazine.org/environment/2020/08/24/how-to-save-the-ocean-fishing-community-lessons/</a><br class="" /><br class="" />How one small cemetery in Ohio preserved a natural prairie habitat that has allowed for the preservation of vital prairie species.<br class="" /><a href="https://trekohio.com/2016/06/30/bigelow-cemetery-state-nature-preserve/">https://trekohio.com/2016/06/30/bigelow-cemetery-state-nature-preserve/</a><br class="" /><br class="" />The statement of China’s President Xi at the UN General Assembly, that committed his nation, the world’s largest carbon emitter, to reaching net-zero emissions by 2060.<br class="" /><a href="https://www.smh.com.au/environment/climate-change/china-s-push-puts-end-of-fossil-fuels-in-sight-20200925-p55zbv.html">https://www.smh.com.au/environment/climate-change/china-s-push-puts-end-of-fossil-fuels-in-sight-20200925-p55zbv.html</a><br class="" /><br class="" /> <br class="" /><br class="" /><br class="" /> <br class="" /><div class=""><div class=""><span class="" style="font-family: Arial;"><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;"><b class="">Resources</b></span><br class="" /><br class="" /><b class="">NEW: #ChooseDemocracy</b></span></div><div class=""><span class="" style="font-family: Arial;"><a href="http://www.choosedemocracy.us/">www.choosedemocracy.us</a> </span></div><div class=""><span class="" style="font-family: Arial;"><b class=""><br class="" /></b></span></div><div class=""><span class="" style="font-family: Arial;"><b class="">Finding Steady Ground</b><br class="" />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. <br class="" /><a class="" href="http://www.findingsteadyground.com/">www.findingsteadyground.com</a> <br class="" /><br class="" />Other resources from my friend Daniel Hunter<br class="" />Building a Movement to End the New Jim Crow; An Organizing Guide. <a class="" href="http://www.danielhunter.org/books/building-movement-end-new-jim-crow-organizing-guide">http://www.danielhunter.org/books/building-movement-end-new-jim-crow-organizing-guide</a> <br class="" />Climate Resistance Handbook, or I was part of a climate action. Now what? <a class="" href="https://commonslibrary.org/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/</a><br class="" />Leading Groups On-Line. <a class="" href="https://www.trainingforchange.org/training_tools/leading-groups-online-book/">https://www.trainingforchange.org/training_tools/leading-groups-online-book/</a> <br class="" /><br class="" /><b class="">Money and Soul</b><br class="" />My new book (based on a pamphlet of the same name) available via QuakerBooks or other on-line distributors.<br class="" />("If money troubles your soul, try this down-to-earth Quaker perspective on economies large and small.") <br class="" /><br class="" /><b class="">Money, Debt and Liberation</b><br class="" />A video of a talk I gave at Pendle Hill in January, 2019<br class="" /><a class="" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f7nP8eJ5vy8">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f7nP8eJ5vy8</a><br class="" /><br class="" /><b class="">Toward a Right Relationship with Finance </b> <br class="" />A book that I co-authored on Debt, Interest, Growth and Security.<br class="" />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:<br class="" /><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>• 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;<br class="" /><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>• frames the conversation within the context of our deepest values and beliefs;<br class="" /><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>• suggests plausible and historically grounded alternatives to the current system, particularly with regard to financing retirement; and<br class="" /><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>• 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.<br class="" />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?<br class="" />To order the book, or read it on line, go to <a class="" href="http://www.quakerinstitute.org/?page_id=5">http://www.quakerinstitute.org/?page_id=5</a> and scroll down.<br class="" /><br class="" /><br class="" /><b class="">More resources</b><br class="" /><br class="" />Posts on other web/blog sites:<br class="" /><br class="" />In <a class="" href="http://www.classism.org/gifts-american-dream/">http://www.classism.org/gifts-american-dream/</a>, Pamela Haines locates her family's homey DIY celebrations on a class spectrum of different connections to upward mobility.<br class="" /><br class="" /> <a class="" href="http://www.transitionus.org/blog/unlikely-suspects-%E2%80%93-deep-outreach-diverse-initiating-groups-%E2%80%93-pace-building-trust">http://www.transitionus.org/blog/unlikely-suspects-–-deep-outreach-diverse-initiating-groups-–-pace-building-trust</a> <br class="" /><br class="" /><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> <a class="" href="http://www.classism.org/demolition-derby">http://www.classism.org/demolition-derby</a><br class="" /><br class="" />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: <a class="" href="https://www.peaceworkersus.org/docs/muscle_building_for_peace_and_justice.pdf">https://www.peaceworkersus.org/docs/muscle_building_for_peace_and_justice.pdf</a> (or just google the title)<br class="" /></span></div></div><div class=""><span class="" style="font-family: Arial;"><br class="" /></span></div></div></div><div class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><br class="Apple-interchange-newline" /></div>Pamela Living in this Worldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01728149865852062590noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2804921562771003682.post-52189976562437356112020-09-12T11:51:00.003-07:002022-01-11T09:38:23.995-08:00#205 Midwifery<p> Dear all,</p><br />In my peer counseling class the other night, we listened to each other about what’s hard and scary in the world these days, took turns to notice things that are hopeful nonetheless, then each considered a range of ways we could respond to the election—from stupidest to smartest—and laughed together as we shared them out. <br /><br />Somehow that evening captures much of how I’ve been these days. I’m grateful for a week in the woods with family, good work, and the community that surrounds me in so many different ways.<br /><br />(And if you’re scared about a power grab in November, check out www.choosedemocracy.us, the initiative of a friend that I’ve been helping out with.)<br /><br />Love,<br />Pamela<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><span style="font-size: 14px;"><b>Midwifery</b></span><br /> <br />A regular high point in my weeks is being in touch with a handful of young climate activists from the Sunrise Movement. Through a young man who stayed in our spare room while doing student fossil fuel divestment work then went on to be one of the founders of Sunrise, I met another young woman on their Pennsylvania staff, who introduced me to still others. Just getting to know these lovely and deeply committed people is a joy in itself. Being able to be of use to them is an honor.<br /><br />I think of one of the young women with whom I now do weekly hour-long calls. We have developed a little routine. We start with self-appreciation, since it’s so easy to put all our attention on either our mistakes or the things we have not yet been able to accomplish. Then we exchange listening time, reviewing our emotional state and focusing on whatever we can vent or let go of to free up more attention and flexible thinking in the present. Finally we check whether there’s a puzzle she’s facing at work that needs solving, or a knotty problem that needs untangling.<br /><br />Often there’s some small thing. She describes the situation. I listen closely, and ask questions to clarify. What does she want? Where does she feel on solid ground? Even if there are things she isn’t sure of, is there a piece of the puzzle she is able to hold out with complete confidence? What is a doable next step? What is the right time, and who are the right people to go to with it?<br /><br />It’s clear to me that I don’t know the answers. There’s so much I don’t know! Their organizational structure, which is complex, has never been described to me. I’m not exactly sure of her job description or her relationship to decision-makers. I’m not an expert in the types of campaigns they are running and certainly can’t name the strategies that will allow them to succeed.<br /><br />But I can provide an open space for the problem to be considered. I can ensure that this space is appreciative and free from prescription or judgment. I can listen and probe for what rings true. I can play the role of midwife. And more often than not the labor is quick and painless and the solution slips right out. What had been a worrisome muddle in her mind has become clear enough that she is ready—often eager—to take a confident next step.<br /><br />Sometimes, of course, the problem is not one with a solution that is easy to think through. People lose track of themselves and each other in the midst of oppression and stress; they bring old and dysfunctional patterns of taking over or going quiet to their group interactions; old feelings of discouragement or desperation or self-blame gum up the works. There is time to tend to these issues in the middle section of our meeting, with attention to feelings of anger, fear, or grief that need to be released so that more space to think can be opened up.<br /><br />This young woman, and the others that I listen to, are among the full-time staff of a movement that is mobilizing tens of thousands of young people in an effort that may play a critical role in securing a future for our species on this planet. As I do what I can to keep them working well together toward their goals—to increase clarity, restore confidence, amplify thoughtful voices, avoid missteps, seize opportunities, maximize the impact of scarce resources, strengthen relationships—I choose to believe that my small acts of midwifery are part of the labor process to bring a new world to birth. <br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><span style="font-size: 14px;"><b>Gifts</b></span><br /><br />On my morning walk I open myself up<br />take in what the world is offering<br />quiet my mind.<br /><br />I never know what gift I might receive—<br />the moon, pink sky of sunrise<br />a new thought rising to the surface, calm and clear<br />sunlight on sycamores, a mist of rain<br />lines to a poem, a fresh breeze<br />an opening bud, an autumn leaf<br />the name of someone fallen from my view<br />a goldfinch, once a morning rainbow<br />the knowledge that I’m a part of all that is.<br /><br />Sometime my mind is busy and it’s just a walk<br />but gifts are there, awaiting me.<br />My part is to be present, ready to receive.<br /><br /> <div><br /><br /><br /><span style="font-size: 14px;"><b>Dare to imagine: A new economy is possible</b></span><br /><b>Community wealth building</b><br /><br />The Lancashire city of Preston, in England, has recently come to wider political attention. Starting after the financial crisis Preston’s civic leaders decided to experiment with a radical “community wealth building’ model that aspires to generate more resilient economic growth. The city’s community wealth building approach has five different components:<br /><ul><li>Rooted anchor institutions – identifying significant economic actors with a stable presence in the area and focusing economic activity around them.</li><li>Local procurement – which aims to encourage anchor institutions to use their purchasing power to influence their pattern of spending so that more wealth stays within Preston.</li><li>Local capital investment – to seek out new sources of patient capital so investment flows can be democratically directed and focus on keeping more wealth in Preston.</li><li>Worker cooperatives – to nurture new worker cooperatives to meet gaps in anchor institutions’ supply chains that cannot currently be met locally.</li><li>Municipal ownership - to explore and promote new models of local public ownership.</li></ul>https://demos.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/June-Final-Web.pdf <br /><br /> <br /><br /> <br /><br /><span style="font-size: 14px;"><b>Some things that have made me hopeful recently</b></span> (all among the grassroots this time):<br /><br />A family on a quarter acre lot on a Florida barrier island who exchanged their lawn for native plants, and are now hosting a population of endangered butterflies. </div><div><br />All the people who are pouring time, resources and heart into the children in their neighborhoods. (I’m thinking of three people in a nearby neighborhood in South Philadelphia, but I know there are others everywhere.)</div><div><br />The young climate activists in the Sunrise Movement who have built a base of thousands of energized young people, had remarkable success in getting out the vote for Green New Deal candidates in the primaries, and are now turning their attention to November.</div><div><br style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">All the people that I don’t know, in the Gulf and on the</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"> </span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">West Coast, who are extending themselves to others in the face of the</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"> </span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">devastation of floods and fire.</span><br style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><br style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><br style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><br style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><br style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><br class="webkit-block-placeholder" /></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><div class=""><span class="" style="font-family: Arial;"><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;"><b class="">Resources</b></span><br class="" /><br class="" /><b class="">Finding Steady Ground</b><br class="" />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. <br class="" /><a class="" href="http://www.findingsteadyground.com/">www.findingsteadyground.com</a> <br class="" /><br class="" />Other resources from my friend Daniel Hunter<br class="" />Building a Movement to End the New Jim Crow; An Organizing Guide. <a class="" href="http://www.danielhunter.org/books/building-movement-end-new-jim-crow-organizing-guide">http://www.danielhunter.org/books/building-movement-end-new-jim-crow-organizing-guide</a> <br class="" />Climate Resistance Handbook, or I was part of a climate action. Now what? <a class="" href="https://commonslibrary.org/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/</a><br class="" />Leading Groups On-Line. <a class="" href="https://www.trainingforchange.org/training_tools/leading-groups-online-book/">https://www.trainingforchange.org/training_tools/leading-groups-online-book/</a> <br class="" /><br class="" /><b class="">Money and Soul</b><br class="" />My new book (based on a pamphlet of the same name) available via QuakerBooks or other on-line distributors.<br class="" />("If money troubles your soul, try this down-to-earth Quaker perspective on economies large and small.") <br class="" /><br class="" /><b class="">Money, Debt and Liberation</b><br class="" />A video of a talk I gave at Pendle Hill in January, 2019<br class="" /><a class="" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f7nP8eJ5vy8">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f7nP8eJ5vy8</a><br class="" /><br class="" /><b class="">Toward a Right Relationship with Finance </b> <br class="" />A book that I co-authored on Debt, Interest, Growth and Security.<br class="" />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:<br class="" /><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>• 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;<br class="" /><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>• frames the conversation within the context of our deepest values and beliefs;<br class="" /><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>• suggests plausible and historically grounded alternatives to the current system, particularly with regard to financing retirement; and<br class="" /><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>• 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.<br class="" />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?<br class="" />To order the book, or read it on line, go to <a class="" href="http://www.quakerinstitute.org/?page_id=5">http://www.quakerinstitute.org/?page_id=5</a> and scroll down.<br class="" /><br class="" /><br class="" /><b class="">More resources</b><br class="" /><br class="" />Posts on other web/blog sites:<br class="" /><br class="" />In <a class="" href="http://www.classism.org/gifts-american-dream/">http://www.classism.org/gifts-american-dream/</a>, Pamela Haines locates her family's homey DIY celebrations on a class spectrum of different connections to upward mobility.<br class="" /><br class="" /> <a class="" href="http://www.transitionus.org/blog/unlikely-suspects-%E2%80%93-deep-outreach-diverse-initiating-groups-%E2%80%93-pace-building-trust">http://www.transitionus.org/blog/unlikely-suspects-–-deep-outreach-diverse-initiating-groups-–-pace-building-trust</a> <br class="" /><br class="" /><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> <a class="" href="http://www.classism.org/demolition-derby">http://www.classism.org/demolition-derby</a><br class="" /><br class="" />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: <a class="" href="https://www.peaceworkersus.org/docs/muscle_building_for_peace_and_justice.pdf">https://www.peaceworkersus.org/docs/muscle_building_for_peace_and_justice.pdf</a> (or just google the title)<br class="" /></span></div></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><span class="" style="font-family: Arial;"><br /></span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><br class="webkit-block-placeholder" /></div></div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline" />Pamela Living in this Worldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01728149865852062590noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2804921562771003682.post-15805172964064219652020-08-08T08:56:00.003-07:002022-01-11T09:39:19.204-08:00#204 Being vulnerable<p> Dear all,</p><br />I was struck recently by something I read about how attention to gratitude helps restore a feeling of abundance and attract what we most value. So, with this month very much like the one before, here are some things I’m grateful for. The summer vegetables are coming in. I’ve discovered that a weed we pulled out all through my childhood (called purslane) not only is nutritious, but makes a delicious pesto. I saw the almost-full-just-waning moon on an early morning walk this week, then two rainbows! <br /><br />Only having written this, do I remember that there is news—I’ve just received a contract for a book! It’s a collection of my columns: That Clear and Certain Sound; Finding Solid Ground in Perilous Times. Now I just have to find my way through the challenges of publication and promotion. There are so many challenges in this world, big and small. I wish you well with your share of them.<br /><br />Love,<br />Pamela<br /><br /><br /> <br /><br /><br /><span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-size: 14px;"><b>Being vulnerable</b></span></span><br /><br />I’ve been puzzling over why white America was able to take in the killing of George Floyd in a way that opened our nation up to racial injustice at a whole new level. The same things had happened so many times before and we had managed to get back to normal within days.<br /><br />I was wondering with a friend about whether it might have been the graphicly callous evil of the act, captured so starkly. It was way out there, completely unambiguous. But she reminded me that this was far from the first time that such callous evil had been played out for the whole nation to see. So it wasn’t that. It had to be the pandemic, a different context that allowed us to see differently. But what about it? <br /><br />Sharing my perspective on what we are facing with a group of peer counseling teachers that I lead, I found myself talking about vulnerability. Our vulnerabilities are so much closer to the surface than usual these days. Even those of us who are buffered by economic privilege—whose incomes are not in danger, who don’t have to go to work in ways that put us at risk, who are not trying to take care of children while doing our full-time work at home, who have enough indoor space to spread out—are still feeling vulnerable. Even if, whether by chance or fortune, we don’t know of someone who has died of COVID, who hasn’t wondered who among us might be carrying a disease against which we have no protection? Who hasn’t imagined what it would be like to die alone?<br /><br />As we are more in touch with our own vulnerabilities, with those of our aged relatives and other loved ones, and those of the essential workers we may not know who are putting themselves at risk to provide what we need to live, our hearts are more open. While the impact of a brutal and senseless killing might once have washed over a smooth surface, our raw ends are now more exposed. We are feeling things, taking them in.<br /><br />In the course of our conversation, other pieces of the puzzle came out. There was all the organizing that had been done over the last six or seven years by the Movement for Black Lives, creating the groundwork for mass protests. There was the fact that schools were closed and young people were restless and already upset. There was the new reality that we can’t just go back to living our regular lives after a day or two of outrage. There is no normal to return to, no readily retrievable status quo in which to take comfort.<br /><br />One man mentioned something I hadn’t thought of: there were no sports to distract us. With no games, or scores, or plays, or players, or rankings or trades to fill their heads, he said, guys are talking about what’s really going on. It made me think about the incredible amount of addiction and distraction that is built into our daily lives, and how much that has been disrupted by the pandemic.<br /><br />And so we are embarked on a journey into unchartered territory. It’s scary. There’s so much we don’t know. But maybe we can remember the value of our vulnerability, how it can allow us to pay attention in ways that connect us where we were not connected before, and offer up new opportunities for living together in this world.<br /><br /> <br /><br /><br /><br /><span style="font-size: 14px;"><b>Wood chips</b></span><br /><br />This little pile of wood chips caught my eye<br />six weeks ago between the sidewalk and the street.<br />Were they trash or treasure of this house?<br />I eyed the pile, could make good use of it.<br />But when neglect had shown that it was trash<br />the days had grown so hot that moving it<br />would be a sweltering task.<br />Other outdoor needs called urgently<br />For those cool early morning hours,<br />and so the little pile remained<br />and life went on.<br /><br />A big rain finally came and broke the heat<br />It brought another change as well:<br />Mushrooms sprouted from the wood chip pile!<br />Life had, indeed, been going on.<br />Fungal threads—mycelia—had taken hold<br />somewhere within the pile, and spread and spread<br />till finally, dense enough, they pushed the mushrooms out.<br /><br />Without a doubt this pile is treasure now.<br />It’s come alive, is on its way to join the soil<br />that, with the water and the sun,<br />sustains us all.<br /><br />I may dig into this pile or I may not.<br />Already it has nourished me<br />with its reminder of abundant life.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><b><span style="font-size: 14px;">Dare to imagine: A new economy is possible</span><br />South Korean Coops</b><div><br style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">Cooperatives have played an important part in the Korean economy for generations. Established</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"> </span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">in the 1960s to uplift the still largely rural economy, the National Agricultural Cooperative</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"> </span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">Federation, for example, has grown to include nearly all rural households as its members.</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"> </span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">Alongside farmer-owned producer cooperatives the federation also runs a banking network which</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"> </span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">is the second-largest financial group in South Korea in terms of total asset value, but it is not the</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"> </span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">only cooperative in the financial sector: 900 credit unions in the country boasted 5.9 million</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"> </span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">members in 2012. </span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"> Membership in iCOOP KOREA, which</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"> provides consumers with reliable and</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"> </span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">eco-friendly agricultural products through direct dealing with producers, grew from 11,645</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"> </span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">members in 2002 to 294,000 in 2019.</span><br style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><br style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">Cooperatives were previously limited to only a few industries, each with their own specific</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"> </span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">legislation, but this changed following the passing of the 2012 Cooperative Framework Act.</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"> </span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">Cooperatives can now be established in almost any sector, and requirements to launch one have</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"> </span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">been drastically reduced. For example, the previous laws required at least 1000 founder-</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">members to form an agricultural coop, 300 for a consumer coop and 100 for a credit union. The</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"> </span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">passing of the new law reduced the minimum number of members to establish a cooperative to 5.</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"> </span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">Other substantial changes included recognizing worker cooperatives as a specific legal entity, and</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"> </span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">making them newly eligible for conventional bank loans for small and medium-sized businesses.</span><br style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><br style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><blockquote style="border-left-style: none; color: inherit; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; margin: inherit; padding: inherit;" type="cite"><a href="https://coop.exchange/blog/d8bf329f-c512-11ea-b711-06ceb0bf34bd/the-number-of-cooperatives-in-south-korea-has-exploded">https://coop.exchange/blog/d8bf329f-c512-11ea-b711-06ceb0bf34bd/the-number-of-cooperatives-in-south-korea-has-exploded</a> <br /></blockquote><br style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><br style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><br style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><br style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><br style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px;"><b>Some things that have made me hopeful recently:</b></span><br style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><br style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">Schools that are turning into solar power stations, </span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">saving money and shining a light on solar electricity.</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"> </span><br style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><a href="https://www.huffpost.com/entry/america-schools-turning-into-solar-power-stations_n_5f1f423fc5b69fd473105a63?ncid=engmodushpmg00000006" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">https://www.huffpost.com/entry/america-schools-turning-into-solar-power-stations_n_5f1f423fc5b69fd473105a63?ncid=engmodushpmg00000006</a><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"> </span><br style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><br style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">The planning process the city of Amsterdam in engaged in</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"> </span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">to move from a growth economy to one that meets human</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"> </span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">needs while staying within planetary</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"> </span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">boundaries.</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"> </span><br style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/08/amsterdam-doughnut-model-mend-post-coronavirus-economy" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/08/amsterdam-doughnut-model-mend-post-coronavirus-economy</a><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"> </span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"> </span><br style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><br style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">Cuba’s neighborhood public health doctors, who go to their patients, door by door, to provide preventative</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"> </span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">care and education. </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><span style="color: #505050; font-family: Arial;"> </span></span><a href="https://u1584542.ct.sendgrid.net/mps2/c/EQE/ni0YAA/t.316/aKMX-ZwrSwOiRW0dTcGyHg/h16/KmSwdmspjzgZvWBOGuKtq5jgdCniiNegQKq5xT0UbhQyjbR8m8w3744PCPchd5e212uDwmoIKLQ6Ka-2Bk3CWvYoQWSHsJj8rUtYF-2Fj-2BrCSmGCE65dCg90GV2dgrYpW87nqzn47F7XjgoX61fD6qAJ7Y1ZPXAFbe-2BHh4f9YH0b-2Bi3WmMaA30Q6WpzLgfuvSU-2FOoiIPVsYZD6nBlkArUNull6LXyK44D8hu0jo3xkQdenw1g149PVLVJMzTxjKislN2bg0YZDB2VWUM4pvFHjcVHaQfTNfKDXjthUQ50vACnEpcZV102gbkhtSpHhpB15i1eKtnBStdZyJ0MasucoMrJ8ljjQcFf2LQpya2RIgWLyYsxxAEzbO8d2t0raDhySnE/Yr0P" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px;">short video</a><br style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><br style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">A Brazilian photographer and his wife, who planted</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"> </span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">two million trees and created a new forest.</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"> </span><br style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">https://youtu.be/p0Aw3JEtQoU</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"> (video) </span><a href="https://allthatsinteresting.com/sebastiao-salgado-forest" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">https://allthatsinteresting.com/sebastiao-salgado-forest</a><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"> </span><br style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><br style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><br style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><br style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><br style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><br class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;" /><div class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><div class=""><div class=""><span class="" style="font-family: Arial;"><span class="" style="font-size: 14px;"><b class="">Resources</b></span><br class="" /><br class="" /><b class="">Finding Steady Ground</b><br class="" />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. <br class="" /><a class="" href="http://www.findingsteadyground.com/">www.findingsteadyground.com</a> <br class="" /><br class="" />Other resources from my friend Daniel Hunter<br class="" />Building a Movement to End the New Jim Crow; An Organizing Guide. <a class="" href="http://www.danielhunter.org/books/building-movement-end-new-jim-crow-organizing-guide">http://www.danielhunter.org/books/building-movement-end-new-jim-crow-organizing-guide</a> <br class="" />Climate Resistance Handbook, or I was part of a climate action. Now what? <a class="" href="https://commonslibrary.org/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/</a><br class="" />Leading Groups On-Line. <a class="" href="https://www.trainingforchange.org/training_tools/leading-groups-online-book/">https://www.trainingforchange.org/training_tools/leading-groups-online-book/</a> <br class="" /><br class="" /><b class="">Money and Soul</b><br class="" />My new book (based on a pamphlet of the same name) available via QuakerBooks or other on-line distributors.<br class="" />("If money troubles your soul, try this down-to-earth Quaker perspective on economies large and small.") <br class="" /><br class="" /><b class="">Money, Debt and Liberation</b><br class="" />A video of a talk I gave at Pendle Hill in January, 2019<br class="" /><a class="" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f7nP8eJ5vy8">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f7nP8eJ5vy8</a><br class="" /><br class="" /><b class="">Toward a Right Relationship with Finance </b> <br class="" />A book that I co-authored on Debt, Interest, Growth and Security.<br class="" />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:<br class="" /><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>• 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;<br class="" /><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>• frames the conversation within the context of our deepest values and beliefs;<br class="" /><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>• suggests plausible and historically grounded alternatives to the current system, particularly with regard to financing retirement; and<br class="" /><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>• 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.<br class="" />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?<br class="" />To order the book, or read it on line, go to <a class="" href="http://www.quakerinstitute.org/?page_id=5">http://www.quakerinstitute.org/?page_id=5</a> and scroll down.<br class="" /><br class="" /><br class="" /><b class="">More resources</b><br class="" /><br class="" />Posts on other web/blog sites:<br class="" /><br class="" />In <a class="" href="http://www.classism.org/gifts-american-dream/">http://www.classism.org/gifts-american-dream/</a>, Pamela Haines locates her family's homey DIY celebrations on a class spectrum of different connections to upward mobility.<br class="" /><br class="" /> <a class="" href="http://www.transitionus.org/blog/unlikely-suspects-%E2%80%93-deep-outreach-diverse-initiating-groups-%E2%80%93-pace-building-trust">http://www.transitionus.org/blog/unlikely-suspects-–-deep-outreach-diverse-initiating-groups-–-pace-building-trust</a> <br class="" /><br class="" /><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> <a class="" href="http://www.classism.org/demolition-derby">http://www.classism.org/demolition-derby</a><br class="" /><br class="" />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: <a class="" href="https://www.peaceworkersus.org/docs/muscle_building_for_peace_and_justice.pdf">https://www.peaceworkersus.org/docs/muscle_building_for_peace_and_justice.pdf</a> (or just google the title)<br class="" /></span></div></div></div></div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline" />Pamela Living in this Worldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01728149865852062590noreply@blogger.com0