Dear all,
A stunningly beautiful month of April, a new grandson--life is full of gifts. I've been taking the 15-month old to the community garden every time I have him; this week it was cold and we just sat for a while, bundled up, listening to the birds. I'm taking in the truth that where we choose to put our attention, that is where we develop the capacity to notice more. I hope his ear is always attuned to the birds.
And I'm so pleased that the State Department has not approved the Keystone XL pipeline, but delayed any action, and I choose to believe that our messages to the President--of all kinds--played a role in that decision.
Love,
Pamela
A Courage Project
You can have fear without courage, but you can’t have courage without fear. As I’ve been thinking about how we can best support each other to do scary things, I realize that we can take a lesson from the children. They look for activities that will test them—climb a tree, walk through a culvert, jump across a gap, have an adventure in the dark, tell scary stories. Children are pulled to test their courage, in a heady mix of fear and excitement.
As adults, some of us still thrive on risk; others are more cautious and prefer our thrills well buffered. Both tendencies are being increasingly accommodated by our consumer economy. Those who want risk without protection gravitate toward extreme sports. Those who prefer to consume it safely have a range of manufactured thrills available, from parachute and bungee jumping to amusement park rides.
It’s a paradox. On the one hand, we are protected from risks in small things as never before; on the other hand, the big dangers we face are unprecedented. These are times that call for enormous courage about things that are real—the courage to face threats to our future, to welcome chaos, and to find our way together into the unknown.
I thought a lot about courage at a recent day of action on climate change, when I ended up stepping away, at the last minute, from risking arrest. Rather than going on auto-pilot to do what seemed “brave”, I found myself choosing a path where I could stay more present and connected to myself, while still being involved in the action as a whole. As I reflected on this experience, I realized that there are many ways of being brave, and my most courageous act had probably taken place several days earlier: after noticing that I had been very quiet about my plans, I spent an evening daring to share with a wide circle of friends both my passion for the earth and my feelings about the action. Showing myself fully: now that’s scary!
Courage is not one size fits all, and nobody can take another person’s courageous step, but we all can be braver in ways that are completely our own. What if each one of us did a personal inventory of the times and places where we have been brave, and brought them to our community for acknowledgment and celebration? Then we could look at where our fears keep us quiet and passive, and develop personal courage campaigns. With a buddy or a small group, we could share our intentions to practice being brave—in our families, at work, with our neighbors, in the larger community—and come back to share our successes, or grieve our failures, and get ready for the next courageous step.
What are mine? Talking about what matters to me even though others don’t seem to care. Openly trying a response, even though it might fail. Letting others know what I’m trying, and inviting them to join me. Once they’ve agreed, then sticking with it, holding out confidence that any second thoughts or complaints (theirs or mine) are just a way of showing our fears.
At a recent workshop on easing the transition to lower energy use by building resilience at a local level, the leader asked if anyone had the courage to build a core group that reflected their diverse urban neighborhood. I was surprised at her use of that word, but raised my hand. I’m not good at it. It’s not coming quickly or easily. But I know what it takes to put my hand on the phone, think of a million useful things that I could do so much more easily than call somebody who is not yet in my circle, or who doesn’t yet know how much I care about something that may not be on their radar screen, pause, breathe deeply, then make the call—and, when I don’t hear back, then make it again.
We don’t know how courageous other people are. We don’t know what it costs them to do things that might seem easy to us. But together we can all do more. I’m looking to recapture that model from our childhood: A gang of buddies coming across—or setting up—a challenge. An open acknowledgment of fear: Yikes, this is scary! Do you think we can do it? I don’t know. Let’s try anyway. Okay, here goes! The squeals of excitement/fear, the shivers running up and down our spines, the uncontrollable shaking. Then assessing the results together: Wow, we did it! Wow, almost, let’s try again! Wow, that didn’t work at all! What next? Could there be a more human way of being in this world together?
Dare to imagine: A new economy is possible!
Local planning
Cape Cod is one of the few places in the country that embeds economic criteria in its planning policies and requires that large projects get approval from both the host town and a regional planning body, the Cape Cod Commission. The Commission is made up of representatives from each of the Cape’s 15 towns, and focuses on how the development would affect Cape Cod’s economy and environment. After looking closely at a proposal to bring in a new Lowe's, the Commission concluded that “the probable benefit of the proposed development is not greater than the probable detriment.”
A pivotal issue was the store’s projected impact on jobs and wages. One of the region’s primary planning goals is to increase household income. In a region already saturated with building supply stores, Lowe’s arrival would cause many existing local businesses to downsize or close, leading to a net decline of 48 jobs. Moreover, the new jobs at Lowe’s would pay $9,000 less on average than the jobs lost at local stores, resulting in a total income loss of over $3 million for the region’s residents.
Armed with this kind of analysis, the Cape Cod Commission has approved relatively few big-box stores in its 24-year history. Not surprisingly, Cape Cod has significantly more independent businesses per capita than the national average.
http://www.ilsr.org/smart-planning-policies-protect-good-jobs-cities-vote-big-boxes/
Easter sunrise
Well before dawn
biking toward the Easter morning sunrise
a bird I do not know greets me with cheery song.
I take it in, rejoice, bike on.
The bird song follows,
block after block after block.
Is this one bird following me
intent to gladden my heart
and make my ride a joyous one?
Is he passing me on from friend to friend—
in some sweet welcoming relay?
Or am I just a witness
in that pre-dawn dark and cold
to all the heralds of the day?
The thought that it is personal
brings on a smile.
The sure knowledge that
these birds will sing the sun up
as long as they have breath to sing
reminds me of the chance we have each day
to give our thanks
for all the life the sun makes possible
on Earth, our home.
Some things that have made me hopeful recently
The Obama administration's Good Friday extension of the review period on the Keystone XL pipeline, pushing back a final decision on the disputed project indefinitely, to have time to review some 2.5 million public comments, and assess the impact of a pending lawsuit in Nebraska.
Philadelphia's move to the forefront of a national movement to protect immigrants from deportation over minor and nonviolent crimes, by limiting the information it shares with the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
A restorative justice program in Oakland California's public schools, which has led to dramatic reductions in suspensions and referrals for violence, as well as increases in graduation rates and test scores.
The opportunity to connect with individual women artisans in Guatemala and orchard planters in Azerbaijan and Tajikistan through the no-interest lending program of Kiva.
More resources
Posts on other people's blogs: http://www.classism.org/children-mass-culture
NEW: Check out my friend Daniel Hunter's new book, a narrative of direct action campaigning: Strategy & Soul: A Campaigner's Tale of Fighting Billionaires, Corrupt Officials, and Philadelphia Casinos: www.strategyandsoul.org
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: doingdemocracy.com/MB4PnJ02.htm (or just google the title)
faitheconomyecology.wordpress.com, a website that I've contributed to often (check the archives)
www.ourchildrenourselves.org, a home for all the parenting writing I've done over the past 20 years.
www.startguide.org. START: a way to study and work together with others to create a better world.
For earlier columns, go to www.pamelascolumn.blogspot.com. I'm currently posting at pamelalivinginthisworld.blogspot.com.
Sunday, April 27, 2014
Monday, April 7, 2014
#131 Seeds
Dear friends,
Spring is coming! My mind keeps turning to seeds and flowers, and the earth--the inspiration for much of which follows. And I'm still writing every other day or so to the president. If you want to join me, check out http://www.pamelalivinginthisworld.blogspot.com/2014/03/130-how-to-love-earth.html
Love,
Pamela
Seeds
My grandmother loved a flower that she called Rocket. It was tall and pinky-purple and bloomed at the side of the road. She would gather seeds and scatter them—and now, whenever I see Rocket blooming, I wonder if that beauty might have come from one of my grandmother’s seeds.
Not all seeds grow. Even if we plant and care for them most tenderly, forces without number can keep them from becoming mature and productive plants. And when we scatter them more randomly, the chances go down even farther, as some fall on rocky ground or among the thistles. But some do grow, sometimes in the most unlikely places.
I became very aware of this truth after Chuck and I poured our hearts into trauma healing and peer-listening workshops in Northern Uganda. Back home, we kept hoping that something would take root as a result, but heard precious little news of growth. Maybe the ground was just too stony. Yet, when we returned three years later, we discovered that one of the most self-effacing young men in our workshops had been steadily teaching his friends everything he had learned. When we returned again, we were astonished to discover that a teenage girl, who was very much at the edge of that second workshop, was now leading an energetic and committed group of students in a neighboring town. Who would have imagined?
I’m learning this lesson again as I search for ways to play my part in the movement against climate change. Once I got the idea that anybody who went to college could play a role by urging their alma maters to divest from fossil fuels, I was motivated to get started right away. Yet I struggled. The administration of my college was glacially slow in responding to my inquiries, and I wasn't able to build much momentum with the alumni that I knew. There were no encouraging signs.
More stony ground? But I really wanted this fruit—and started dropping seeds among my friends and colleagues. When it looked like disappointment might stop them as well, I hustled to work the soil. After all, the seeds had come from me, and I felt responsible. I was able to make contact with some enormously helpful staff people at the Fossil Free movement of 350.org, and worked to link them with my friends. Buoyed by this resource, I scattered a little more.
Over the months that followed, there was some heartening progress at my college, but certainly no fruit to enjoy anywhere. Then one recent Sunday a fellow congregant told me that the letter he’d written to his college had been answered by the president, no less, who was intrigued with this idea and wanted to know more. Omigosh—a sprout!
Later that same week, a young woman who went to college with my son mentioned to others in my hearing that she was now involved with the new alumni council that had been formed to address fossil fuel divestment. I had included her in one of my messages to everyone I knew who went to that college, but hadn’t heard back from anybody, and hadn’t expected her to make such a stretch. Another sprout! Now I can't help but wonder if there are yet others growing totally out of my sight.
This is not the only way to grow things. I may choose at times to pour selected resources into a carefully controlled environment, in the hopes of getting good fruit. But there’s something about not knowing which seeds will take hold, and spreading them generously with the knowledge that we are not ultimately in control, that speaks to me. I think that I, like my grandmother, will continue to scatter seeds by the side of the road.
Dare to imagine: A new economy is possible!
Participatory budgeting
Participatory budgeting (PB) is a different way to manage public money, and to engage people in government. It is a democratic process in which community members directly decide how to spend part of a public budget. It enables taxpayers to work with government to make the budget decisions that affect their lives.
The process was first developed in Porto Alegre, Brazil in 1989, and there are now over 1,500 participatory budgets around the world. Most of these are at the city level, for the municipal budget. PB has also been used, however, for counties, states, housing authorities, schools and school systems, universities, coalitions, and other public agencies.
Though each experience is different, most follow a similar basic process: residents brainstorm spending ideas, volunteer budget delegates develop proposals based on these ideas, residents vote on proposals, and the government implements the top projects.
http://www.participatorybudgeting.org/about-participatory-budgeting/what-is-pb/
Lenten rose
The hellebore, or Lenten rose
is new to me--
deep mauve, pale green and ivory
in bloom before the daffodils,
now planted in one corner
of our park.
A bitter winter hid the ground,
park lovers picked their icy way
or stayed at home.
But now the corner with the hellebores
has been revealed--
debased, awash in trash.
I pass it twice, in pain.
The third time, in the rain
I find a plastic bag
and pick it clean.
The corner now is theirs alone.
The hellebores can shine
in all their quiet loveliness.
My eye can rest
and I go home
more hopeful, and refreshed.
Some things that have made me hopeful recently:
The government of El Salvador, which stopped issuing gold mining permits half a decade ago, despite high gold prices and persuasive arguments about boosting economic growth--because the majority of Salvadorans get water from one large river system, and gold mining invariably pollutes nearby rivers and watersheds.
Thousands of North Carolinians, who have been challenging the state government's austerity agenda for months in protests called Moral Majority Mondays, organized by a coalition including union, civil rights, faith-based, environmental and feminist groups.
Knowing that, during the conflict in Ukraine, there were local people in the big square in Kiev actively sharing skills and perspectives of Alternatives to Violence.
The ability to act in ways, no matter how small, that increase the stock of hopeful things in the world.
More resources
Posts on other people's blogs: http://www.classism.org/children-mass-culture
NEW: Check out my friend Daniel Hunter's new book, a narrative of direct action campaigning: Strategy & Soul: A Campaigner's Tale of Fighting Billionaires, Corrupt Officials, and Philadelphia Casinos: www.strategyandsoul.org
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: doingdemocracy.com/MB4PnJ02.htm (or just google the title)
faitheconomyecology.wordpress.com, a website that I've contributed to often (check the archives)
www.ourchildrenourselves.org, a home for all the parenting writing I've done over the past 20 years.
www.startguide.org. START: a way to study and work together with others to create a better world.
For earlier columns, go to www.pamelascolumn.blogspot.com. I'm currently posting at pamelalivinginthisworld.blogspot.com.
Spring is coming! My mind keeps turning to seeds and flowers, and the earth--the inspiration for much of which follows. And I'm still writing every other day or so to the president. If you want to join me, check out http://www.pamelalivinginthisworld.blogspot.com/2014/03/130-how-to-love-earth.html
Love,
Pamela
Seeds
My grandmother loved a flower that she called Rocket. It was tall and pinky-purple and bloomed at the side of the road. She would gather seeds and scatter them—and now, whenever I see Rocket blooming, I wonder if that beauty might have come from one of my grandmother’s seeds.
Not all seeds grow. Even if we plant and care for them most tenderly, forces without number can keep them from becoming mature and productive plants. And when we scatter them more randomly, the chances go down even farther, as some fall on rocky ground or among the thistles. But some do grow, sometimes in the most unlikely places.
I became very aware of this truth after Chuck and I poured our hearts into trauma healing and peer-listening workshops in Northern Uganda. Back home, we kept hoping that something would take root as a result, but heard precious little news of growth. Maybe the ground was just too stony. Yet, when we returned three years later, we discovered that one of the most self-effacing young men in our workshops had been steadily teaching his friends everything he had learned. When we returned again, we were astonished to discover that a teenage girl, who was very much at the edge of that second workshop, was now leading an energetic and committed group of students in a neighboring town. Who would have imagined?
I’m learning this lesson again as I search for ways to play my part in the movement against climate change. Once I got the idea that anybody who went to college could play a role by urging their alma maters to divest from fossil fuels, I was motivated to get started right away. Yet I struggled. The administration of my college was glacially slow in responding to my inquiries, and I wasn't able to build much momentum with the alumni that I knew. There were no encouraging signs.
More stony ground? But I really wanted this fruit—and started dropping seeds among my friends and colleagues. When it looked like disappointment might stop them as well, I hustled to work the soil. After all, the seeds had come from me, and I felt responsible. I was able to make contact with some enormously helpful staff people at the Fossil Free movement of 350.org, and worked to link them with my friends. Buoyed by this resource, I scattered a little more.
Over the months that followed, there was some heartening progress at my college, but certainly no fruit to enjoy anywhere. Then one recent Sunday a fellow congregant told me that the letter he’d written to his college had been answered by the president, no less, who was intrigued with this idea and wanted to know more. Omigosh—a sprout!
Later that same week, a young woman who went to college with my son mentioned to others in my hearing that she was now involved with the new alumni council that had been formed to address fossil fuel divestment. I had included her in one of my messages to everyone I knew who went to that college, but hadn’t heard back from anybody, and hadn’t expected her to make such a stretch. Another sprout! Now I can't help but wonder if there are yet others growing totally out of my sight.
This is not the only way to grow things. I may choose at times to pour selected resources into a carefully controlled environment, in the hopes of getting good fruit. But there’s something about not knowing which seeds will take hold, and spreading them generously with the knowledge that we are not ultimately in control, that speaks to me. I think that I, like my grandmother, will continue to scatter seeds by the side of the road.
Dare to imagine: A new economy is possible!
Participatory budgeting
Participatory budgeting (PB) is a different way to manage public money, and to engage people in government. It is a democratic process in which community members directly decide how to spend part of a public budget. It enables taxpayers to work with government to make the budget decisions that affect their lives.
The process was first developed in Porto Alegre, Brazil in 1989, and there are now over 1,500 participatory budgets around the world. Most of these are at the city level, for the municipal budget. PB has also been used, however, for counties, states, housing authorities, schools and school systems, universities, coalitions, and other public agencies.
Though each experience is different, most follow a similar basic process: residents brainstorm spending ideas, volunteer budget delegates develop proposals based on these ideas, residents vote on proposals, and the government implements the top projects.
http://www.participatorybudgeting.org/about-participatory-budgeting/what-is-pb/
Lenten rose
The hellebore, or Lenten rose
is new to me--
deep mauve, pale green and ivory
in bloom before the daffodils,
now planted in one corner
of our park.
A bitter winter hid the ground,
park lovers picked their icy way
or stayed at home.
But now the corner with the hellebores
has been revealed--
debased, awash in trash.
I pass it twice, in pain.
The third time, in the rain
I find a plastic bag
and pick it clean.
The corner now is theirs alone.
The hellebores can shine
in all their quiet loveliness.
My eye can rest
and I go home
more hopeful, and refreshed.
Some things that have made me hopeful recently:
The government of El Salvador, which stopped issuing gold mining permits half a decade ago, despite high gold prices and persuasive arguments about boosting economic growth--because the majority of Salvadorans get water from one large river system, and gold mining invariably pollutes nearby rivers and watersheds.
Thousands of North Carolinians, who have been challenging the state government's austerity agenda for months in protests called Moral Majority Mondays, organized by a coalition including union, civil rights, faith-based, environmental and feminist groups.
Knowing that, during the conflict in Ukraine, there were local people in the big square in Kiev actively sharing skills and perspectives of Alternatives to Violence.
The ability to act in ways, no matter how small, that increase the stock of hopeful things in the world.
More resources
Posts on other people's blogs: http://www.classism.org/children-mass-culture
NEW: Check out my friend Daniel Hunter's new book, a narrative of direct action campaigning: Strategy & Soul: A Campaigner's Tale of Fighting Billionaires, Corrupt Officials, and Philadelphia Casinos: www.strategyandsoul.org
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: doingdemocracy.com/MB4PnJ02.htm (or just google the title)
faitheconomyecology.wordpress.com, a website that I've contributed to often (check the archives)
www.ourchildrenourselves.org, a home for all the parenting writing I've done over the past 20 years.
www.startguide.org. START: a way to study and work together with others to create a better world.
For earlier columns, go to www.pamelascolumn.blogspot.com. I'm currently posting at pamelalivinginthisworld.blogspot.com.
Sunday, March 30, 2014
#130 How to Love the Earth
Dear friends,
My love for the earth has led me in a couple of strikingly different directions this week, and I'm feeling called to share, even though you heard from me not that long ago.
Last Saturday was a warm day that seemed like a herald of spring, and I realized that this was the time to prune the cherry and peach trees that I'd planted in the community garden. It feels like a great responsibility--doing right by the trees that help nourish us, and I put time into doing it as well as I could.
Then on Monday, I participated in a protest against the Keystone XL pipeline**. I went with the intention of risking arrest--a big stretch for me--but ended up standing aside. It was clear that those of us who stayed all day, singing and supporting the civil disobedience were critical to the success of the event as well, and I went home with tons to think about: different kids of courage; what it means to stay fully awake to both the situation around me and what's going on inside; the puzzle of how to put your body on the line when the line is not visible. All that will take some time to brew, and you may hear more later...
But I also came home very much under the weight of the threat of the pipeline, particularly since it looks likely that the President may well make a decision on it in the next couple of weeks. So I decided to do something that can't be more different from risking arrest: writing a letter to the President. Actually I've written three so far, with two more in the works, and posted them on several FB pages. I'd like to invite you to join me.
So here's what I've got for you today:
Five letters to the President, and a link to his e-mail page (you're welcome to any or all of my text).
A promise to be in touch about the issues the protest brought up for me.
And a poem from last March about pruning.
Love,
Pamela
**For those of you who may not be aware, this is a plan to pipe crude oil from the Alberta tar sands in Canada through the prairies of the midwest for export from the Gulf coast. It seems clear that exploiting the tar sands fully would tip climate change to a trajectory that is irreversible and life-threatening, and that the pipeline would not only encourage that exploitation, but also pose enormous threat to the land and water supplies on its route. For more information, go to http://350.org/campaigns/stop-keystone-xl/
Dear President Obama
I implore you to do what you know is right, and stop the Keystone XL pipeline. Big money will hate and vilify you for it, and your short term legacy may be compromised by their lies. But if you do the right thing, and we end up with a future on this planet, all the world's grandchildren and great grandchildren will thank you for the single most important action that you took to ensure their chance to flourish.
In making your decision about the Keystone XL pipeline, please keep the needs of the seventh generation in the front of your mind. You don't have to be re-elected. You have the luxury to do the right thing. Go down in history as a climate hero--the one who turned the tide.
You have an unprecedented chance to make a difference for the whole world by stopping the Keystone XL pipeline. Please do the right thing. Don't give in to big money. I bet you'll sleep better at night.
We're smart enough to find a way to live with less oil. Please choose for the potential of our intelligence rather than for the pressures of greed. Say no to the Keystone CL pipeline and yes to a still-unknown, but potentially livable future.
I could offer pages of scientific reasons to stop the Keystone XL pipeline, but at root I think it's a simple moral choice: health is more important than money. Ultimately we can't build a healthy economy on the foundation of an unhealthy earth. Our children and grandchildren won't thrive. Please do the right thing.
And here's the link: http://www.whitehouse.gov/contact/submit-questions-and-comments
On a fruit tree pruning workshop at Bartram’s Garden
The melody line dips and soars
through roots, buds, branches
soil, sun, fruit.
The base is a steady
love, love, love.
The buds will lead the way in spring
while the roots are still asleep—
They touch the sun.
Remember the children when you prune—
They need a place to sit
a way to climb.
Feed the trees with a woodsy compost mix—
Think of what they love
and how the fungi nourish them.
I’d cut back on the branches here—
Make it so the sun can find a way
to kiss the fruit.
I would have stayed all day
never mind the standing or the cold
just to hear that song.
I don’t remember all the words
I wish I could—
I treasured every one.
But the base stays with me
heartbeat of the universe
love, love, love.
My love for the earth has led me in a couple of strikingly different directions this week, and I'm feeling called to share, even though you heard from me not that long ago.
Last Saturday was a warm day that seemed like a herald of spring, and I realized that this was the time to prune the cherry and peach trees that I'd planted in the community garden. It feels like a great responsibility--doing right by the trees that help nourish us, and I put time into doing it as well as I could.
Then on Monday, I participated in a protest against the Keystone XL pipeline**. I went with the intention of risking arrest--a big stretch for me--but ended up standing aside. It was clear that those of us who stayed all day, singing and supporting the civil disobedience were critical to the success of the event as well, and I went home with tons to think about: different kids of courage; what it means to stay fully awake to both the situation around me and what's going on inside; the puzzle of how to put your body on the line when the line is not visible. All that will take some time to brew, and you may hear more later...
But I also came home very much under the weight of the threat of the pipeline, particularly since it looks likely that the President may well make a decision on it in the next couple of weeks. So I decided to do something that can't be more different from risking arrest: writing a letter to the President. Actually I've written three so far, with two more in the works, and posted them on several FB pages. I'd like to invite you to join me.
So here's what I've got for you today:
Five letters to the President, and a link to his e-mail page (you're welcome to any or all of my text).
A promise to be in touch about the issues the protest brought up for me.
And a poem from last March about pruning.
Love,
Pamela
**For those of you who may not be aware, this is a plan to pipe crude oil from the Alberta tar sands in Canada through the prairies of the midwest for export from the Gulf coast. It seems clear that exploiting the tar sands fully would tip climate change to a trajectory that is irreversible and life-threatening, and that the pipeline would not only encourage that exploitation, but also pose enormous threat to the land and water supplies on its route. For more information, go to http://350.org/campaigns/stop-keystone-xl/
Dear President Obama
I implore you to do what you know is right, and stop the Keystone XL pipeline. Big money will hate and vilify you for it, and your short term legacy may be compromised by their lies. But if you do the right thing, and we end up with a future on this planet, all the world's grandchildren and great grandchildren will thank you for the single most important action that you took to ensure their chance to flourish.
In making your decision about the Keystone XL pipeline, please keep the needs of the seventh generation in the front of your mind. You don't have to be re-elected. You have the luxury to do the right thing. Go down in history as a climate hero--the one who turned the tide.
You have an unprecedented chance to make a difference for the whole world by stopping the Keystone XL pipeline. Please do the right thing. Don't give in to big money. I bet you'll sleep better at night.
We're smart enough to find a way to live with less oil. Please choose for the potential of our intelligence rather than for the pressures of greed. Say no to the Keystone CL pipeline and yes to a still-unknown, but potentially livable future.
I could offer pages of scientific reasons to stop the Keystone XL pipeline, but at root I think it's a simple moral choice: health is more important than money. Ultimately we can't build a healthy economy on the foundation of an unhealthy earth. Our children and grandchildren won't thrive. Please do the right thing.
And here's the link: http://www.whitehouse.gov/contact/submit-questions-and-comments
On a fruit tree pruning workshop at Bartram’s Garden
The melody line dips and soars
through roots, buds, branches
soil, sun, fruit.
The base is a steady
love, love, love.
The buds will lead the way in spring
while the roots are still asleep—
They touch the sun.
Remember the children when you prune—
They need a place to sit
a way to climb.
Feed the trees with a woodsy compost mix—
Think of what they love
and how the fungi nourish them.
I’d cut back on the branches here—
Make it so the sun can find a way
to kiss the fruit.
I would have stayed all day
never mind the standing or the cold
just to hear that song.
I don’t remember all the words
I wish I could—
I treasured every one.
But the base stays with me
heartbeat of the universe
love, love, love.
Sunday, March 2, 2014
#129 Honoring Our Elders
Dear all,
I was privileged to spend a week in February with the extended family we have claimed in Poland. It is always good to be reminded that my country is not the center of the world. For me this time, it was even more important to be reminded that our connections with each other are the threads that make up the fabric of community, Any change for the better requires those threads to be strong, and my thread is more important to the lives it crosses and weaves through than I can easily remember.
Thanks for crossing my life--and I send warm hopes for spring!
Love,
Pamela
Honoring our elders
Last spring I had the privilege of participating in a local event to honor our neighborhood elders, organized by a friend of mine. She had encouraged neighborhood groups and congregations to nominate an elder from their midst whose life had been long, fruitful and inspiring. Then friends and neighbors gathered at a local community hall to honor them. For each, a brief bio was read, they stood up (as able) to share a few remarks, and then received a certificate and the appreciation of those present. Black and white, Protestant, Catholic and Jewish, everyone in our diverse and changing neighborhood was united in being thankful for the lives of these eight elders. The concept was simple, the impact unexpectedly profound.
Our society in general is not that great with aging, and our heady faith that technology can win out over old age and death is troubling on many fronts. Our love affair with youth verges on obsession. The last 300 years has been a whirlwind of innovation, with newer and better replacing the old and familiar at a dizzying rate. With our newest gadgets now completely obsolete in a matter of years, what used to be valued as wisdom is easily consigned to the trash bin of irrelevance.
But there are more and more signs that a viable future requires a concern for our roots, that we need all the wisdom from the past that we can get our hands on and our minds around. There is the great accumulated wisdom of our ecosystems; the wisdom of our cultural traditions, and of indigenous peoples from all over the world; the wisdom of our grandparents. My grandfather took delight in a hole well dug—and in the digging of it. My grandmother coaxed bounty out of her garden, and used the smallest scraps of fabric to create both utility and beauty.
There is wisdom; there is also vulnerability. As we are coming through the bitterest winter I can remember, I’m getting better at remembering my elderly neighbors. It was a shock to realize that I’m not good at this. Raised in a community of all young families, we had no elderly neighbors—nobody to shovel for, nobody who needed looking in on when the power was out. I grew up with an unaware assumption of physical competence and self-sufficiency as a norm, and I now wonder if that assumption fed a lack of attention to vulnerability in other forms and places.
I’m up for the challenge of embracing more fully both the wisdom and the vulnerability in our communities—the long-time ecosystems that support us; our native peoples; our elders. In the midst of winter, I am shoveling for my elderly neighbors, calling shut ins—and I am looking forward to spring and another opportunity to honor our neighborhood elders.
Language density
The week was dense with Polish--
all those deep and subtle sounds
that fill the air
in homes, streets, subways, shops
as people go about their Polish days
and talk, and talk and talk.
We were with friends, family to us
cocooned in English and their love.
Others were kind and helped us on our way
so we were not lost.
Translation helped. I listened, tried
remembered more from day to day
rejoiced in all I understood.
But still the language did not bend
to ear or tongue.
Even leaving, at the airport, on the plane,
the signs and sounds stayed true
to native land.
Animated Polish filled those narrow chutes
as we came out to London’s vast Heathrow—
then lost its density, thinning away
in moments to nothing but a wisp
in that great space filled solidly
with English.
More comfortable, but all the same
a loss, somehow.
Imagine: A new economy is possible!
Local currency
Just days into the job last year, the mayor of the city of Bristol in England announced his decision to be paid in Bristol Pounds. This local currency is designed to support Bristol’s independent businesses, strengthen its economy and keep the city’s high streets diverse and distinctive. A not-for-profit social enterprise run between the Bristol Pound Community Interest Company and Bristol Credit Union, the Bristol Pound is the UK’s first city-wide local currency.
Bristol Pounds are purchased with British Pounds and can be spent with any of the more than 500 businesses that have signed up. Additionally, the program operates online banking and has a text message payment system. Says Bristol Pound director Chris Sunderland, “Of all the money spent in a city, most of it leaves the city almost as soon as it’s spent. It goes up to the financial institutions and gets lost. What people can be sure of with Bristol Pounds is that they’re circulating in the city and that’s where they’ll stay,” he said.
http://www.positivenewsus.org/mayor-of-bristol.html
Some things that have made me hopeful recently
How fruit and vegetable auctions in rural Ohio area are getting fresh vegetables into food deserts, building community, and helping rural Appalachian farmers earn a living. http://www.yesmagazine.org/new-economy/how-a-fruit-and-vegetable-auction-in-rural-ohio-helps-appalachian-farmers-thrive
How peace, faith, environmental and union groups got Connecticut, one of the most defense-dependent states in the nation, to pass legislation convening a broad-based Commission to come up with a plan to diversify Connecticut’s overly defense-dependent economy. http://www.ips-dc.org/blog/demilitarizing_the_economy_a_movement_is_underway
A reduction in homelessness in Utah by 78 percent, based on a recognition that it is more cost effective to give people an apartment and social work services than to pay for the annual ER and jail costs associated with homelessness. http://www.nationofchange.org/utah-ending-homelessness-giving-people-homes-1390056183
The new constitution, recently agreed upon in Tunisia, which includes guaranteed equality between men and women, a mandate for environmental protection, a declaration that health care is a human right, and a democratic system with rights to due process and respect for freedom of religion.
More resources
Posts on other people's blogs: http://www.classism.org/children-mass-culture
NEW: Check out my friend Daniel Hunter's new book, a narrative of direct action campaigning: Strategy & Soul: A Campaigner's Tale of Fighting Billionaires, Corrupt Officials, and Philadelphia Casinos: www.strategyandsoul.org
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: doingdemocracy.com/MB4PnJ02.htm (or just google the title)
faitheconomyecology.wordpress.com, a website that I've contributed to often (check the archives)
www.ourchildrenourselves.org, a home for all the parenting writing I've done over the past 20 years.
www.startguide.org. START: a way to study and work together with others to create a better world.
For earlier columns, go to www.pamelascolumn.blogspot.com. I'm currently posting at pamelalivinginthisworld.blogspot.com.
I was privileged to spend a week in February with the extended family we have claimed in Poland. It is always good to be reminded that my country is not the center of the world. For me this time, it was even more important to be reminded that our connections with each other are the threads that make up the fabric of community, Any change for the better requires those threads to be strong, and my thread is more important to the lives it crosses and weaves through than I can easily remember.
Thanks for crossing my life--and I send warm hopes for spring!
Love,
Pamela
Honoring our elders
Last spring I had the privilege of participating in a local event to honor our neighborhood elders, organized by a friend of mine. She had encouraged neighborhood groups and congregations to nominate an elder from their midst whose life had been long, fruitful and inspiring. Then friends and neighbors gathered at a local community hall to honor them. For each, a brief bio was read, they stood up (as able) to share a few remarks, and then received a certificate and the appreciation of those present. Black and white, Protestant, Catholic and Jewish, everyone in our diverse and changing neighborhood was united in being thankful for the lives of these eight elders. The concept was simple, the impact unexpectedly profound.
Our society in general is not that great with aging, and our heady faith that technology can win out over old age and death is troubling on many fronts. Our love affair with youth verges on obsession. The last 300 years has been a whirlwind of innovation, with newer and better replacing the old and familiar at a dizzying rate. With our newest gadgets now completely obsolete in a matter of years, what used to be valued as wisdom is easily consigned to the trash bin of irrelevance.
But there are more and more signs that a viable future requires a concern for our roots, that we need all the wisdom from the past that we can get our hands on and our minds around. There is the great accumulated wisdom of our ecosystems; the wisdom of our cultural traditions, and of indigenous peoples from all over the world; the wisdom of our grandparents. My grandfather took delight in a hole well dug—and in the digging of it. My grandmother coaxed bounty out of her garden, and used the smallest scraps of fabric to create both utility and beauty.
There is wisdom; there is also vulnerability. As we are coming through the bitterest winter I can remember, I’m getting better at remembering my elderly neighbors. It was a shock to realize that I’m not good at this. Raised in a community of all young families, we had no elderly neighbors—nobody to shovel for, nobody who needed looking in on when the power was out. I grew up with an unaware assumption of physical competence and self-sufficiency as a norm, and I now wonder if that assumption fed a lack of attention to vulnerability in other forms and places.
I’m up for the challenge of embracing more fully both the wisdom and the vulnerability in our communities—the long-time ecosystems that support us; our native peoples; our elders. In the midst of winter, I am shoveling for my elderly neighbors, calling shut ins—and I am looking forward to spring and another opportunity to honor our neighborhood elders.
Language density
The week was dense with Polish--
all those deep and subtle sounds
that fill the air
in homes, streets, subways, shops
as people go about their Polish days
and talk, and talk and talk.
We were with friends, family to us
cocooned in English and their love.
Others were kind and helped us on our way
so we were not lost.
Translation helped. I listened, tried
remembered more from day to day
rejoiced in all I understood.
But still the language did not bend
to ear or tongue.
Even leaving, at the airport, on the plane,
the signs and sounds stayed true
to native land.
Animated Polish filled those narrow chutes
as we came out to London’s vast Heathrow—
then lost its density, thinning away
in moments to nothing but a wisp
in that great space filled solidly
with English.
More comfortable, but all the same
a loss, somehow.
Imagine: A new economy is possible!
Local currency
Just days into the job last year, the mayor of the city of Bristol in England announced his decision to be paid in Bristol Pounds. This local currency is designed to support Bristol’s independent businesses, strengthen its economy and keep the city’s high streets diverse and distinctive. A not-for-profit social enterprise run between the Bristol Pound Community Interest Company and Bristol Credit Union, the Bristol Pound is the UK’s first city-wide local currency.
Bristol Pounds are purchased with British Pounds and can be spent with any of the more than 500 businesses that have signed up. Additionally, the program operates online banking and has a text message payment system. Says Bristol Pound director Chris Sunderland, “Of all the money spent in a city, most of it leaves the city almost as soon as it’s spent. It goes up to the financial institutions and gets lost. What people can be sure of with Bristol Pounds is that they’re circulating in the city and that’s where they’ll stay,” he said.
http://www.positivenewsus.org/mayor-of-bristol.html
Some things that have made me hopeful recently
How fruit and vegetable auctions in rural Ohio area are getting fresh vegetables into food deserts, building community, and helping rural Appalachian farmers earn a living. http://www.yesmagazine.org/new-economy/how-a-fruit-and-vegetable-auction-in-rural-ohio-helps-appalachian-farmers-thrive
How peace, faith, environmental and union groups got Connecticut, one of the most defense-dependent states in the nation, to pass legislation convening a broad-based Commission to come up with a plan to diversify Connecticut’s overly defense-dependent economy. http://www.ips-dc.org/blog/demilitarizing_the_economy_a_movement_is_underway
A reduction in homelessness in Utah by 78 percent, based on a recognition that it is more cost effective to give people an apartment and social work services than to pay for the annual ER and jail costs associated with homelessness. http://www.nationofchange.org/utah-ending-homelessness-giving-people-homes-1390056183
The new constitution, recently agreed upon in Tunisia, which includes guaranteed equality between men and women, a mandate for environmental protection, a declaration that health care is a human right, and a democratic system with rights to due process and respect for freedom of religion.
More resources
Posts on other people's blogs: http://www.classism.org/children-mass-culture
NEW: Check out my friend Daniel Hunter's new book, a narrative of direct action campaigning: Strategy & Soul: A Campaigner's Tale of Fighting Billionaires, Corrupt Officials, and Philadelphia Casinos: www.strategyandsoul.org
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: doingdemocracy.com/MB4PnJ02.htm (or just google the title)
faitheconomyecology.wordpress.com, a website that I've contributed to often (check the archives)
www.ourchildrenourselves.org, a home for all the parenting writing I've done over the past 20 years.
www.startguide.org. START: a way to study and work together with others to create a better world.
For earlier columns, go to www.pamelascolumn.blogspot.com. I'm currently posting at pamelalivinginthisworld.blogspot.com.
Sunday, February 2, 2014
#128 Leaving the Land of I
Dear all,
A bitterly cold January has me extra thankful for warmth, in all its manifestations. Farmers say the cold is good for the land and the crops. I'm glad for that, but I find myself, along with the earth, turning toward the spring.
Love,
Pamela
Leaving the Land of I
It didn’t take a Kansas tornado for us to find ourselves in the Land of I. Many of us were born there and have lived there all our lives, not knowing any other place as home. For others our homeland has been transformed so gradually that it’s been hard to notice the change from day to day. Yet here each one of us is, surrounded by all the bright colors and the glittering promises.
All I have to do to be happy in the Land of I is to make the right choices among all the possibilities and opportunities that are flashing so insistently around me. What products will give me satisfaction, pleasure and status? What clothing will show me off to best advantage? What amusements will entertain? What friends will best fulfill my needs? What education will lead to the most satisfying career? What family will enhance my happiness? What choices will maximize my power and influence? Even, what good works can I undertake to fulfill my urge toward generosity and compassion?
If I choose well, I can have a good life and perhaps leave my mark on the world. If I stumble, I can correct and make a better selection. If I fall, I can hope for the strength to get up and try again. If I continue to struggle, it is because too many of my choices have been unwise.
In the Land of I, every person also gets a pair of rose-colored glasses—to make the colors and the promises more seductive, and to obscure the hard realities that nobody really wants to look at anyway. Immersed in the bustle and hype of the Land of I, it’s hard to imagine any other world. Yet one is there and available to all of us, just a click of the heels away.
This world is quieter. The choices are less insistent. The lights flash less, but burn more steadily. Rose-colored glasses are nowhere to be found, and we see things happening to others around us that make us grieve. There are still individual choices, but they are more subtle. How is my life entwined with those around me at this moment—and the next—and what attitude can I hold, what step can I take that will increase our overall welfare? In the longer term, how can I orient and equip myself to make my best and fullest contribution to this world, and how can I help others to do the same?
No longer in the Land of I, we don’t have to make all these choices on our own. In this world, others don’t care so much about the glitter of our clothes or social circles or careers, but they are deeply invested in promoting our gifts, our goodness and our potential.
None of us have to abandon our own center to live here; rather we all get to inhabit it more fully as each person finds a place in the middle of ever-greater circles of “we”. We get to be for ourselves and for others at the same time. But first we have to make the decision to leave the Land of I. If we can take off those rose-colored glasses, turn our backs on the glitter and the empty promises and start claiming our connections, together we can find our way back home.
Imagine--A new economy is possible!
Guaranteed basic income
In March 1973, the governor of Manitoba, Canada, began a $17 million experiment in implementing a minimum basic income: Mincome. With a hope to go national, the experiment took place in a small city with 13,000 inhabitants north of Winnipeg. To ensure that no one would drop below the poverty line, for four years about a thousand families, covering 30% of the city’s total population, received a monthly paycheck.
In 1978, the newly elected conservative government decided to stop the experiment cold. Decades later a researcher discovered the raw data, analyzed for years, and came to the these conclusions about the effects of Mincome: average marital age went up; birth rates went down; school completion improved; work hours decreased only to give mothers more time with new babies, and adolescents more education before taking work; hospital visits went down (an enormous cost savings); domestic violence decreased and mental health improved.
It’s been said that the big reason poor people are poor is because they don’t have enough money. Maybe it would be cheaper and more efficient to address poverty by guaranteeing a basic income than by setting up a myriad of services, steeped in distrust, hedged by regulations, and administered by vast expensive bureaucracies. An overwhelming majority in the U.S. endorsed President Nixon’s proposal for a modest basic income in1970. Maybe it’s time to revisit that idea.
For more, go to: https://decorrespondent.nl/541/why-we-should-give-free-money-to-everyone/35246939860-ec3a6c3e
Some things that have made me hopeful recently:
Thousands of North Carolinians who have been challenging the state government’s antidemocratic austerity agenda for the past 10 months in protests called Moral Mondays, organized by a coalition including unions, civil rights organizations, the faith community, and environmentalist and feminist groups. - http://labornotes.org/2014/01/moral-monday-protests-spread-out-north-carolina#sthash.IgawboNY.dpuf
The city of Los Angeles, that is starting the new year out with a ban on plastic bags, requiring shoppers to bring their own reusable bags or pay ten cents per paper bag--the largest U.S. city to have such a ban.
A judge in western Pennsylvania who has ruled, in a case where a natural gas fracking corporation was trying to keep pollution payouts secret, that corporations are not people, and cannot elevate their "private" rights above the rights of the people.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/alexia-parks/heroic-women-judge-debbie_b_3082265.html
A man from India who has single-handedly turned a barren sandbar into a 1360 acre forest.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GWG70IlY4Kk
More resources
Posts on other people's blogs: http://www.classism.org/children-mass-culture
NEW: Check out my friend Daniel Hunter's new book, a narrative of direct action campaigning: Strategy & Soul: A Campaigner's Tale of Fighting Billionaires, Corrupt Officials, and Philadelphia Casinos: www.strategyandsoul.org
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: doingdemocracy.com/MB4PnJ02.htm (or just google the title)
faitheconomyecology.wordpress.com, a website that I've contributed to often (check the archives)
www.ourchildrenourselves.org, a home for all the parenting writing I've done over the past 20 years.
www.startguide.org. START: a way to study and work together with others to create a better world.
For earlier columns, go to www.pamelascolumn.blogspot.com. I'm currently posting at pamelalivinginthisworld.blogspot.com.
My favorite magazine: YES! Magazine reframes the biggest problems of our time in terms of their solutions. Online and in print, they outline a path forward with in-depth analysis, tools for citizen engagement, and stories about real people working for a better world: www.yesmagazine.org
A bitterly cold January has me extra thankful for warmth, in all its manifestations. Farmers say the cold is good for the land and the crops. I'm glad for that, but I find myself, along with the earth, turning toward the spring.
Love,
Pamela
Leaving the Land of I
It didn’t take a Kansas tornado for us to find ourselves in the Land of I. Many of us were born there and have lived there all our lives, not knowing any other place as home. For others our homeland has been transformed so gradually that it’s been hard to notice the change from day to day. Yet here each one of us is, surrounded by all the bright colors and the glittering promises.
All I have to do to be happy in the Land of I is to make the right choices among all the possibilities and opportunities that are flashing so insistently around me. What products will give me satisfaction, pleasure and status? What clothing will show me off to best advantage? What amusements will entertain? What friends will best fulfill my needs? What education will lead to the most satisfying career? What family will enhance my happiness? What choices will maximize my power and influence? Even, what good works can I undertake to fulfill my urge toward generosity and compassion?
If I choose well, I can have a good life and perhaps leave my mark on the world. If I stumble, I can correct and make a better selection. If I fall, I can hope for the strength to get up and try again. If I continue to struggle, it is because too many of my choices have been unwise.
In the Land of I, every person also gets a pair of rose-colored glasses—to make the colors and the promises more seductive, and to obscure the hard realities that nobody really wants to look at anyway. Immersed in the bustle and hype of the Land of I, it’s hard to imagine any other world. Yet one is there and available to all of us, just a click of the heels away.
This world is quieter. The choices are less insistent. The lights flash less, but burn more steadily. Rose-colored glasses are nowhere to be found, and we see things happening to others around us that make us grieve. There are still individual choices, but they are more subtle. How is my life entwined with those around me at this moment—and the next—and what attitude can I hold, what step can I take that will increase our overall welfare? In the longer term, how can I orient and equip myself to make my best and fullest contribution to this world, and how can I help others to do the same?
No longer in the Land of I, we don’t have to make all these choices on our own. In this world, others don’t care so much about the glitter of our clothes or social circles or careers, but they are deeply invested in promoting our gifts, our goodness and our potential.
None of us have to abandon our own center to live here; rather we all get to inhabit it more fully as each person finds a place in the middle of ever-greater circles of “we”. We get to be for ourselves and for others at the same time. But first we have to make the decision to leave the Land of I. If we can take off those rose-colored glasses, turn our backs on the glitter and the empty promises and start claiming our connections, together we can find our way back home.
Imagine--A new economy is possible!
Guaranteed basic income
In March 1973, the governor of Manitoba, Canada, began a $17 million experiment in implementing a minimum basic income: Mincome. With a hope to go national, the experiment took place in a small city with 13,000 inhabitants north of Winnipeg. To ensure that no one would drop below the poverty line, for four years about a thousand families, covering 30% of the city’s total population, received a monthly paycheck.
In 1978, the newly elected conservative government decided to stop the experiment cold. Decades later a researcher discovered the raw data, analyzed for years, and came to the these conclusions about the effects of Mincome: average marital age went up; birth rates went down; school completion improved; work hours decreased only to give mothers more time with new babies, and adolescents more education before taking work; hospital visits went down (an enormous cost savings); domestic violence decreased and mental health improved.
It’s been said that the big reason poor people are poor is because they don’t have enough money. Maybe it would be cheaper and more efficient to address poverty by guaranteeing a basic income than by setting up a myriad of services, steeped in distrust, hedged by regulations, and administered by vast expensive bureaucracies. An overwhelming majority in the U.S. endorsed President Nixon’s proposal for a modest basic income in1970. Maybe it’s time to revisit that idea.
For more, go to: https://decorrespondent.nl/541/why-we-should-give-free-money-to-everyone/35246939860-ec3a6c3e
Some things that have made me hopeful recently:
Thousands of North Carolinians who have been challenging the state government’s antidemocratic austerity agenda for the past 10 months in protests called Moral Mondays, organized by a coalition including unions, civil rights organizations, the faith community, and environmentalist and feminist groups. - http://labornotes.org/2014/01/moral-monday-protests-spread-out-north-carolina#sthash.IgawboNY.dpuf
The city of Los Angeles, that is starting the new year out with a ban on plastic bags, requiring shoppers to bring their own reusable bags or pay ten cents per paper bag--the largest U.S. city to have such a ban.
A judge in western Pennsylvania who has ruled, in a case where a natural gas fracking corporation was trying to keep pollution payouts secret, that corporations are not people, and cannot elevate their "private" rights above the rights of the people.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/alexia-parks/heroic-women-judge-debbie_b_3082265.html
A man from India who has single-handedly turned a barren sandbar into a 1360 acre forest.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GWG70IlY4Kk
More resources
Posts on other people's blogs: http://www.classism.org/children-mass-culture
NEW: Check out my friend Daniel Hunter's new book, a narrative of direct action campaigning: Strategy & Soul: A Campaigner's Tale of Fighting Billionaires, Corrupt Officials, and Philadelphia Casinos: www.strategyandsoul.org
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: doingdemocracy.com/MB4PnJ02.htm (or just google the title)
faitheconomyecology.wordpress.com, a website that I've contributed to often (check the archives)
www.ourchildrenourselves.org, a home for all the parenting writing I've done over the past 20 years.
www.startguide.org. START: a way to study and work together with others to create a better world.
For earlier columns, go to www.pamelascolumn.blogspot.com. I'm currently posting at pamelalivinginthisworld.blogspot.com.
My favorite magazine: YES! Magazine reframes the biggest problems of our time in terms of their solutions. Online and in print, they outline a path forward with in-depth analysis, tools for citizen engagement, and stories about real people working for a better world: www.yesmagazine.org
Sunday, January 19, 2014
#127 Confidence
Dear all,
Well, the flurry of the holidays is over--what a treat to have that time with our three guys, two wonderful partners and two irresistible little ones, and see the two-year-old so excited about his one-year-old cousin! Now we're in the midst of cold and snow, slowly picking up the threads of the rest of our lives.
I've been learning lessons about the limitations of independence, and the sweetness of help--more on that next time.
Love,
Pamela
Confidence
One end of the drawstring of Chuck’s gym shorts had disappeared deep into the waistband. He had tried getting it out without success and asked for my help. I have sewn plenty of waistbands in my day, working elastic or a drawstring through them with the help of a big safety pin fastened at one end, so I was a good person to go to. It was a challenge, since I didn’t have access to the end of the drawstring. All I had was the knot, deep inside the waistband. But as I worked at that little knot, I could feel the potential for motion. Slowly, slowly, I worked the knot closer to the opening, till finally it came through—and the gym shorts were back in business.
This is a very small story—in itself hardly worth remembering, much less retelling. But as I came upon those gym shorts one day, taking them out of the washer and out to the line to dry, I thought about the confidence I had brought to fixing them—and confidence is something worth talking about.
Confidence. Sitting in the trolley, I think about how my mother would have approached that word. “Confidence. It comes from the Latin. ‘Con’ means with, and you can hear the root, ‘fides’. Think about the word ‘fidelity’. It means ‘faith’. So confidence means ‘with faith’.”
I approached the gym shorts with faith in the outcome. Chuck’s experience didn’t provide him with the faith that he could fix them himself. But he had faith in me.
I think of that little knot, invisible to the eye, and barely discernable to the touch. I think of how hard it would be for somebody else to know that this was the movable part, how hard to believe that it could be moved so far, how easy it would be to give up. And I can’t help but wonder what would be different if we had confidence that bigger things could be moved, fixed, or changed.
What if we could tap into a deeper well of confidence? It wouldn’t provide any shortcuts. The work wouldn’t be any less challenging. But we would be much more likely to take on those struggles that we care about so passionately, and to persist openheartedly when no change was visible on the horizon.
Where could we find such confidence? In each other for starters. In the experience of others who have tried—and failed but also succeeded—in endeavors that are foreign to us. In those who have found strength in very different circumstances, and those who have a long track record of endurance and hopefulness. In the seasoned elders of our communities. In the wisdom of our cultural and faith traditions—and the faith traditions of others.
Most of all, it means holding an expectation that faith and confidence are there to be found and are worth looking for. It requires confronting our defeats and discouragements and not accepting them as the final reality. It requires building our own confidence by daring to try new things. It requires exploring for the confidence of others, more deeply and farther around the edges of our experience than may be comfortable. But every bit of confidence that I have can be useful to others if I can find a way to share it—and if I reach widely, intentionally and persistently, there will always be more to be found.
Imagine: A new economy is possible!
Cap and What?
Two big economic strategies being considered to help reduce carbon use are cap-and-trade and cap and dividend. Cap-and-trade involves giving each polluter an allocation of emissions. If it doesn’t use up that allocation in a year, it may sell those emission allowances to another company that polluted more than its allocation. Cap-and-dividend, in contrast, involves imposing a carbon cap, auctioning off all carbon allowances, and returning the revenues generated to all households on a per capita basis.
Cap-and-dividend avoids the pitfalls of carbon trading, which can be as easily manipulated and abused as has been financial securities trading. Carbon dividends would help offset the increase in price of most goods that would come with reducing carbon. If the money were returned to people on an equal basis, higher-income and higher-consumption households would pay out more (in higher energy and product costs) than they would receive back from dividends. But lower-income, lower-consumption households would receive back more than they pay. Also, by offering a cash incentive, a cap and dividend strategy could spur all households to try to reduce their carbon footprints.
For more information:
http://www.ilsr.org/instead-cap-and-trade-cap-and-dividend/
Some things that have made me hopeful recently:
White ranchers and landowners, threatened with eminent domain and the loss of the right to their own land by the Keystone XL Pipeline, who are beginning to understand what the native tribes experienced during colonization, and to notice a shared pride in the land that's the source of both culture and livelihood. As they work together to oppose the pipeline, an 'us' and 'them' is turning into a 'we'.
http://www.yesmagazine.org/peace-justice/cowboys-and-indians-camp-together-to-build-alliance-against-keystone-xl
Seattle Mayor Mike McGinn's championing of the city's divestment from fossil fuels.
http://350.org/about/blogs/seattle-mayor-orders-city-divest-fossil-fuels
Native peoples' successes over the past year in reintroducing fading species--including a record return of Chinook salmon to the Columbia River, restoring habitats and challenging big industry. http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2013/12/31/10-environmental-victories-and-triumphs-2013-152924
Uruguay's recent legalization of marijuana--aimed at breaking the link between the lucrative marijuana trade and organized crime--that has kicked off a trend in a region wearied of the bloodshed, expense and failed results of Washington’s “war on drugs".
http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/americas/131222/latin-america-uruguay-argentina-marijuana-legalization
More resources
Posts on other people's blogs: http://www.classism.org/children-mass-culture
NEW: Check out my friend Daniel Hunter's new book, a narrative of direct action campaigning: Strategy & Soul: A Campaigner's Tale of Fighting Billionaires, Corrupt Officials, and Philadelphia Casinos: www.strategyandsoul.org
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: doingdemocracy.com/MB4PnJ02.htm (or just google the title)
faitheconomyecology.wordpress.com, a website that I've contributed to often (check the archives)
www.ourchildrenourselves.org, a home for all the parenting writing I've done over the past 20 years.
www.startguide.org. START: a way to study and work together with others to create a better world.
For earlier columns, go to www.pamelascolumn.blogspot.com. I'm currently posting at pamelalivinginthisworld.blogspot.com.
My favorite magazine: YES! Magazine reframes the biggest problems of our time in terms of their solutions. Online and in print, they outline a path forward with in-depth analysis, tools for citizen engagement, and stories about real people working for a better world: www.yesmagazine.org
Well, the flurry of the holidays is over--what a treat to have that time with our three guys, two wonderful partners and two irresistible little ones, and see the two-year-old so excited about his one-year-old cousin! Now we're in the midst of cold and snow, slowly picking up the threads of the rest of our lives.
I've been learning lessons about the limitations of independence, and the sweetness of help--more on that next time.
Love,
Pamela
Confidence
One end of the drawstring of Chuck’s gym shorts had disappeared deep into the waistband. He had tried getting it out without success and asked for my help. I have sewn plenty of waistbands in my day, working elastic or a drawstring through them with the help of a big safety pin fastened at one end, so I was a good person to go to. It was a challenge, since I didn’t have access to the end of the drawstring. All I had was the knot, deep inside the waistband. But as I worked at that little knot, I could feel the potential for motion. Slowly, slowly, I worked the knot closer to the opening, till finally it came through—and the gym shorts were back in business.
This is a very small story—in itself hardly worth remembering, much less retelling. But as I came upon those gym shorts one day, taking them out of the washer and out to the line to dry, I thought about the confidence I had brought to fixing them—and confidence is something worth talking about.
Confidence. Sitting in the trolley, I think about how my mother would have approached that word. “Confidence. It comes from the Latin. ‘Con’ means with, and you can hear the root, ‘fides’. Think about the word ‘fidelity’. It means ‘faith’. So confidence means ‘with faith’.”
I approached the gym shorts with faith in the outcome. Chuck’s experience didn’t provide him with the faith that he could fix them himself. But he had faith in me.
I think of that little knot, invisible to the eye, and barely discernable to the touch. I think of how hard it would be for somebody else to know that this was the movable part, how hard to believe that it could be moved so far, how easy it would be to give up. And I can’t help but wonder what would be different if we had confidence that bigger things could be moved, fixed, or changed.
What if we could tap into a deeper well of confidence? It wouldn’t provide any shortcuts. The work wouldn’t be any less challenging. But we would be much more likely to take on those struggles that we care about so passionately, and to persist openheartedly when no change was visible on the horizon.
Where could we find such confidence? In each other for starters. In the experience of others who have tried—and failed but also succeeded—in endeavors that are foreign to us. In those who have found strength in very different circumstances, and those who have a long track record of endurance and hopefulness. In the seasoned elders of our communities. In the wisdom of our cultural and faith traditions—and the faith traditions of others.
Most of all, it means holding an expectation that faith and confidence are there to be found and are worth looking for. It requires confronting our defeats and discouragements and not accepting them as the final reality. It requires building our own confidence by daring to try new things. It requires exploring for the confidence of others, more deeply and farther around the edges of our experience than may be comfortable. But every bit of confidence that I have can be useful to others if I can find a way to share it—and if I reach widely, intentionally and persistently, there will always be more to be found.
Imagine: A new economy is possible!
Cap and What?
Two big economic strategies being considered to help reduce carbon use are cap-and-trade and cap and dividend. Cap-and-trade involves giving each polluter an allocation of emissions. If it doesn’t use up that allocation in a year, it may sell those emission allowances to another company that polluted more than its allocation. Cap-and-dividend, in contrast, involves imposing a carbon cap, auctioning off all carbon allowances, and returning the revenues generated to all households on a per capita basis.
Cap-and-dividend avoids the pitfalls of carbon trading, which can be as easily manipulated and abused as has been financial securities trading. Carbon dividends would help offset the increase in price of most goods that would come with reducing carbon. If the money were returned to people on an equal basis, higher-income and higher-consumption households would pay out more (in higher energy and product costs) than they would receive back from dividends. But lower-income, lower-consumption households would receive back more than they pay. Also, by offering a cash incentive, a cap and dividend strategy could spur all households to try to reduce their carbon footprints.
For more information:
http://www.ilsr.org/instead-cap-and-trade-cap-and-dividend/
Some things that have made me hopeful recently:
White ranchers and landowners, threatened with eminent domain and the loss of the right to their own land by the Keystone XL Pipeline, who are beginning to understand what the native tribes experienced during colonization, and to notice a shared pride in the land that's the source of both culture and livelihood. As they work together to oppose the pipeline, an 'us' and 'them' is turning into a 'we'.
http://www.yesmagazine.org/peace-justice/cowboys-and-indians-camp-together-to-build-alliance-against-keystone-xl
Seattle Mayor Mike McGinn's championing of the city's divestment from fossil fuels.
http://350.org/about/blogs/seattle-mayor-orders-city-divest-fossil-fuels
Native peoples' successes over the past year in reintroducing fading species--including a record return of Chinook salmon to the Columbia River, restoring habitats and challenging big industry. http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2013/12/31/10-environmental-victories-and-triumphs-2013-152924
Uruguay's recent legalization of marijuana--aimed at breaking the link between the lucrative marijuana trade and organized crime--that has kicked off a trend in a region wearied of the bloodshed, expense and failed results of Washington’s “war on drugs".
http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/americas/131222/latin-america-uruguay-argentina-marijuana-legalization
More resources
Posts on other people's blogs: http://www.classism.org/children-mass-culture
NEW: Check out my friend Daniel Hunter's new book, a narrative of direct action campaigning: Strategy & Soul: A Campaigner's Tale of Fighting Billionaires, Corrupt Officials, and Philadelphia Casinos: www.strategyandsoul.org
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: doingdemocracy.com/MB4PnJ02.htm (or just google the title)
faitheconomyecology.wordpress.com, a website that I've contributed to often (check the archives)
www.ourchildrenourselves.org, a home for all the parenting writing I've done over the past 20 years.
www.startguide.org. START: a way to study and work together with others to create a better world.
For earlier columns, go to www.pamelascolumn.blogspot.com. I'm currently posting at pamelalivinginthisworld.blogspot.com.
My favorite magazine: YES! Magazine reframes the biggest problems of our time in terms of their solutions. Online and in print, they outline a path forward with in-depth analysis, tools for citizen engagement, and stories about real people working for a better world: www.yesmagazine.org
Saturday, January 4, 2014
#126 Climate and Faith
Dear all,
I wrote this over a month ago, but am just now getting around to posting: A strong north wind yesterday brought down all the remaining leaves on our street. It seems fitting then that the essay and poem this month are both about trees. On a very different front, I'm trying to get some momentum going on a campaign to get my college to divest from fossil fuels--a small step beyond consumer choices that anyone can take on climate change (see the first thing that makes me hopeful, below). And, as I prepare for Thanksgiving, here's a mind-bender that's stuck with me: What if we woke up tomorrow to find only the things that we were thankful for today?
Love,
Pamela
Climate and fate
I don’t remember exactly when I first internalized the message that the Sahara was steadily, inexorably pushing south, transforming some unimaginable amount of arable land every year into barren waste. It was appalling. While I didn’t doubt that our species had played a role, the forces of nature that had been unleashed seemed now to be beyond the power of any human action to contain, much less reverse.
By the time I heard about draught in the Sahel, with all its unspeakably tragic human consequences, I was so numb that I could barely take it in. After all, who has ever won against a desert? Who could fault me for accepting defeat? So when I saw a reference recently to reforestation efforts in Niger, the image that came to mind was brave little tree seedlings, valiantly trying to survive in a vast expanse of hot sun and bone dry sand—doomed to a short, harsh life and cruel death. But I was compelled to investigate, and this is what I learned.
When the French colonized what is now Niger, they brought their own experience with agriculture, an unshakable confidence that they knew better, and an intention to use their superior understanding to make a profit. Big fields are best for export-oriented monocultures, and crops need sun (in France) so trees outside of designated woodlots should be cut down. These practices, along with the starving of local initiative that comes with strong centralized ownership and control, set the stage for desertification. A period of unusually high rainfall after World War II postponed the impact, but draught came with a vengeance in the 1970’s. With agricultural exports drying up—literally—and uranium mining hard hit by the end of the nuclear power plant boom, the economy tanked. All that was left for the newly independent nation was to use the tragedy of draught and the specter of desertification—both all too real—to petition for international aid.
Some of that aid went to failed tree-planting efforts; other projects had impact only as long as new money kept flowing in. But one man in one little NGO discovered that, in many places, the root systems of the trees that had been cut down were still in place; farmers just kept chopping off the brushy growth as it sprouted up in the middle of the fields. If it were pruned to leave the strongest shoot, however, that shoot would quickly grow into a tree. The potential benefits were enormous: shade in a sun-drenched land, water retention, a means of breaking the destructive sand-filled winds, carbon fixing, and generation of scarce organic matter and firewood. But there were obstacles. Generations of western farming practices left people reluctant to have trees in their fields, and centralized—often corrupt—control of resources left farmers without property rights to any tree they might grow.
In the mid to late 1980’s two things happened to tip the situation toward change. A new draught made desperate farmers willing to try anything, and the death of the country’s president resulted in a power vacuum that essentially knocked out all central authority for years. This created the space for local communities to develop their own protocols for land and tree management, and the speed with which new trees grew, with all the associated positive feedback loops, allowed these communities to increase crop yields and be significantly buffered from the effects of draught.
Such positive results were noticed and replicated in neighboring areas, and by the time a centralized government was functioning again, the evidence was sufficiently compelling that they were induced not only to support replication, but to legislate protection of local land management practices.
By now Niger—said to be the poorest country in the world—has successfully reforested 5 million hectares (almost 12.5 million acres) of land with some 200 million trees, securing the livelihoods of 4.5 million people. An aerial view of the border between Niger and Nigeria makes clear the difference that this greening has made.
Of course there is no guarantee of a happy ending. Population pressure can still drive people of the Sahel into poverty and, if rainfall decreases over time, the land’s ability to produce food will be compromised. The lesson is not that climate change is a myth, but that our numb submission to what seems like fate is part of the problem. The truth is that there is untapped resilience in both nature and the human spirit; the potential for rapid change in a positive direction cannot be discounted; and the freeing up and resourcing of local initiative, whether by accident or by design, may be at the heart of the solution.
Inferno
An oasis of serenity no more,
great clouds of swirling dust
roar of machines and men in gas masks
have conjured up a war zone in the park.
The enemy is leaves.
Blowing every blade of grass
blasting under every bush
their goal is total mastery
and barren earth
(which will be covered up next spring
with pricey mulch).
In another universe of possibility
peace and leaf removal coexist:
long-handled rakes and
muscles turned to useful work
bring leaves from grass
to mound around each bush
providing insulation from the winter cold
then breaking down to fertilize the soil.
There’s a modest circularity in this
a hopeful sign of things both past and yet to come
acknowledgment that nature and a few strong arms—
no fossil fuels, machines or noise
no pricey mulch—
can do the job with quiet elegance.
Imagine: A new economy is possible!
It all turns on affection
Excerpts from a talk by Wendell Berry
Economy in its original—and, I think, its proper—sense refers to household management. By extension, it refers to the husbanding of all the goods by which we live. An authentic economy, if we had one, would define and make, on the terms of thrift and affection, our connections to nature and to one another. Our present industrial system also makes those connections, but by pillage and indifference. Most economists think of this arrangement as ”the economy.” …They never ask, in their professional oblivion, why we are willing to do permanent ecological and cultural damage “to strengthen the economy?”
…By now our immense destructiveness has made clear that the actual value of some things exceeds human ability to calculate or measure, and therefore must be considered absolute. For the destruction of these things there is never, under any circumstances, any justification. Their absolute value is recognized by the mortal need of those who do not have them, and by affection. Land, to people who do not have it and who are thus without the means of life, is absolutely valuable. Ecological health, in a land dying of abuse, is not worth “something”; it is worth everything.
…I would insist that the economic arts are just as honorably and authentically refinable as the fine arts. And so I am nominating economy for an equal standing among the arts and humanities. I mean, not economics, but economy, the making of the human household upon the earth: the arts of adapting kindly the many human households to the earth’s many ecosystems and human neighborhoods. This is the economy that the most public and influential economists never talk about, the economy that is the primary vocation and responsibility of every one of us.
www.neh.gov/about/awards/jefferson-lecture/wendell-e-berry-lecture
Some things that have made me hopeful recently:
In a focused effort to combat global warming, seven colleges and 22 cities in the US have committed to divest from fossil fuels in the last year--and dozens more campaigns are underway across the nation.
http://gofossilfree.org/commitments/
the name Rolling Jubilee, a group of Occupy Wall Street activists has managed to buy almost $15 million of Americans' personal debt helping them pay off their outstanding credit in one year, using $400,000 to purchase anonymous debt cheaply from banks and then "abolish" it, freeing individuals from their bills.
http://www.alternet.org/occupy-wall-street/occupy-wall-street-activists-buy-15-million-americans-personal-debt
Healing and Rebuilding our Communities workshops in Rwanda and Burundi that include participants pairing across ethnic lines for a "trust walk", including this testimonial: I remember the trust walk when the person who killed my family was my partner. During the genocide, I witnessed this man kill my two brothers with a machete and my younger sister with a spear. I was shaking because my partner was a known killer and very strong. I thought he might throw me down, but he also had fear and he took me gently, kindly. I asked him, “Will you lead me in peace?” After the trust walk with him, I felt it was not good to stay in my grief and had no fear against him. http://aglifpt.org
An agricultural cooperative in South Korea with 2,000 growers and 380,000 consumer members, and sales growing annually by 20%, creating an alternative economy that supports local organic farmers, produces healthy food and protects the environment in the process.
http://www.thenation.com/blog/177159/south-korea-ground-zero-food-sovereignty-and-community-resilience
I wrote this over a month ago, but am just now getting around to posting: A strong north wind yesterday brought down all the remaining leaves on our street. It seems fitting then that the essay and poem this month are both about trees. On a very different front, I'm trying to get some momentum going on a campaign to get my college to divest from fossil fuels--a small step beyond consumer choices that anyone can take on climate change (see the first thing that makes me hopeful, below). And, as I prepare for Thanksgiving, here's a mind-bender that's stuck with me: What if we woke up tomorrow to find only the things that we were thankful for today?
Love,
Pamela
Climate and fate
I don’t remember exactly when I first internalized the message that the Sahara was steadily, inexorably pushing south, transforming some unimaginable amount of arable land every year into barren waste. It was appalling. While I didn’t doubt that our species had played a role, the forces of nature that had been unleashed seemed now to be beyond the power of any human action to contain, much less reverse.
By the time I heard about draught in the Sahel, with all its unspeakably tragic human consequences, I was so numb that I could barely take it in. After all, who has ever won against a desert? Who could fault me for accepting defeat? So when I saw a reference recently to reforestation efforts in Niger, the image that came to mind was brave little tree seedlings, valiantly trying to survive in a vast expanse of hot sun and bone dry sand—doomed to a short, harsh life and cruel death. But I was compelled to investigate, and this is what I learned.
When the French colonized what is now Niger, they brought their own experience with agriculture, an unshakable confidence that they knew better, and an intention to use their superior understanding to make a profit. Big fields are best for export-oriented monocultures, and crops need sun (in France) so trees outside of designated woodlots should be cut down. These practices, along with the starving of local initiative that comes with strong centralized ownership and control, set the stage for desertification. A period of unusually high rainfall after World War II postponed the impact, but draught came with a vengeance in the 1970’s. With agricultural exports drying up—literally—and uranium mining hard hit by the end of the nuclear power plant boom, the economy tanked. All that was left for the newly independent nation was to use the tragedy of draught and the specter of desertification—both all too real—to petition for international aid.
Some of that aid went to failed tree-planting efforts; other projects had impact only as long as new money kept flowing in. But one man in one little NGO discovered that, in many places, the root systems of the trees that had been cut down were still in place; farmers just kept chopping off the brushy growth as it sprouted up in the middle of the fields. If it were pruned to leave the strongest shoot, however, that shoot would quickly grow into a tree. The potential benefits were enormous: shade in a sun-drenched land, water retention, a means of breaking the destructive sand-filled winds, carbon fixing, and generation of scarce organic matter and firewood. But there were obstacles. Generations of western farming practices left people reluctant to have trees in their fields, and centralized—often corrupt—control of resources left farmers without property rights to any tree they might grow.
In the mid to late 1980’s two things happened to tip the situation toward change. A new draught made desperate farmers willing to try anything, and the death of the country’s president resulted in a power vacuum that essentially knocked out all central authority for years. This created the space for local communities to develop their own protocols for land and tree management, and the speed with which new trees grew, with all the associated positive feedback loops, allowed these communities to increase crop yields and be significantly buffered from the effects of draught.
Such positive results were noticed and replicated in neighboring areas, and by the time a centralized government was functioning again, the evidence was sufficiently compelling that they were induced not only to support replication, but to legislate protection of local land management practices.
By now Niger—said to be the poorest country in the world—has successfully reforested 5 million hectares (almost 12.5 million acres) of land with some 200 million trees, securing the livelihoods of 4.5 million people. An aerial view of the border between Niger and Nigeria makes clear the difference that this greening has made.
Of course there is no guarantee of a happy ending. Population pressure can still drive people of the Sahel into poverty and, if rainfall decreases over time, the land’s ability to produce food will be compromised. The lesson is not that climate change is a myth, but that our numb submission to what seems like fate is part of the problem. The truth is that there is untapped resilience in both nature and the human spirit; the potential for rapid change in a positive direction cannot be discounted; and the freeing up and resourcing of local initiative, whether by accident or by design, may be at the heart of the solution.
Inferno
An oasis of serenity no more,
great clouds of swirling dust
roar of machines and men in gas masks
have conjured up a war zone in the park.
The enemy is leaves.
Blowing every blade of grass
blasting under every bush
their goal is total mastery
and barren earth
(which will be covered up next spring
with pricey mulch).
In another universe of possibility
peace and leaf removal coexist:
long-handled rakes and
muscles turned to useful work
bring leaves from grass
to mound around each bush
providing insulation from the winter cold
then breaking down to fertilize the soil.
There’s a modest circularity in this
a hopeful sign of things both past and yet to come
acknowledgment that nature and a few strong arms—
no fossil fuels, machines or noise
no pricey mulch—
can do the job with quiet elegance.
Imagine: A new economy is possible!
It all turns on affection
Excerpts from a talk by Wendell Berry
Economy in its original—and, I think, its proper—sense refers to household management. By extension, it refers to the husbanding of all the goods by which we live. An authentic economy, if we had one, would define and make, on the terms of thrift and affection, our connections to nature and to one another. Our present industrial system also makes those connections, but by pillage and indifference. Most economists think of this arrangement as ”the economy.” …They never ask, in their professional oblivion, why we are willing to do permanent ecological and cultural damage “to strengthen the economy?”
…By now our immense destructiveness has made clear that the actual value of some things exceeds human ability to calculate or measure, and therefore must be considered absolute. For the destruction of these things there is never, under any circumstances, any justification. Their absolute value is recognized by the mortal need of those who do not have them, and by affection. Land, to people who do not have it and who are thus without the means of life, is absolutely valuable. Ecological health, in a land dying of abuse, is not worth “something”; it is worth everything.
…I would insist that the economic arts are just as honorably and authentically refinable as the fine arts. And so I am nominating economy for an equal standing among the arts and humanities. I mean, not economics, but economy, the making of the human household upon the earth: the arts of adapting kindly the many human households to the earth’s many ecosystems and human neighborhoods. This is the economy that the most public and influential economists never talk about, the economy that is the primary vocation and responsibility of every one of us.
www.neh.gov/about/awards/jefferson-lecture/wendell-e-berry-lecture
Some things that have made me hopeful recently:
In a focused effort to combat global warming, seven colleges and 22 cities in the US have committed to divest from fossil fuels in the last year--and dozens more campaigns are underway across the nation.
http://gofossilfree.org/commitments/
the name Rolling Jubilee, a group of Occupy Wall Street activists has managed to buy almost $15 million of Americans' personal debt helping them pay off their outstanding credit in one year, using $400,000 to purchase anonymous debt cheaply from banks and then "abolish" it, freeing individuals from their bills.
http://www.alternet.org/occupy-wall-street/occupy-wall-street-activists-buy-15-million-americans-personal-debt
Healing and Rebuilding our Communities workshops in Rwanda and Burundi that include participants pairing across ethnic lines for a "trust walk", including this testimonial: I remember the trust walk when the person who killed my family was my partner. During the genocide, I witnessed this man kill my two brothers with a machete and my younger sister with a spear. I was shaking because my partner was a known killer and very strong. I thought he might throw me down, but he also had fear and he took me gently, kindly. I asked him, “Will you lead me in peace?” After the trust walk with him, I felt it was not good to stay in my grief and had no fear against him. http://aglifpt.org
An agricultural cooperative in South Korea with 2,000 growers and 380,000 consumer members, and sales growing annually by 20%, creating an alternative economy that supports local organic farmers, produces healthy food and protects the environment in the process.
http://www.thenation.com/blog/177159/south-korea-ground-zero-food-sovereignty-and-community-resilience
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)