Climate – what if?
The International Panel on Climate Change came out with a report last year saying that we have twelve years to turn this climate thing around. It’s eleven now. But, in a point that was lost on many, they also said we could do it. There are big obstacles in the way, for sure, but none are insurmountable.
A significant one is our own despair—which our culture feeds. Books, movies and media of all kinds play out scary, and seemingly inevitable dystopian futures, and we are numbed into a strange kind of passive acceptance. A perceptive friend has said that it’s easier to imagine total destruction of the world as we know it than a transformation of our economic system.
It’s easy to feel scared and hopeless. It’s also easy to feel divided. But at its core, climate is not a divisive issue. Everyone wants a future for their children and grandchildren. And, if we think about it, none of us want our children and grandchildren to learn that we were bystanders during these critical years. We want to be able to tell stories of courage and creativity, of tenacity and unexpected discoveries—of a time when we learned that we were bigger than we knew.
What if we can turn this thing around and have a livable future? What if we can find a way to step outside of all the feelings and pressures that keep us in the role of helpless bystanders, and be who we really are—with all the boldness, vision and courage that we can muster?
This will, of course, take more than scared and lonely individuals changing lightbulbs and signing on-line petitions. But we can do more, and we can do it together. Here are some ideas about steps that everyone can take.
Learn about what’s working. Pay attention to reasons to be hopeful, like this one:
https://www.sierraclub.org/sierra/10-reasons-feel-hopeful-about-climate-change-2019
Develop a conscious strategy that works for you to not get immobilized by bad news—don’t let climate change have the last word.
Get support. Find people to talk with about what scares you, what you want, what you love, the part of this challenge that calls out to you. Better yet, make a plan to get together over time with two or three others to share ideas, set goals and report back on them.
Start conversations. Ask people what they love about the world around them. Focus more on solutions than problems. Share why you decided to act and what gives you energy to keep going. Give space for people’s worries and feelings of despair, but don’t get sucked in. Talk about how to dissipate fear’s hold on us by acting together.
Build on your strengths. Good at writing? Look for ways to get the word out about climate solutions. Active on social media? Post things that offer opportunities, energize people and give hope. Good at website design or art? Offer your services to an activist group. Love cooking? Cook for the local youth climate change house or do a fundraising dinner. Have friends? Invite them over for an inspiring movie or a conversation about what’s possible.
Take what you’re already doing up a notch. Passionate about living a sustainable life style, for example? Encourage others in your extended family, social or faith circles, or neighborhood to do the same. Already doing that? Get involved with your township or municipality’s sustainability plan, or your local or state emission reduction goals.
Explore new territory. Try things that seem just a little too scary (not alone!). There are so many possibilities: visiting city officials, calling a group to action, asking your friends to back you, giving testimony, looking for common ground with someone you disagree with, facing arrest for civil disobedience, believing you have the power to shift the tone of a group.
Help others. If your circumstances don’t allow you to do much, find someone who is able to be more active, and put energy into supporting them. If you don’t have time even for that, help others by just holding out the belief that this thing can be done.
As we steep ourselves in the possible, remembering that we are part of a vast majority rather than a beleaguered minority, what if, together, we can do this?
Bubbles
A child is blowing bubbles
from the back of the trolley.
Tiny, they float and drift.
People turn, smile.
“I thought it was snowing” says one
and laughter ripples
through the car.
Singlehandedly
a small child
has lifted our spirits.
Dare to imagine: A new economy is possible!
Costa Rica’s Banco Popular
Costa Rica’s BPDC is perhaps the most democratic bank in the world, with its highest governing body the Assembly of Workers, which represents nearly 1.2 million savers, or 20% of the population. Effective control over daily operations is exercised by the National Board of Directors, which is composed of four representatives of the Assembly and three of the Government. Presently, there are four women and three men on the Board, fulfilling the requirement that it be at least half women.
The third largest bank in Costa Rica, BPDC operates with a triple bottom-line: economic, environmental, and social. A quarter of its returns are channeled into a series of ‘special funds’ to meet the social needs of those typically excluded from the banking system, yet its earnings are greater than the average private bank.
All public and private employers contribute 0.5% of paid monthly wages to the bank’s capital base and workers contribute 1% of their monthly wages. After a year, 1.25% of these savings are transferred to each worker’s own pension fund; the bank holds the other 0.25% as a means of permanent capitalization and economic stability. The BPDC also accepts over 40% of the public-sector payroll deposits and receives deposits and loans from other publicly-owned development banks to support its own lending operations.
The BPDC has developed specialty green and sustainable lending facilities, with loans for solar energy panels in residential settings, and the provisioning of safe local water supply systems. The bank has begun tracing its own consumption of energy; the pensions division, for example, has been certified as ‘carbon neutral’ for the last four years.
https://www.tni.org/files/publication-downloads/how_public_banks_can_help_finance_a_green_and_just_energy_transformation.pdf
Some things that have made me hopeful recently:
The Sunrise Movement, that is mobilizing youth all over the US to fight climate change and push a Green New Deal into the mainstream of public conversation.
https://actionnetwork.org/forms/join-us-112?source=direct_link&
The deal that ended the largest private-sector strike in the US in years, in which 31,000 New England Stop & Shop workers won raises and preserved retirement and healthcare benefits, standing up to one of the biggest and most profitable supermarket chains in the country.
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2019/04/22/when-workers-fight-workers-win-union-declares-victory-stop-shop-strike-ends-deal
https://ips-dc.org/stop-shop-workers-end-11-day-strike-with-a-tentative-agreement/
Sudanese women, whose lives have traditionally been tightly controlled by men, playing a decisive role in the protests that overthrew the autocratic Bashir this spring.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-sudan-politics-women-idUSKCN1S60X3
The antidote to despair in laying out reasons to feel hopeful about our future on earth.
https://www.sierraclub.org/sierra/10-reasons-feel-hopeful-about-climate-change-2019
Resources
Money, Debt and Liberation
A video of a talk I gave at Pendle Hill in January, 2019
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f7nP8eJ5vy8
Money and Soul
A transcript of a keynote address I delivered at a Quaker conference in New Mexico, June 2017
https://westernfriend.org/media/money-and-soul-unabridged
Toward a Right Relationship with Finance
A book that I co-authored on Debt, Interest, Growth and Security.
The growth economy is failing to provide equitable well-being for humanity and a life-sustaining future for Earth. However our institutional endowments and individual retirement are dependent on that same growth economy. This book:
• offers background on our current economic system--how it is based on unearned income on the one hand and debt on the other, with a built-in momentum toward economy inequality and ecological overshoot;
• frames the conversation within the context of our deepest values and beliefs;
• suggests plausible and historically grounded alternatives to the current system, particularly with regard to financing retirement; and
• invites everyone to imagine new forms of durable economic and social security, and to help create the relationships and institutions that will make them a reality.
With many people now counting as never before on the performance of Wall Street for retirement security, how can this system be challenged with integrity and effectiveness? Can we break with our dependence on financial speculation and build up new structures of security in a transformed, life-centered economy?
To order the book, or read it on line, go to http://www.quakerinstitute.org/?page_id=5 and scroll down.
More resources
www.findingsteadyground.org
Resource from my friend Daniel Hunter, Building a Movement to End the New Jim Crow; An Organizing Guide. http://www.danielhunter.org/books/building-movement-end-new-jim-crow-organizing-guide
Posts on other web/blog sites:
In http://www.classism.org/gifts-american-dream/, Pamela Haines locates her family's homey DIY celebrations on a class spectrum of different connections to upward mobility.
http://www.transitionus.org/blog/unlikely-suspects-–-deep-outreach-diverse-initiating-groups-–-pace-building-trust
http://www.classism.org/demolition-derby
Muscle Building for Peace and Justice; a Non-Violent Workout Routine for the 21st Century--an integration of much of my experience and thinking over the years: https://www.trainingforchange.org/publications/muscle-building-peace-and-justice-nonviolent-workout-routine-21st-century (or just google the title)
Monday, May 20, 2019
Wednesday, May 1, 2019
#188 Commonwealth
Commonwealth
One of the things I love about living in my state is our name. I’m not speaking of “Penn’s Woods”, though that’s lovely as well, but of the “Commonwealth” of Pennsylvania. What a concept: common wealth.
It’s related to “the commons”, which some of us learned about in history class. As part of the Industrial Revolution, the open areas in English villages where everybody freely grazed their cows and sheep were increasingly enclosed as private land, threatening rural livelihood and forcing villagers to move to the cities as industrial laborers.
We learned that it was sad but inevitable, and it all happened a long time ago. Yet the enclosure of the commons is a very current threat, with the idea of common wealth as central. In the US, our common land is in the form of parks (and state game lands in places), whose integrity is under increasing attack. There is also our common water, our common air, our common airwaves, all being exploited for private profit in one way or another. Privatization is steadily expanding to include our common heritage: knowledge, culture and even DNA.
Then there is all the wealth of our economy. Some flows to private owners as profit, some goes to maintain ourselves, some goes to taxes. While we could argue until those English village cows come home about who deserves the profits, I want to think here just about the taxes.
In Philadelphia, our local tax base and our share of federal taxes that come back as grants make up this part of our common wealth. Yet we currently have no control over the part that is not immediately put to use. We pay the big banks on Wall Street—the only ones currently big enough to manage that amount of money—to hold our wealth. They, in turn, invest it where they will get the greatest return—which is not in the social and infrastructure needs of our citizens. To pay for such needs, we float bonds and borrow it back from them. With interest between a third and a half of the total costs of such projects, this is no small deal. In Philadelphia last year, we paid $170 million in debt service.
What would it mean to keep our common wealth at home, in a public bank, owned by—and operated for the benefit of—the people of Philadelphia? Such a bank could be professionally managed under the governance of a Board that is politically independent and representative of our communities. It could reduce the costs of funding public projects and invest our common money locally rather than remain dependent on Wall Street banks. In this way it could promote programs of public benefit such as low-cost housing, renewable energy, energy efficiency, education, and the creation of family-sustaining jobs.
It can be done. The state Bank of North Dakota has been in operation for 100 years, receiving state funds and reinvesting them in state projects. It consistently makes a profit—40% of which is returned to the state treasury, and it supports more community banks per capita than any other state. Not surprisingly, North Dakota was the only state in the country to come through the recession of 2008 unscathed, because its money was not in the bubbles of Wall Street.
It’s exciting to be part of an effort to encourage Philadelphia to establish a public bank. The concept is powerful and the logic is compelling. Once ordinary people have the opportunity to imagine an alternative to the status quo, they get it immediately. We have found City Council members and staff remarkably receptive. All the studies that have been done are clear on the advantages of keeping our public money at home.
Of course it will be a battle because, as Frederick Douglass said, “Power concedes nothing without a demand”, and this is a challenge to the locus of greatest power in the world—the private financial sector. Yet there’s something refreshing about not nibbling around the edges, but going straight to the center and naming the big question: who should control our common wealth?
Private?
Our backyard neighbors
put up a tall wooden fence—
ensuring their privacy
blocking our little bit of sun,
the life of my lettuce and herbs,
flowers and currants
not their problem.
Our school’s neighbors
have cut down the great oak tree
that shaded us all.
I pass the magnolia
two blocks down
a neighborhood treasure—
now in full and glorious bloom.
It sits in a private yard—
fills it up.
My heart constricts.
What if they no longer chose
to have it there? Cut it down,
as is their right?
As is the right of wall builders
and tree cutters everywhere
on private property.
How did beauty
and sunlight
and shade
become private?
Dare to imagine – a new economy is possible!
Banking on Values
Beneficial State Bank, with more than 250 employees at 17 locations throughout California, Oregon, and Washington, boasts about $1 billion in assets. The bank is mandated to produce meaningful social justice and environmental benefits at the same time that it is financially sustainable. All the owners are non-profit organizations which collectively reinvest all distributed bank profits back into the communities they serve. Their main business is providing credit to constructive businesses and non-profits—especially those boosting entrepreneurial activity in inner cities, following and strengthening wellness models, or reconnecting vital rural/urban dependencies—with credit allowing these beneficial activities to grow and scale.
https://beneficialstatebank.com/our-story/about-us/our-history
Bank president, Kat Taylor, says that if Beneficial’s return exceeds 10%, “we’re likely either overcharging our customers or underpaying our colleagues”—and that “would be in defiance of our mission.” She believes that Beneficial can help upend the banking sector by demonstrating that a bank can thrive competitively, loan money in a way that boosts economic justice, is restorative to the planet, and still pay its workers 150% of a living wage.
https://capitalandmain.com/upending-the-nations-financial-giants-with-beneficial-state-banks-kat-taylor-0621
Some things that have made me hopeful recently
The news that thousands of bees living on top of Notre Dame have survived the fire, https://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/bees-living-on-top-of-notre-dame-have-survived-fire/
along with the action by France to ban all five pesticides linked to bee deaths—the first country to do so. https://returntonow.net/2019/01/24/france-becomes-the-first-country-to-ban-all-five-pesticides-linked-to-bee-deaths/?fbclid=IwAR1uc9bsP80YiSXLHFCF11JtkRDY2FGRSUWOLQYHe3j0ialBuvLKTLYZS_g
A new movement, Freedom to Prosper, working to stop the student loan trap, and restore education to its rightful place as a public good. http://www.freedomtoprosper.org
A clean energy act in Washington DC which requires the city to transition to 100% renewable energy by 2032 and to invest millions of dollars in clean energy and sustainability projects that will benefit all D.C. residents. Read more and watch the video.
A barber whose training of other Black barbers in the South to act as informal mental health counselors has started a movement.
https://www.yesmagazine.org/issues/mental-health/what-is-barbershop-therapy-20180823
Resources
Money, Debt and Liberation
A video of a talk I gave at Pendle Hill in January, 2017
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f7nP8eJ5vy8
Money and Soul
A transcript of a keynote address I delivered at a Quaker conference in New Mexico, June 2017
https://westernfriend.org/media/money-and-soul-unabridged
Toward a Right Relationship with Finance
A book that I co-authored on Debt, Interest, Growth and Security.
The growth economy is failing to provide equitable well-being for humanity and a life-sustaining future for Earth. However our institutional endowments and individual retirement are dependent on that same growth economy. This book:
• offers background on our current economic system--how it is based on unearned income on the one hand and debt on the other, with a built-in momentum toward economy inequality and ecological overshoot;
• frames the conversation within the context of our deepest values and beliefs;
• suggests plausible and historically grounded alternatives to the current system, particularly with regard to financing retirement; and
• invites everyone to imagine new forms of durable economic and social security, and to help create the relationships and institutions that will make them a reality.
With many people now counting as never before on the performance of Wall Street for retirement security, how can this system be challenged with integrity and effectiveness? Can we break with our dependence on financial speculation and build up new structures of security in a transformed, life-centered economy?
To order the book, or read it on line, go to http://www.quakerinstitute.org/?page_id=5 and scroll down.
More resources
www.findingsteadyground.org
Resource from my friend Daniel Hunter, Building a Movement to End the New Jim Crow; An Organizing Guide. http://www.danielhunter.org/books/building-movement-end-new-jim-crow-organizing-guide
Posts on other web/blog sites:
In http://www.classism.org/gifts-american-dream/, Pamela Haines locates her family's homey DIY celebrations on a class spectrum of different connections to upward mobility.
http://www.transitionus.org/blog/unlikely-suspects-–-deep-outreach-diverse-initiating-groups-–-pace-building-trust
http://www.classism.org/demolition-derby
Muscle Building for Peace and Justice; a Non-Violent Workout Routine for the 21st Century--an integration of much of my experience and thinking over the years: https://www.trainingforchange.org/publications/muscle-building-peace-and-justice-nonviolent-workout-routine-21st-century (or just google the title)
One of the things I love about living in my state is our name. I’m not speaking of “Penn’s Woods”, though that’s lovely as well, but of the “Commonwealth” of Pennsylvania. What a concept: common wealth.
It’s related to “the commons”, which some of us learned about in history class. As part of the Industrial Revolution, the open areas in English villages where everybody freely grazed their cows and sheep were increasingly enclosed as private land, threatening rural livelihood and forcing villagers to move to the cities as industrial laborers.
We learned that it was sad but inevitable, and it all happened a long time ago. Yet the enclosure of the commons is a very current threat, with the idea of common wealth as central. In the US, our common land is in the form of parks (and state game lands in places), whose integrity is under increasing attack. There is also our common water, our common air, our common airwaves, all being exploited for private profit in one way or another. Privatization is steadily expanding to include our common heritage: knowledge, culture and even DNA.
Then there is all the wealth of our economy. Some flows to private owners as profit, some goes to maintain ourselves, some goes to taxes. While we could argue until those English village cows come home about who deserves the profits, I want to think here just about the taxes.
In Philadelphia, our local tax base and our share of federal taxes that come back as grants make up this part of our common wealth. Yet we currently have no control over the part that is not immediately put to use. We pay the big banks on Wall Street—the only ones currently big enough to manage that amount of money—to hold our wealth. They, in turn, invest it where they will get the greatest return—which is not in the social and infrastructure needs of our citizens. To pay for such needs, we float bonds and borrow it back from them. With interest between a third and a half of the total costs of such projects, this is no small deal. In Philadelphia last year, we paid $170 million in debt service.
What would it mean to keep our common wealth at home, in a public bank, owned by—and operated for the benefit of—the people of Philadelphia? Such a bank could be professionally managed under the governance of a Board that is politically independent and representative of our communities. It could reduce the costs of funding public projects and invest our common money locally rather than remain dependent on Wall Street banks. In this way it could promote programs of public benefit such as low-cost housing, renewable energy, energy efficiency, education, and the creation of family-sustaining jobs.
It can be done. The state Bank of North Dakota has been in operation for 100 years, receiving state funds and reinvesting them in state projects. It consistently makes a profit—40% of which is returned to the state treasury, and it supports more community banks per capita than any other state. Not surprisingly, North Dakota was the only state in the country to come through the recession of 2008 unscathed, because its money was not in the bubbles of Wall Street.
It’s exciting to be part of an effort to encourage Philadelphia to establish a public bank. The concept is powerful and the logic is compelling. Once ordinary people have the opportunity to imagine an alternative to the status quo, they get it immediately. We have found City Council members and staff remarkably receptive. All the studies that have been done are clear on the advantages of keeping our public money at home.
Of course it will be a battle because, as Frederick Douglass said, “Power concedes nothing without a demand”, and this is a challenge to the locus of greatest power in the world—the private financial sector. Yet there’s something refreshing about not nibbling around the edges, but going straight to the center and naming the big question: who should control our common wealth?
Private?
Our backyard neighbors
put up a tall wooden fence—
ensuring their privacy
blocking our little bit of sun,
the life of my lettuce and herbs,
flowers and currants
not their problem.
Our school’s neighbors
have cut down the great oak tree
that shaded us all.
I pass the magnolia
two blocks down
a neighborhood treasure—
now in full and glorious bloom.
It sits in a private yard—
fills it up.
My heart constricts.
What if they no longer chose
to have it there? Cut it down,
as is their right?
As is the right of wall builders
and tree cutters everywhere
on private property.
How did beauty
and sunlight
and shade
become private?
Dare to imagine – a new economy is possible!
Banking on Values
Beneficial State Bank, with more than 250 employees at 17 locations throughout California, Oregon, and Washington, boasts about $1 billion in assets. The bank is mandated to produce meaningful social justice and environmental benefits at the same time that it is financially sustainable. All the owners are non-profit organizations which collectively reinvest all distributed bank profits back into the communities they serve. Their main business is providing credit to constructive businesses and non-profits—especially those boosting entrepreneurial activity in inner cities, following and strengthening wellness models, or reconnecting vital rural/urban dependencies—with credit allowing these beneficial activities to grow and scale.
https://beneficialstatebank.com/our-story/about-us/our-history
Bank president, Kat Taylor, says that if Beneficial’s return exceeds 10%, “we’re likely either overcharging our customers or underpaying our colleagues”—and that “would be in defiance of our mission.” She believes that Beneficial can help upend the banking sector by demonstrating that a bank can thrive competitively, loan money in a way that boosts economic justice, is restorative to the planet, and still pay its workers 150% of a living wage.
https://capitalandmain.com/upending-the-nations-financial-giants-with-beneficial-state-banks-kat-taylor-0621
Some things that have made me hopeful recently
The news that thousands of bees living on top of Notre Dame have survived the fire, https://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/bees-living-on-top-of-notre-dame-have-survived-fire/
along with the action by France to ban all five pesticides linked to bee deaths—the first country to do so. https://returntonow.net/2019/01/24/france-becomes-the-first-country-to-ban-all-five-pesticides-linked-to-bee-deaths/?fbclid=IwAR1uc9bsP80YiSXLHFCF11JtkRDY2FGRSUWOLQYHe3j0ialBuvLKTLYZS_g
A new movement, Freedom to Prosper, working to stop the student loan trap, and restore education to its rightful place as a public good. http://www.freedomtoprosper.org
A clean energy act in Washington DC which requires the city to transition to 100% renewable energy by 2032 and to invest millions of dollars in clean energy and sustainability projects that will benefit all D.C. residents. Read more and watch the video.
A barber whose training of other Black barbers in the South to act as informal mental health counselors has started a movement.
https://www.yesmagazine.org/issues/mental-health/what-is-barbershop-therapy-20180823
Resources
Money, Debt and Liberation
A video of a talk I gave at Pendle Hill in January, 2017
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f7nP8eJ5vy8
Money and Soul
A transcript of a keynote address I delivered at a Quaker conference in New Mexico, June 2017
https://westernfriend.org/media/money-and-soul-unabridged
Toward a Right Relationship with Finance
A book that I co-authored on Debt, Interest, Growth and Security.
The growth economy is failing to provide equitable well-being for humanity and a life-sustaining future for Earth. However our institutional endowments and individual retirement are dependent on that same growth economy. This book:
• offers background on our current economic system--how it is based on unearned income on the one hand and debt on the other, with a built-in momentum toward economy inequality and ecological overshoot;
• frames the conversation within the context of our deepest values and beliefs;
• suggests plausible and historically grounded alternatives to the current system, particularly with regard to financing retirement; and
• invites everyone to imagine new forms of durable economic and social security, and to help create the relationships and institutions that will make them a reality.
With many people now counting as never before on the performance of Wall Street for retirement security, how can this system be challenged with integrity and effectiveness? Can we break with our dependence on financial speculation and build up new structures of security in a transformed, life-centered economy?
To order the book, or read it on line, go to http://www.quakerinstitute.org/?page_id=5 and scroll down.
More resources
www.findingsteadyground.org
Resource from my friend Daniel Hunter, Building a Movement to End the New Jim Crow; An Organizing Guide. http://www.danielhunter.org/books/building-movement-end-new-jim-crow-organizing-guide
Posts on other web/blog sites:
In http://www.classism.org/gifts-american-dream/, Pamela Haines locates her family's homey DIY celebrations on a class spectrum of different connections to upward mobility.
http://www.transitionus.org/blog/unlikely-suspects-–-deep-outreach-diverse-initiating-groups-–-pace-building-trust
http://www.classism.org/demolition-derby
Muscle Building for Peace and Justice; a Non-Violent Workout Routine for the 21st Century--an integration of much of my experience and thinking over the years: https://www.trainingforchange.org/publications/muscle-building-peace-and-justice-nonviolent-workout-routine-21st-century (or just google the title)
Saturday, March 30, 2019
#187 Crossing borders
Dear all,
Well, the big news is that spring is here—a great life-giving cause for celebration. Two deaths in my wide circle of loved ones have been hard, even as they remind me of the importance of tending our connections to the living. Similarly, amidst corrosive bad news in our country and the world, I am grateful for signs of new life—the Sunrise Movement (I just signed up to stay in touch at https://actionnetwork.org/forms/join-us-112?source=direct_link&), the Green New Deal, the growing interest in public management of our common wealth. I’m reminded of a song I love to sing, The World Is Always Turning Toward the Morning.
Love,
Pamela
Crossing borders
The trauma of border crossing has been much in the news—and in our hearts—as more and more people flee war, poverty and oppression, seeking safety and opportunity across national lines. Unexpectedly, I have found my attention drawn to the less discussed issue of crossing borders the other way—from places of more rank and privilege to less.
After our trip to Uganda this winter, I was asked a question whose essence was “How could I travel as a white person to Africa and not fall into the trap of perpetuating colonialism?”
I can’t say for sure that I haven’t, but I do know some of the signs. Years ago, a group of U.S. high schools found out about the school in Northern Uganda that a dear friend of ours had founded, and jumped in to provide scholarships. In their enthusiasm, they raised lots of money—and kept needing more and more from the school to support their help. No one doubted their good intentions, and the money was certainly welcome, but their growing feeling of ownership of the school began to be perceived by folks on the ground as problematic.
We watched with dismay. Our approach seemed so different. When Abitimo asked us to do something, we just did it. When she died a couple of years ago, not only did we grieve, but we were caught off balance. What should be our relationship to the school without her at the center? Fortunately, her son, whom we had known for decades as a lovely, quiet, behind-the-scenes kind of guy, stepped up—and we started following him.
We learned that many of the school’s systems, which this other group had complained about loudly before ultimately bailing out, were, indeed, badly in need of change. Yet, rather than making our own judgments, we followed our friend. When he decided there needed to be new school leadership, we backed him to make the hard calls. We listened and supported, took dictation, joined him in meetings, kept track of the things he said he needed to do, and rejoiced in his every success.
Considering what makes such border crossings go well for everybody, love is the best medium, and relationships are critical. When I’m approaching a border, if people who belong there can say “She’s with us”, a legitimate place is made for me. This is how we found ourselves invited, at home, and able to be of real use among a group of South Sudanese refugees in northwest Uganda; a series of loving friendships opened the way.
It also helps a lot if we are okay with who we are, in terms of gender, race, ethnicity, religion, class. If our interest in border crossing is to become somebody else, to have another’s identity rub off on us, something will always be a little off balance. We end up having neither who we are nor who we want to be.
Home from Africa, I read a book describing the joys of crossing a border that few of us ever contemplate—that of species. What would it mean to set aside our human assumptions and put energy into being fully present to the life and reality of a foreign-seeming species? There are big barriers to connection, and therefore perhaps to love, but the opportunities for wonder are great, and we can always stand in open-hearted respect.
We can also learn from all the mistakes humans make with other humans—our unaware assumptions about what’s “normal”, and all the ways we cast others in the role of lesser beings, from captivity, anthropological study and voyeurism to seeing others only in their relationship to us.
Our connections with others through our shared DNA and shared home are real, regardless of the borders of nation, ethnicity or species that separate us. The rewards of such border crossing are great. Is there anything more hopeful and reassuring than finding a bond of commonality across differences that may have seemed unbridgeable? By being willing to find our way across those borders, our own lives are immeasurably enriched.
Bookends
Winter morning
east to work
rising sun catches the trees from below
bathes them in a glow
of golden pink.
West that night
thinnest sliver of a crescent moon
breaks through the clouds
for a shining moment.
A day
framed in grace.
Dare to Imagine: A New Economy is Possible!
Indigenous Cooperative
The southern state of Puebla, Mexico, is home to a network of cooperatives, Tosepan Titataniske or “United We Will Overcome”, which has been working for 40 years to build up a parallel solidarity economy among largely Nahua and Tutunaku indigenous communities. It encompasses some 35,000 members across 430 villages in 29 municipalities.
Based on the premises of democracy, fair economic participation, self-reliance, autonomy, compromise, gender equality and cooperation, it aims to provide a healthy diet and profitable businesses while employing the community members, preserving culture, and working within a sustainable framework. Activities include: the creation of an eco-friendly hotel; organic pepper, coffee and honey production; a women’s livelihood association; education in marketable skills and local sociopolitical/ethnic/environmental issues.
https://library.iated.org/view/MORALESPAREDES2014TOS https://www.localfutures.org/tosepan-resistance-and-renewal-in-mexico/
Some things that have made me hopeful recently
The youth-led Sunrise Movement that is changing the conversation in the US on climate change (and I know and love some of them).
https://www.sunrisemovement.org/
A California federal judge who ruled to eliminate cash bail for those who are awaiting arraignment in San Francisco, finding that it is an unconstitutional "get out of jail" card for those who can afford it.
https://www.courttrax.com/cash-bail-system-ended-in-san-francisco-by-federal-judge/
The governor of a county in Kenya who refused to participate in the usual corruption, despite extreme pressure, and was able to use the unlooted funds to benefit the community.
http://davidzarembka.com/2019/02/28/541-ending-corruption-is-possible-a-positive-example/
A lobby day for public banking in Philadelphia, where City Council people were eager to support the idea of keeping our public money out of the big banks and under local control, to be invested and reinvested to meet common needs. https://www.facebook.com/PhiladelphiaPublicBankCoalition/ and www.publicbankinginstitute.org
Resources
Money, Debt and Liberation
A video of a talk I gave at Pendle Hill in January, 2017
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f7nP8eJ5vy8
Money and Soul
A transcript of a keynote address I delivered at a Quaker conference in New Mexico, June 2017
https://westernfriend.org/media/money-and-soul-unabridged
Toward a Right Relationship with Finance
A book that I co-authored on Debt, Interest, Growth and Security.
The growth economy is failing to provide equitable well-being for humanity and a life-sustaining future for Earth. However our institutional endowments and individual retirement are dependent on that same growth economy. This book:
• offers background on our current economic system--how it is based on unearned income on the one hand and debt on the other, with a built-in momentum toward economy inequality and ecological overshoot;
• frames the conversation within the context of our deepest values and beliefs;
• suggests plausible and historically grounded alternatives to the current system, particularly with regard to financing retirement; and
• invites everyone to imagine new forms of durable economic and social security, and to help create the relationships and institutions that will make them a reality.
With many people now counting as never before on the performance of Wall Street for retirement security, how can this system be challenged with integrity and effectiveness? Can we break with our dependence on financial speculation and build up new structures of security in a transformed, life-centered economy?
To order the book, or read it on line, go to http://www.quakerinstitute.org/?page_id=5 and scroll down.
More resources
www.findingsteadyground.org
Resource from my friend Daniel Hunter, Building a Movement to End the New Jim Crow; An Organizing Guide. http://www.danielhunter.org/books/building-movement-end-new-jim-crow-organizing-guide
Posts on other web/blog sites:
In http://www.classism.org/gifts-american-dream/, Pamela Haines locates her family's homey DIY celebrations on a class spectrum of different connections to upward mobility.
http://www.transitionus.org/blog/unlikely-suspects-–-deep-outreach-diverse-initiating-groups-–-pace-building-trust
http://www.classism.org/demolition-derby
Muscle Building for Peace and Justice; a Non-Violent Workout Routine for the 21st Century--an integration of much of my experience and thinking over the years: https://www.trainingforchange.org/publications/muscle-building-peace-and-justice-nonviolent-workout-routine-21st-century (or just google the title)
Well, the big news is that spring is here—a great life-giving cause for celebration. Two deaths in my wide circle of loved ones have been hard, even as they remind me of the importance of tending our connections to the living. Similarly, amidst corrosive bad news in our country and the world, I am grateful for signs of new life—the Sunrise Movement (I just signed up to stay in touch at https://actionnetwork.org/forms/join-us-112?source=direct_link&), the Green New Deal, the growing interest in public management of our common wealth. I’m reminded of a song I love to sing, The World Is Always Turning Toward the Morning.
Love,
Pamela
Crossing borders
The trauma of border crossing has been much in the news—and in our hearts—as more and more people flee war, poverty and oppression, seeking safety and opportunity across national lines. Unexpectedly, I have found my attention drawn to the less discussed issue of crossing borders the other way—from places of more rank and privilege to less.
After our trip to Uganda this winter, I was asked a question whose essence was “How could I travel as a white person to Africa and not fall into the trap of perpetuating colonialism?”
I can’t say for sure that I haven’t, but I do know some of the signs. Years ago, a group of U.S. high schools found out about the school in Northern Uganda that a dear friend of ours had founded, and jumped in to provide scholarships. In their enthusiasm, they raised lots of money—and kept needing more and more from the school to support their help. No one doubted their good intentions, and the money was certainly welcome, but their growing feeling of ownership of the school began to be perceived by folks on the ground as problematic.
We watched with dismay. Our approach seemed so different. When Abitimo asked us to do something, we just did it. When she died a couple of years ago, not only did we grieve, but we were caught off balance. What should be our relationship to the school without her at the center? Fortunately, her son, whom we had known for decades as a lovely, quiet, behind-the-scenes kind of guy, stepped up—and we started following him.
We learned that many of the school’s systems, which this other group had complained about loudly before ultimately bailing out, were, indeed, badly in need of change. Yet, rather than making our own judgments, we followed our friend. When he decided there needed to be new school leadership, we backed him to make the hard calls. We listened and supported, took dictation, joined him in meetings, kept track of the things he said he needed to do, and rejoiced in his every success.
Considering what makes such border crossings go well for everybody, love is the best medium, and relationships are critical. When I’m approaching a border, if people who belong there can say “She’s with us”, a legitimate place is made for me. This is how we found ourselves invited, at home, and able to be of real use among a group of South Sudanese refugees in northwest Uganda; a series of loving friendships opened the way.
It also helps a lot if we are okay with who we are, in terms of gender, race, ethnicity, religion, class. If our interest in border crossing is to become somebody else, to have another’s identity rub off on us, something will always be a little off balance. We end up having neither who we are nor who we want to be.
Home from Africa, I read a book describing the joys of crossing a border that few of us ever contemplate—that of species. What would it mean to set aside our human assumptions and put energy into being fully present to the life and reality of a foreign-seeming species? There are big barriers to connection, and therefore perhaps to love, but the opportunities for wonder are great, and we can always stand in open-hearted respect.
We can also learn from all the mistakes humans make with other humans—our unaware assumptions about what’s “normal”, and all the ways we cast others in the role of lesser beings, from captivity, anthropological study and voyeurism to seeing others only in their relationship to us.
Our connections with others through our shared DNA and shared home are real, regardless of the borders of nation, ethnicity or species that separate us. The rewards of such border crossing are great. Is there anything more hopeful and reassuring than finding a bond of commonality across differences that may have seemed unbridgeable? By being willing to find our way across those borders, our own lives are immeasurably enriched.
Bookends
Winter morning
east to work
rising sun catches the trees from below
bathes them in a glow
of golden pink.
West that night
thinnest sliver of a crescent moon
breaks through the clouds
for a shining moment.
A day
framed in grace.
Dare to Imagine: A New Economy is Possible!
Indigenous Cooperative
The southern state of Puebla, Mexico, is home to a network of cooperatives, Tosepan Titataniske or “United We Will Overcome”, which has been working for 40 years to build up a parallel solidarity economy among largely Nahua and Tutunaku indigenous communities. It encompasses some 35,000 members across 430 villages in 29 municipalities.
Based on the premises of democracy, fair economic participation, self-reliance, autonomy, compromise, gender equality and cooperation, it aims to provide a healthy diet and profitable businesses while employing the community members, preserving culture, and working within a sustainable framework. Activities include: the creation of an eco-friendly hotel; organic pepper, coffee and honey production; a women’s livelihood association; education in marketable skills and local sociopolitical/ethnic/environmental issues.
https://library.iated.org/view/MORALESPAREDES2014TOS https://www.localfutures.org/tosepan-resistance-and-renewal-in-mexico/
Some things that have made me hopeful recently
The youth-led Sunrise Movement that is changing the conversation in the US on climate change (and I know and love some of them).
https://www.sunrisemovement.org/
A California federal judge who ruled to eliminate cash bail for those who are awaiting arraignment in San Francisco, finding that it is an unconstitutional "get out of jail" card for those who can afford it.
https://www.courttrax.com/cash-bail-system-ended-in-san-francisco-by-federal-judge/
The governor of a county in Kenya who refused to participate in the usual corruption, despite extreme pressure, and was able to use the unlooted funds to benefit the community.
http://davidzarembka.com/2019/02/28/541-ending-corruption-is-possible-a-positive-example/
A lobby day for public banking in Philadelphia, where City Council people were eager to support the idea of keeping our public money out of the big banks and under local control, to be invested and reinvested to meet common needs. https://www.facebook.com/PhiladelphiaPublicBankCoalition/ and www.publicbankinginstitute.org
Resources
Money, Debt and Liberation
A video of a talk I gave at Pendle Hill in January, 2017
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f7nP8eJ5vy8
Money and Soul
A transcript of a keynote address I delivered at a Quaker conference in New Mexico, June 2017
https://westernfriend.org/media/money-and-soul-unabridged
Toward a Right Relationship with Finance
A book that I co-authored on Debt, Interest, Growth and Security.
The growth economy is failing to provide equitable well-being for humanity and a life-sustaining future for Earth. However our institutional endowments and individual retirement are dependent on that same growth economy. This book:
• offers background on our current economic system--how it is based on unearned income on the one hand and debt on the other, with a built-in momentum toward economy inequality and ecological overshoot;
• frames the conversation within the context of our deepest values and beliefs;
• suggests plausible and historically grounded alternatives to the current system, particularly with regard to financing retirement; and
• invites everyone to imagine new forms of durable economic and social security, and to help create the relationships and institutions that will make them a reality.
With many people now counting as never before on the performance of Wall Street for retirement security, how can this system be challenged with integrity and effectiveness? Can we break with our dependence on financial speculation and build up new structures of security in a transformed, life-centered economy?
To order the book, or read it on line, go to http://www.quakerinstitute.org/?page_id=5 and scroll down.
More resources
www.findingsteadyground.org
Resource from my friend Daniel Hunter, Building a Movement to End the New Jim Crow; An Organizing Guide. http://www.danielhunter.org/books/building-movement-end-new-jim-crow-organizing-guide
Posts on other web/blog sites:
In http://www.classism.org/gifts-american-dream/, Pamela Haines locates her family's homey DIY celebrations on a class spectrum of different connections to upward mobility.
http://www.transitionus.org/blog/unlikely-suspects-–-deep-outreach-diverse-initiating-groups-–-pace-building-trust
http://www.classism.org/demolition-derby
Muscle Building for Peace and Justice; a Non-Violent Workout Routine for the 21st Century--an integration of much of my experience and thinking over the years: https://www.trainingforchange.org/publications/muscle-building-peace-and-justice-nonviolent-workout-routine-21st-century (or just google the title)
Tuesday, February 26, 2019
#186 Reimagining men
Dear all,
I had an unexpected adventure this month, getting invited to attend a conference of the Global Alliance for Banking on Values in Vancouver—600 wonderful people from all over the world, working passionately to build and maintain financial institutions that serve people and the planet. It really required me to reassess my stereotypes about bankers (!), and I’m full of wondering about how we can work together toward a new monetary system where the creation and distribution of money is more aligned with the common good.
One of the things I love about February is our family tradition of reaching widely to loved ones with a Valentine letter. It always reminds me of how many loved ones I have! If you didn’t get a copy and would like one, just let me know.
Love,
Pamela
Reimagining men
There is a big soft spot in my heart for men. The warmth and welcome I received from some of the dads in my community growing up was like water in a parched land. The man who taught our Sunday School class when I was thirteen opened a rare and precious space by actually listening to what was on our hearts and minds. A male mentor saw what I was capable of as a young adult, and guided me toward a sense of self-worth and a life of meaning. I have an unfailingly loving and supportive partner and many dear male friends. I will never be confused about the goodness that can be found in men.
That said, it’s hard to see them so lost as a group—and to see so many men behaving so badly. It is heartbreaking to take in the damage that has been done in this world by men wielding power. As their right to behave badly is beginning to be called out, it is painful to watch the fear that such a challenge evokes.
The training in entitlement runs so deep. How many men believe that they have a right to have their way, and that behaving like jerks with women is the natural order of things? Their outrage at a challenge to the assumptions that are at the core of their very identity is understandable. Such men are facing the unimaginable prospect of losing the only world they know, the world that has always been theirs.
The latest challenges to men’s right to behave badly (the right of white men in positions of power most particularly) follow a whole series of attacks on their status. Their “natural right” to be in charge of our country is being attacked on all sides. Black people are just not staying down, despite the best efforts of Jim Crow and mass incarceration. The tide of immigrants of color is seemingly unstoppable. And now the women—including white women who “should” be standing at their sides—are starting to turn against them.
As their control is increasingly challenged, it’s not surprising that the response is to hold on more tightly. Don’t we all do that when we feel we might lose our grip? So we see men in positions of power and privilege sacrificing their brothers while trying desperately to hang on to every bit of control within their reach.
It’s not easy to see the good in such men. Yet it has to be true that there’s a place for every human being in the world we seek. We were all born good and innocent, openhearted and reaching for connection. Society has played a cruel trick on our men, training them in the ways of power while cutting off avenues for real closeness. It’s only within this context that we can begin to understand the little boy longings that get played out so disastrously in grown men—and the strength it takes to stay human in the face of that training.
I see an opportunity here for women to claim a much bigger power than we may ever have dreamed possible. We don’t want to set our sights too low, and see victory in breaking into traditionally male positions of power. How many women have felt compelled to take on male patterns of behavior in the name of liberation? Nobody will win by women following the men. We have to be in the lead. We have to see right through the entitlement, the quest for control, the reliance on violence, to the sweet little boys hidden deep inside. We have to stand to their bad behavior without ever being confused about their innate goodness—and expect them to change. In this scenario, everybody wins.
Laying claim
A winter of obstacles
dark mornings
cold and rain
trips away
big deadlines
a bout with pneumonia
so much catching up…
But now, this morning
I head out
in unexpected cold
marking my territory
sweet and familiar
like a dog.
My corner
my streets
my park
my neighbors
My birds that sing
my trees that will bud
my sky
my world, all of it.
Dare to imagine: A new economy is possible!
Germany’s public development bank
Germany, the world leader in renewable energy, has a public-sector development bank called KfW which, along with Germany’s nonprofit Sparkassen banks, has largely funded the country’s green energy revolution. Initially funded by the United States through the Marshall Plan in 1948, KfW is now one of the world’s largest development banks, with more than $500 billion in assets.
Unlike private commercial banks, KfW does not have to focus on maximizing short-term profits for its shareholders while ignoring external costs. The bank has been free to support the energy revolution by funding major investments in renewable energy and energy efficiency. Its key role in the green energy revolution has been played within a public policy framework under Germany’s renewable energy legislation, including policy measures that have made investment in renewables commercially attractive.
Renewable energy in Germany is mainly based on wind, solar and biomass. Renewables generated 41 percent of the country’s electricity in 2017, up from just 6 percent in 2000; and public banks provided over 72 percent of the financing for this transition. https://www.truthdig.com/articles/the-financial-secret-behind-germanys-green-energy-revolution/
Some things that have made me hopeful recently
An African American Quaker elder who is making real a dream of medicinal herb production for marginalized members of the African diaspora.
https://www.quakerearthcare.org/sites/quakerearthcare.org/files/bfc/bfc3201_web.pdf (scroll to p.6)
All the bankers in the Global Alliance for Banking on Values who are dedicated to working for the common good.
http://www.gabv.org/about-us
The White Earth Band of Ojibwe’s adoption of a law recognizing the rights of wild rice, the first law to recognize the rights of a plant species.
https://celdf.org/2019/02/the-rights-of-wild-rice/
Sheila Watt-Clothier, and her depth of understanding of the importance to the rest of the world of the Arctic and the Inuit communities who call it home.
https://www.rightlivelihoodaward.org/laureates/sheila-watt-cloutier/
Resources
Money, Debt and Liberation
A video of a talk I gave at Pendle Hill in January, 2017
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f7nP8eJ5vy8
Money and Soul
A transcript of a keynote address I delivered at a Quaker conference in New Mexico, June 2017
https://westernfriend.org/media/money-and-soul-unabridged
Toward a Right Relationship with Finance
A book that I co-authored on Debt, Interest, Growth and Security.
The growth economy is failing to provide equitable well-being for humanity and a life-sustaining future for Earth. However our institutional endowments and individual retirement are dependent on that same growth economy. This book:
• offers background on our current economic system--how it is based on unearned income on the one hand and debt on the other, with a built-in momentum toward economy inequality and ecological overshoot;
• frames the conversation within the context of our deepest values and beliefs;
• suggests plausible and historically grounded alternatives to the current system, particularly with regard to financing retirement; and
• invites everyone to imagine new forms of durable economic and social security, and to help create the relationships and institutions that will make them a reality.
With many people now counting as never before on the performance of Wall Street for retirement security, how can this system be challenged with integrity and effectiveness? Can we break with our dependence on financial speculation and build up new structures of security in a transformed, life-centered economy?
To order the book, or read it on line, go to http://www.quakerinstitute.org/?page_id=5 and scroll down.
More resources
www.findingsteadyground.org
Resource from my friend Daniel Hunter, Building a Movement to End the New Jim Crow; An Organizing Guide. http://www.danielhunter.org/books/building-movement-end-new-jim-crow-organizing-guide
Posts on other web/blog sites:
In http://www.classism.org/gifts-american-dream/, Pamela Haines locates her family's homey DIY celebrations on a class spectrum of different connections to upward mobility.
http://www.transitionus.org/blog/unlikely-suspects-–-deep-outreach-diverse-initiating-groups-–-pace-building-trust
http://www.classism.org/demolition-derby
Muscle Building for Peace and Justice; a Non-Violent Workout Routine for the 21st Century--an integration of much of my experience and thinking over the years: https://www.trainingforchange.org/publications/muscle-building-peace-and-justice-nonviolent-workout-routine-21st-century (or just google the title)
I had an unexpected adventure this month, getting invited to attend a conference of the Global Alliance for Banking on Values in Vancouver—600 wonderful people from all over the world, working passionately to build and maintain financial institutions that serve people and the planet. It really required me to reassess my stereotypes about bankers (!), and I’m full of wondering about how we can work together toward a new monetary system where the creation and distribution of money is more aligned with the common good.
One of the things I love about February is our family tradition of reaching widely to loved ones with a Valentine letter. It always reminds me of how many loved ones I have! If you didn’t get a copy and would like one, just let me know.
Love,
Pamela
Reimagining men
There is a big soft spot in my heart for men. The warmth and welcome I received from some of the dads in my community growing up was like water in a parched land. The man who taught our Sunday School class when I was thirteen opened a rare and precious space by actually listening to what was on our hearts and minds. A male mentor saw what I was capable of as a young adult, and guided me toward a sense of self-worth and a life of meaning. I have an unfailingly loving and supportive partner and many dear male friends. I will never be confused about the goodness that can be found in men.
That said, it’s hard to see them so lost as a group—and to see so many men behaving so badly. It is heartbreaking to take in the damage that has been done in this world by men wielding power. As their right to behave badly is beginning to be called out, it is painful to watch the fear that such a challenge evokes.
The training in entitlement runs so deep. How many men believe that they have a right to have their way, and that behaving like jerks with women is the natural order of things? Their outrage at a challenge to the assumptions that are at the core of their very identity is understandable. Such men are facing the unimaginable prospect of losing the only world they know, the world that has always been theirs.
The latest challenges to men’s right to behave badly (the right of white men in positions of power most particularly) follow a whole series of attacks on their status. Their “natural right” to be in charge of our country is being attacked on all sides. Black people are just not staying down, despite the best efforts of Jim Crow and mass incarceration. The tide of immigrants of color is seemingly unstoppable. And now the women—including white women who “should” be standing at their sides—are starting to turn against them.
As their control is increasingly challenged, it’s not surprising that the response is to hold on more tightly. Don’t we all do that when we feel we might lose our grip? So we see men in positions of power and privilege sacrificing their brothers while trying desperately to hang on to every bit of control within their reach.
It’s not easy to see the good in such men. Yet it has to be true that there’s a place for every human being in the world we seek. We were all born good and innocent, openhearted and reaching for connection. Society has played a cruel trick on our men, training them in the ways of power while cutting off avenues for real closeness. It’s only within this context that we can begin to understand the little boy longings that get played out so disastrously in grown men—and the strength it takes to stay human in the face of that training.
I see an opportunity here for women to claim a much bigger power than we may ever have dreamed possible. We don’t want to set our sights too low, and see victory in breaking into traditionally male positions of power. How many women have felt compelled to take on male patterns of behavior in the name of liberation? Nobody will win by women following the men. We have to be in the lead. We have to see right through the entitlement, the quest for control, the reliance on violence, to the sweet little boys hidden deep inside. We have to stand to their bad behavior without ever being confused about their innate goodness—and expect them to change. In this scenario, everybody wins.
Laying claim
A winter of obstacles
dark mornings
cold and rain
trips away
big deadlines
a bout with pneumonia
so much catching up…
But now, this morning
I head out
in unexpected cold
marking my territory
sweet and familiar
like a dog.
My corner
my streets
my park
my neighbors
My birds that sing
my trees that will bud
my sky
my world, all of it.
Dare to imagine: A new economy is possible!
Germany’s public development bank
Germany, the world leader in renewable energy, has a public-sector development bank called KfW which, along with Germany’s nonprofit Sparkassen banks, has largely funded the country’s green energy revolution. Initially funded by the United States through the Marshall Plan in 1948, KfW is now one of the world’s largest development banks, with more than $500 billion in assets.
Unlike private commercial banks, KfW does not have to focus on maximizing short-term profits for its shareholders while ignoring external costs. The bank has been free to support the energy revolution by funding major investments in renewable energy and energy efficiency. Its key role in the green energy revolution has been played within a public policy framework under Germany’s renewable energy legislation, including policy measures that have made investment in renewables commercially attractive.
Renewable energy in Germany is mainly based on wind, solar and biomass. Renewables generated 41 percent of the country’s electricity in 2017, up from just 6 percent in 2000; and public banks provided over 72 percent of the financing for this transition. https://www.truthdig.com/articles/the-financial-secret-behind-germanys-green-energy-revolution/
Some things that have made me hopeful recently
An African American Quaker elder who is making real a dream of medicinal herb production for marginalized members of the African diaspora.
https://www.quakerearthcare.org/sites/quakerearthcare.org/files/bfc/bfc3201_web.pdf (scroll to p.6)
All the bankers in the Global Alliance for Banking on Values who are dedicated to working for the common good.
http://www.gabv.org/about-us
The White Earth Band of Ojibwe’s adoption of a law recognizing the rights of wild rice, the first law to recognize the rights of a plant species.
https://celdf.org/2019/02/the-rights-of-wild-rice/
Sheila Watt-Clothier, and her depth of understanding of the importance to the rest of the world of the Arctic and the Inuit communities who call it home.
https://www.rightlivelihoodaward.org/laureates/sheila-watt-cloutier/
Resources
Money, Debt and Liberation
A video of a talk I gave at Pendle Hill in January, 2017
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f7nP8eJ5vy8
Money and Soul
A transcript of a keynote address I delivered at a Quaker conference in New Mexico, June 2017
https://westernfriend.org/media/money-and-soul-unabridged
Toward a Right Relationship with Finance
A book that I co-authored on Debt, Interest, Growth and Security.
The growth economy is failing to provide equitable well-being for humanity and a life-sustaining future for Earth. However our institutional endowments and individual retirement are dependent on that same growth economy. This book:
• offers background on our current economic system--how it is based on unearned income on the one hand and debt on the other, with a built-in momentum toward economy inequality and ecological overshoot;
• frames the conversation within the context of our deepest values and beliefs;
• suggests plausible and historically grounded alternatives to the current system, particularly with regard to financing retirement; and
• invites everyone to imagine new forms of durable economic and social security, and to help create the relationships and institutions that will make them a reality.
With many people now counting as never before on the performance of Wall Street for retirement security, how can this system be challenged with integrity and effectiveness? Can we break with our dependence on financial speculation and build up new structures of security in a transformed, life-centered economy?
To order the book, or read it on line, go to http://www.quakerinstitute.org/?page_id=5 and scroll down.
More resources
www.findingsteadyground.org
Resource from my friend Daniel Hunter, Building a Movement to End the New Jim Crow; An Organizing Guide. http://www.danielhunter.org/books/building-movement-end-new-jim-crow-organizing-guide
Posts on other web/blog sites:
In http://www.classism.org/gifts-american-dream/, Pamela Haines locates her family's homey DIY celebrations on a class spectrum of different connections to upward mobility.
http://www.transitionus.org/blog/unlikely-suspects-–-deep-outreach-diverse-initiating-groups-–-pace-building-trust
http://www.classism.org/demolition-derby
Muscle Building for Peace and Justice; a Non-Violent Workout Routine for the 21st Century--an integration of much of my experience and thinking over the years: https://www.trainingforchange.org/publications/muscle-building-peace-and-justice-nonviolent-workout-routine-21st-century (or just google the title)
Monday, February 11, 2019
The Gift of Loving
A friend has asked me to re-post a piece I wrote in 2004, in celebration of Valentines Day. Here it is.
I’ve always known that the opportunity to love is a gift,
that loving unconditionally is the biggest perk of parenthood. I also know that it is easily obscured by
work and worry, by accumulated disappointments and assaults on our sense of
goodness. I’m seeing that gift these
days unadorned—stark in its power and beauty.
Some of you may remember Chino, the young man in Nicaragua
who claimed my son as a brother and me, by extension, sight unseen, as his
mother. I knew enough to take that claim
seriously, and when I met him he was not hard to love. I knew little about his home life—only that
it was not happy. Since our common
language was my limited Spanish, we couldn’t speak in detail. Intention, body language and tone of voice
were as important as words. I would sit
outside in the early mornings watching the world go by, he would come over from
down the street and I would welcome him to my side.
As I sit here thousands of miles away, remembering those
times, I think of how simple and profound a welcome can be—an open smile, open
heart, open arms. I hadn’t realized how
starved a life can be for such a welcome.
I hadn’t thought that I was giving a gift.
At the airport, as I was leaving Nicaragua, my attention was
mostly for my first born. He was lonely,
weighed down by responsibilities there, needing places to let down and
complain. I did my best to invite Chino
to that role, to be a resource for my loved one. His mind was on other things. He asked, rather wistfully, “Vas a
regalarme?”, literally, “Are you going to gift me?” I was a little taken aback. I’m not much into presents and I had nothing
there to give. When I asked if he wanted
anything in particular he mentioned a nose stud, something unavailable in
Nicaragua. So my first act as his mother
back home was to go the teen rebel part of town, find a body piercing store and
spend good money for strange adornment.
The alternative—not gifting him—seemed worse. I sent a loving postcard, included his gift
in a letter to my son, and wondered what else I could do. Though I didn’t forget, my life quickly
filled back up with all the responsibilities and relationships of home.
Finally a letter came.
With my poor Spanish and his poor handwriting and spelling, I wasn’t
sure I understood. But I was afraid I
did. He was not happy. He had been drinking, doing bad things. He wondered if his life was worth living. I was the only one he could tell. All of a sudden this situation was
transformed, from a sweet cross-cultural claim of connection to the real thing. This young man needed a mother now,
seriously, for real—and he had chosen me.
I got help confirming my fears of what his letter said, and
started wording Spanish phrases in my mind.
How could I use that blunt instrument—at a distance—in this time of
exquisitely fragile human need? It
helped enormously that he sent an e-mail soon after, both reassuring me that he
was doing a little better, and offering a more direct way to be in touch.
The only way I knew how to compensate for all the
inadequacies of the situation was to offer love without limit. I loved him more than anything in the world,
and with all my heart. When he thought
about drinking, could he think instead of drinking in my love? I stayed up late that night, forming my
sentences, trying to forge our connection and my love into something that could
work for him.
He was in my mind constantly the next day and the day
after. At breaks in a busy work week I
thought of other things I might say. I
invited him to rewrite history with me, to have me there in his memory, every
morning of his unloved childhood and every evening. I used the dictionary, started sentences over
when I ran into verb construction I couldn’t handle, prayed that my best would
be good enough.
He wrote back, full of love for his mama. Miraculously, something of what I intended
had gotten through. I wrote again,
profligate in my love, saying things I would never say to my birth children,
where a look or a touch would do, and anything more would be an embarrassment
to us both. This narrow window of contact required me to offer as big a love as
I knew how. Perhaps it was just as well
that I couldn’t be subtle in Spanish, and that in its unfamiliarity I could try
out a new, more extravagant persona.
We have been exchanging professions of undying love all
summer. He has stopped drinking. I feel like I’m living in the middle of a
miracle. Everything else is stripped
away to reveal the simple and stark truth--that my love matters.
Monday, January 21, 2019
#185 Balance
Dear all,
Thanks for all your well-wishes about my talk on money, debt and liberation. I think it went well, and it can be viewed at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f7nP8eJ5vy8 (starting at minute 6.5). Looking farther back, Chuck and I and our son Tim’s family took a wonderful holiday road trip to be with our son Andrew and his family who are newly relocated in southern Ontario. The trip also provided lovely opportunities to visit with other family in New York and our indigenous friends in Ontario. So many riches of connection!
It was a blessing to finally come up for air after a very busy stretch, and have discretionary time this weekend to mend, write and read. And I’m trying to remember in everything I do that just who I am is exactly what the situation needs.
Love,
Pamela
Balance
We love watching people who can keep their balance in seemingly impossible situations. Think of gymnasts who do amazing feats on a balance bar, ice-skaters who leap and land with stunning grace, surfers who stay upright in the face of overwhelmingly giant waves.
So many forces in today’s world conspire to knock us off balance. The news seems designed to keep us in a constant state of upset. We reach frantically for some kind of mental/emotional equilibrium, get a precarious hold, then someone does or says the next unbelievably outrageous thing, and we’re off balance again.
It’s like being caught in the big waves at the beach. They knock you down and carry you crashing to the shore, leaving you battered, bruised and abraded. You get up, gather yourself together, determine to go back in, and are knocked down again by that overwhelming relentless force.
I remember how terrified I was of the waves when our family used to camp by the ocean when I was small. I would spend hours close by our tent, making designs in the sand with shells and rocks—small objects over which I had come control. It wasn’t until my twenties that I learned how to manage in those waves—going down under the water just as one was ready to crash, then coming up to calm on the other side.
What would it take for us to find a similar strategy with those relentless waves of bad news? What would it mean to stay in the water, but not take the full brunt of those breakers, not get continually body-slammed into the sand? (and not choose to play it safer and limit our news intake to the smaller, more manageable waves of sports, fashion or movies?) I actually wonder if the breakers are a distraction, and the bigger issues are to be found in deeper water. I think elements of such a strategy will include keeping a judicious distance from much of what is presented as “news” but is really just fear mongering, having places to take our outrage and heartbreak, and being very discriminating and proactive about how, when, from what sources, and in what dosages we take in the information we need in order to stay engaged. The world badly needs us upright, breathing, in touch with our love, and intact. Putting thought, time and energy into developing a practice and discipline around current events that works for us is a project well worth taking on. (Check out www.findingsteadyground.com for support.)
Then there is the question of how to handle the individuals who knock us off balance—the ones who are so clueless and say the most outrageous things; those who wield power at such high cost to others; the ones whose storms and personal drama engulf everyone in their orbit; those who have that uncanny capacity to leave us questioning our worth. We all have developed a variety of responses: fighting back with equal force; joining our outrage with others so we feel less alone; or just keeping our distance, as I did from the surf as a child.
But I think there’s a possible and much more powerful response here that’s similar to staying in the water and going under the waves in a high surf. A thought that a friend shared months ago continues to reverberate in my mind: If we can find a way to bring them deep inside us, into our hearts, they can’t knock us off balance. The physics is unassailable; you can’t be rocked from inside. The practice, however, is quite another thing. It seems like a super-human task to find our way to such a place.
Yet the need for keeping our balance in this world is compelling. And I think the gymnasts and skaters and surfers can point a way forward. None of them could stay balanced at the beginning. Their ability in the present is the result of a clear vision of a highly-prized goal, determination and tons of practice. They worked day in and day out to get to the point where they didn’t fall, where they didn’t get knocked off balance, where they could be and do what they held in their mind’s eye.
Intent
She towers head and shoulders over everyone—
among a class of eight year olds
at least thirteen.
They move in unison.
All her attention is on her moves
so she can be a credit to her class as they perform.
But when the need for concentration’s done
where does her mind turn? What story would she tell?
Child of a girl, who was kidnapped as a child herself
forced by rebels to the bush, to rape and servitude.
Only now, years after peace was signed
this girl has found her way to school, illiterate.
And so she learns with little children here.
Is she teased, looked down upon?
Looked up to, treated with respect?
Is she glad for this new chance? Hopeful for what might come?
Or just enduring one more trial?
All that shows is her intent
to do this one thing right.
Dare to imagine—a new economy is possible!
Spain's transition from coal
The Spanish government and unions have struck a deal that will close most coal mines and invest 250 million euros in mining regions over the next decade. The deal, which covers Spain’s privately-owned pits, mixes early retirement schemes for miners over 48 with environmental restoration work in pit communities and re-skilling schemes for cutting-edge green industries.
More than a thousand miners and subcontractors will lose their jobs when 10 pits close by the end of the year. Almost all of the sites were uneconomic concerns that the European commission had allowed Spain to temporarily keep open with a €2.1bn state aid plan. The agreement may be a model for other countries, showing that it’s possible to follow the Paris agreement without damage to people’s livelihoods.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/oct/26/spain-to-close-most-coal-mines-after-striking-250m-deal
Some things that have made me hopeful recently
All the attention to the ideas of a Green New Deal, articulated by new Congresswoman, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, with its four pillars of an economic bill of rights, a green transition, real financial reform, and a functioning democracy. http://www.gp.org/green_new_deal
All the people we met in East Africa who are excited about the prospect of bringing respect, attention and play to their interactions with children.
How a small religious Mexican border demonstration got picked up by news outlets across the country, highlighting basic humann values.
https://www.usnews.com/news/us/articles/2018-12-10/border-patrol-handcuffs-demonstrators-supporting-migrants
How cities are taking the lead on many economic and environmental issues that affect their citizens, as can be seen in the passage in Philadelphia of Fair Work Week leglsation. https://www.phillyvoice.com/philadelphia-city-council-passes-fair-workweek-bill-15-minimum-wage-bump/
Resources
Money and Soul
A transcript of a keynote address I delivered at a Quaker conference in New Mexico, June 2017
https://westernfriend.org/media/money-and-soul-unabridged
Toward a Right Relationship with Finance
Check out this new book that I co-authored on Debt, Interest, Growth and Security.
The growth economy is failing to provide equitable well-being for humanity and a life-sustaining future for Earth. However our institutional endowments and individual retirement are dependent on that same growth economy. This book:
• offers background on our current economic system--how it is based on unearned income on the one hand and debt on the other, with a built-in momentum toward economy inequality and ecological overshoot;
• frames the conversation within the context of our deepest values and beliefs;
• suggests plausible and historically grounded alternatives to the current system, particularly with regard to financing retirement; and
• invites everyone to imagine new forms of durable economic and social security, and to help create the relationships and institutions that will make them a reality.
With many people now counting as never before on the performance of Wall Street for retirement security, how can this system be challenged with integrity and effectiveness? Can we break with our dependence on financial speculation and build up new structures of security in a transformed, life-centered economy?
To order the book, or read it on line, go to http://www.quakerinstitute.org/?page_id=5 and scroll down.
More resources
www.findingsteadyground.org
Resource from my friend Daniel Hunter, Building a Movement to End the New Jim Crow; An Organizing Guide. http://www.danielhunter.org/books/building-movement-end-new-jim-crow-organizing-guide
Posts on other web/blog sites:
In http://www.classism.org/gifts-american-dream/, Pamela Haines locates her family's homey DIY celebrations on a class spectrum of different connections to upward mobility.
http://www.transitionus.org/blog/unlikely-suspects-–-deep-outreach-diverse-initiating-groups-–-pace-building-trust
http://www.classism.org/demolition-derby
Muscle Building for Peace and Justice; a Non-Violent Workout Routine for the 21st Century--an integration of much of my experience and thinking over the years: https://www.trainingforchange.org/publications/muscle-building-peace-and-justice-nonviolent-workout-routine-21st-century (or just google the title)
Thanks for all your well-wishes about my talk on money, debt and liberation. I think it went well, and it can be viewed at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f7nP8eJ5vy8 (starting at minute 6.5). Looking farther back, Chuck and I and our son Tim’s family took a wonderful holiday road trip to be with our son Andrew and his family who are newly relocated in southern Ontario. The trip also provided lovely opportunities to visit with other family in New York and our indigenous friends in Ontario. So many riches of connection!
It was a blessing to finally come up for air after a very busy stretch, and have discretionary time this weekend to mend, write and read. And I’m trying to remember in everything I do that just who I am is exactly what the situation needs.
Love,
Pamela
Balance
We love watching people who can keep their balance in seemingly impossible situations. Think of gymnasts who do amazing feats on a balance bar, ice-skaters who leap and land with stunning grace, surfers who stay upright in the face of overwhelmingly giant waves.
So many forces in today’s world conspire to knock us off balance. The news seems designed to keep us in a constant state of upset. We reach frantically for some kind of mental/emotional equilibrium, get a precarious hold, then someone does or says the next unbelievably outrageous thing, and we’re off balance again.
It’s like being caught in the big waves at the beach. They knock you down and carry you crashing to the shore, leaving you battered, bruised and abraded. You get up, gather yourself together, determine to go back in, and are knocked down again by that overwhelming relentless force.
I remember how terrified I was of the waves when our family used to camp by the ocean when I was small. I would spend hours close by our tent, making designs in the sand with shells and rocks—small objects over which I had come control. It wasn’t until my twenties that I learned how to manage in those waves—going down under the water just as one was ready to crash, then coming up to calm on the other side.
What would it take for us to find a similar strategy with those relentless waves of bad news? What would it mean to stay in the water, but not take the full brunt of those breakers, not get continually body-slammed into the sand? (and not choose to play it safer and limit our news intake to the smaller, more manageable waves of sports, fashion or movies?) I actually wonder if the breakers are a distraction, and the bigger issues are to be found in deeper water. I think elements of such a strategy will include keeping a judicious distance from much of what is presented as “news” but is really just fear mongering, having places to take our outrage and heartbreak, and being very discriminating and proactive about how, when, from what sources, and in what dosages we take in the information we need in order to stay engaged. The world badly needs us upright, breathing, in touch with our love, and intact. Putting thought, time and energy into developing a practice and discipline around current events that works for us is a project well worth taking on. (Check out www.findingsteadyground.com for support.)
Then there is the question of how to handle the individuals who knock us off balance—the ones who are so clueless and say the most outrageous things; those who wield power at such high cost to others; the ones whose storms and personal drama engulf everyone in their orbit; those who have that uncanny capacity to leave us questioning our worth. We all have developed a variety of responses: fighting back with equal force; joining our outrage with others so we feel less alone; or just keeping our distance, as I did from the surf as a child.
But I think there’s a possible and much more powerful response here that’s similar to staying in the water and going under the waves in a high surf. A thought that a friend shared months ago continues to reverberate in my mind: If we can find a way to bring them deep inside us, into our hearts, they can’t knock us off balance. The physics is unassailable; you can’t be rocked from inside. The practice, however, is quite another thing. It seems like a super-human task to find our way to such a place.
Yet the need for keeping our balance in this world is compelling. And I think the gymnasts and skaters and surfers can point a way forward. None of them could stay balanced at the beginning. Their ability in the present is the result of a clear vision of a highly-prized goal, determination and tons of practice. They worked day in and day out to get to the point where they didn’t fall, where they didn’t get knocked off balance, where they could be and do what they held in their mind’s eye.
Intent
She towers head and shoulders over everyone—
among a class of eight year olds
at least thirteen.
They move in unison.
All her attention is on her moves
so she can be a credit to her class as they perform.
But when the need for concentration’s done
where does her mind turn? What story would she tell?
Child of a girl, who was kidnapped as a child herself
forced by rebels to the bush, to rape and servitude.
Only now, years after peace was signed
this girl has found her way to school, illiterate.
And so she learns with little children here.
Is she teased, looked down upon?
Looked up to, treated with respect?
Is she glad for this new chance? Hopeful for what might come?
Or just enduring one more trial?
All that shows is her intent
to do this one thing right.
Dare to imagine—a new economy is possible!
Spain's transition from coal
The Spanish government and unions have struck a deal that will close most coal mines and invest 250 million euros in mining regions over the next decade. The deal, which covers Spain’s privately-owned pits, mixes early retirement schemes for miners over 48 with environmental restoration work in pit communities and re-skilling schemes for cutting-edge green industries.
More than a thousand miners and subcontractors will lose their jobs when 10 pits close by the end of the year. Almost all of the sites were uneconomic concerns that the European commission had allowed Spain to temporarily keep open with a €2.1bn state aid plan. The agreement may be a model for other countries, showing that it’s possible to follow the Paris agreement without damage to people’s livelihoods.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/oct/26/spain-to-close-most-coal-mines-after-striking-250m-deal
Some things that have made me hopeful recently
All the attention to the ideas of a Green New Deal, articulated by new Congresswoman, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, with its four pillars of an economic bill of rights, a green transition, real financial reform, and a functioning democracy. http://www.gp.org/green_new_deal
All the people we met in East Africa who are excited about the prospect of bringing respect, attention and play to their interactions with children.
How a small religious Mexican border demonstration got picked up by news outlets across the country, highlighting basic humann values.
https://www.usnews.com/news/us/articles/2018-12-10/border-patrol-handcuffs-demonstrators-supporting-migrants
How cities are taking the lead on many economic and environmental issues that affect their citizens, as can be seen in the passage in Philadelphia of Fair Work Week leglsation. https://www.phillyvoice.com/philadelphia-city-council-passes-fair-workweek-bill-15-minimum-wage-bump/
Resources
Money and Soul
A transcript of a keynote address I delivered at a Quaker conference in New Mexico, June 2017
https://westernfriend.org/media/money-and-soul-unabridged
Toward a Right Relationship with Finance
Check out this new book that I co-authored on Debt, Interest, Growth and Security.
The growth economy is failing to provide equitable well-being for humanity and a life-sustaining future for Earth. However our institutional endowments and individual retirement are dependent on that same growth economy. This book:
• offers background on our current economic system--how it is based on unearned income on the one hand and debt on the other, with a built-in momentum toward economy inequality and ecological overshoot;
• frames the conversation within the context of our deepest values and beliefs;
• suggests plausible and historically grounded alternatives to the current system, particularly with regard to financing retirement; and
• invites everyone to imagine new forms of durable economic and social security, and to help create the relationships and institutions that will make them a reality.
With many people now counting as never before on the performance of Wall Street for retirement security, how can this system be challenged with integrity and effectiveness? Can we break with our dependence on financial speculation and build up new structures of security in a transformed, life-centered economy?
To order the book, or read it on line, go to http://www.quakerinstitute.org/?page_id=5 and scroll down.
More resources
www.findingsteadyground.org
Resource from my friend Daniel Hunter, Building a Movement to End the New Jim Crow; An Organizing Guide. http://www.danielhunter.org/books/building-movement-end-new-jim-crow-organizing-guide
Posts on other web/blog sites:
In http://www.classism.org/gifts-american-dream/, Pamela Haines locates her family's homey DIY celebrations on a class spectrum of different connections to upward mobility.
http://www.transitionus.org/blog/unlikely-suspects-–-deep-outreach-diverse-initiating-groups-–-pace-building-trust
http://www.classism.org/demolition-derby
Muscle Building for Peace and Justice; a Non-Violent Workout Routine for the 21st Century--an integration of much of my experience and thinking over the years: https://www.trainingforchange.org/publications/muscle-building-peace-and-justice-nonviolent-workout-routine-21st-century (or just google the title)
Thursday, December 20, 2018
#184 Listen and love
Dear all,
Well, we’re just back from three weeks in East Africa, mostly in Northern Uganda with a few days at the end in Tanzania. It’s always a wrenching process to come home—somehow we get a chance to love so deeply there. This month’s column tries to capture some of that experience.
On a different topic, if you’re in the Philadelphia area, consider coming to the talk that I’ll be doing on Monday evening, January 7 on Money, Debt and Liberation. It’s another big stretch for me. More information at https://pendlehill.org/events/money-debt-and-liberation/
I wish you well with all the joys and challenges of the holiday season.
Love,
Pamela
Listen and love
Over lunch at a workshop for families in Tanzania, we were talking about how to break the pattern of harsh treatment of children which has been so much a part of the culture there. One man asked a question about a specific issue with a specific child. Though I have a lot of experience working with families, of course I didn’t have an answer for him. It depended so much on their relationship, his intentions, and his ability to do things he had never experienced as a child himself. So I responded that a child who feels loved will forgive many mistakes, and that the solution lies within that parent. He just needs enough loving attention to help peel away all the layers of hurt that cover it up.
Somehow that interchange seemed to capture the heart of what I was about on this trip. Though we could offer new possibilities and invite people to imagine a new thing, there are so many answers we didn’t have, so many problems we couldn’t solve. But we could always love. Listen and love and back people to get the support they need to come up with the solutions that are in their hearts and within their reach.
Of course many are not within reach. Unmet material needs are enormous. While we can always think about ways to share our income, and invite others with excess to do the same, the change in political and economic systems that is required to really make a difference will only come from changed hearts and empowered communities—both in Africa and the West. And so we listen and we love, strengthening a network of connections and our common capacity to help each other peel away the layers of hurts that obscure our loving powerful selves and the solutions that lie within.
It was a blessing to have this time that offered such undistracted opportunities to love. My hope is that I can remember, amidst all the busyness of my days back home, that this is the heart of our work and our lives.
Reflections on wealth and need
Power
Great power lines are going up along the north-south road
to capture power from the rushing Nile.
Above lies poverty and need.
The lines run south—to markets far away.
Refugees
Our goal—a camp of refugees from South Sudan
and trauma healing work with families.
I picture children ragged in bare feet
crowded into dusty dismal camps,
the story of the north after the war.
They are, instead, well-pressed and clean
suffering indignity and yet intent
to use this time—thrust on them painfully—
to build resilience and capacity
for their return.
An urge to pity the unfortunate
has no place here.
Color
The ladies come to graduation in full flower.
Bright fabrics in traditional design
are everywhere. Last year there were a few.
Reaching for memory of those lean years after the war
color does not come to mind. I breathe
and take in all the beauty of the peace.
Buzz
The motorcycles swarm like bees,
the taxi service of this town.
Young men trade land for buzzing bikes
and hopes to get ahead in modern times,
so fast and cool.
And yet repairs, high price of fuel,
so many with the same big hopes
foretell adversity
cast somber shadows on their dreams.
Repair
The car he drives, though not his own
provides his livelihood.
He keeps it running, cleans it all the time
deals with broken doors as best he can.
Yet back-seat pockets flap, affront
with undone seams. A needle is required.
My tiny hotel sewing kit, once called to mind,
is put to work at once. He makes a neat repair,
and now the car reflects more perfectly his care.
Suburbs
Roads through the hills around the city
are so deeply rutted I tense up,
hold my breath, despair of getting through.
Then, bone-wrenched, we arrive:
gated compounds, well appointed houses
of the middle class.
Country
This house is full of luxury
soft furniture, flush toilets
running water (cold).
Yet many from our country would complain.
The power’s unreliable, to say the least.
The wood-fired kitchen is outside,
no fridge or packaged food in sight.
Clothes washed by hand are hung to dry.
Around the house grow millet, sorghum,
chickens, goats and vegetables.
The family’s head grows dizzy
with requests from those with less.
The question’s always there:
What constitutes enough?
Excess
This gathering for play is a rare thing.
A balloon is blown up for each child, and
laughter fills the room.
Balloons are everywhere. They play and play.
Then more are blown—
and now they fight to have the most.
Needing to protect their hoard, they cannot play.
The tone has shifted. Something has been lost.
Shirts
These men have sweated blood
studied for years to get their jobs.
They take such care with how they dress.
I long to help them with repairs—
such simple things—an extra button, matching thread.
The collar of one well-pressed shirt is deeply frayed.
I have the skill to turn that collar, hide the wear,
would take real pleasure in the task.
I may know him well enough one day
to make the offer—but not yet.
Weight
The water system many places
runs on yellow plastic jerry cans.
They cluster round the bore holes
move on bikes and people’s heads
so common I barely notice any more.
Our last day I face lifting one.
Struggling under unexpected weight,
I see all those water carriers
in a new light.
Life, not wild
An extra day in Tanzania—what to do?
Mt. Kilimanjaro, the Serengeti,
exotic wildlife close at hand.
We choose for homo sapiens instead.
Our hosts live modestly—they’ve squeezed us in.
We help prepare the family meal
eat together, sing, draw children in
trade stories with this Masai man,
who left his tribe for school
and now fights fiercely to protect their land.
We walk through a community
where people still remember socialism
working as a group to meet their common needs.
It’s hard to say goodbye.
We’ve caught a glimpse of life (not wild)
that fills our hearts.
Resources
Money and Soul
A transcript of a keynote address I delivered at a Quaker conference in New Mexico, June 2017
https://westernfriend.org/media/money-and-soul-unabridged
Toward a Right Relationship with Finance
Check out this new book that I co-authored on Debt, Interest, Growth and Security.
The growth economy is failing to provide equitable well-being for humanity and a life-sustaining future for Earth. However our institutional endowments and individual retirement are dependent on that same growth economy. This book:
• offers background on our current economic system--how it is based on unearned income on the one hand and debt on the other, with a built-in momentum toward economy inequality and ecological overshoot;
• frames the conversation within the context of our deepest values and beliefs;
• suggests plausible and historically grounded alternatives to the current system, particularly with regard to financing retirement; and
• invites everyone to imagine new forms of durable economic and social security, and to help create the relationships and institutions that will make them a reality.
With many people now counting as never before on the performance of Wall Street for retirement security, how can this system be challenged with integrity and effectiveness? Can we break with our dependence on financial speculation and build up new structures of security in a transformed, life-centered economy?
To order the book, or read it on line, go to http://www.quakerinstitute.org/?page_id=5 and scroll down.
More resources
www.findingsteadyground.org
Resource from my friend Daniel Hunter, Building a Movement to End the New Jim Crow; An Organizing Guide. http://www.danielhunter.org/books/building-movement-end-new-jim-crow-organizing-guide
Posts on other web/blog sites:
In http://www.classism.org/gifts-american-dream/, Pamela Haines locates her family's homey DIY celebrations on a class spectrum of different connections to upward mobility.
http://www.transitionus.org/blog/unlikely-suspects-–-deep-outreach-diverse-initiating-groups-–-pace-building-trust
http://www.classism.org/demolition-derby
Muscle Building for Peace and Justice; a Non-Violent Workout Routine for the 21st Century--an integration of much of my experience and thinking over the years: https://www.trainingforchange.org/publications/muscle-building-peace-and-justice-nonviolent-workout-routine-21st-century (or just google the title)
Well, we’re just back from three weeks in East Africa, mostly in Northern Uganda with a few days at the end in Tanzania. It’s always a wrenching process to come home—somehow we get a chance to love so deeply there. This month’s column tries to capture some of that experience.
On a different topic, if you’re in the Philadelphia area, consider coming to the talk that I’ll be doing on Monday evening, January 7 on Money, Debt and Liberation. It’s another big stretch for me. More information at https://pendlehill.org/events/money-debt-and-liberation/
I wish you well with all the joys and challenges of the holiday season.
Love,
Pamela
Listen and love
Over lunch at a workshop for families in Tanzania, we were talking about how to break the pattern of harsh treatment of children which has been so much a part of the culture there. One man asked a question about a specific issue with a specific child. Though I have a lot of experience working with families, of course I didn’t have an answer for him. It depended so much on their relationship, his intentions, and his ability to do things he had never experienced as a child himself. So I responded that a child who feels loved will forgive many mistakes, and that the solution lies within that parent. He just needs enough loving attention to help peel away all the layers of hurt that cover it up.
Somehow that interchange seemed to capture the heart of what I was about on this trip. Though we could offer new possibilities and invite people to imagine a new thing, there are so many answers we didn’t have, so many problems we couldn’t solve. But we could always love. Listen and love and back people to get the support they need to come up with the solutions that are in their hearts and within their reach.
Of course many are not within reach. Unmet material needs are enormous. While we can always think about ways to share our income, and invite others with excess to do the same, the change in political and economic systems that is required to really make a difference will only come from changed hearts and empowered communities—both in Africa and the West. And so we listen and we love, strengthening a network of connections and our common capacity to help each other peel away the layers of hurts that obscure our loving powerful selves and the solutions that lie within.
It was a blessing to have this time that offered such undistracted opportunities to love. My hope is that I can remember, amidst all the busyness of my days back home, that this is the heart of our work and our lives.
Reflections on wealth and need
Power
Great power lines are going up along the north-south road
to capture power from the rushing Nile.
Above lies poverty and need.
The lines run south—to markets far away.
Refugees
Our goal—a camp of refugees from South Sudan
and trauma healing work with families.
I picture children ragged in bare feet
crowded into dusty dismal camps,
the story of the north after the war.
They are, instead, well-pressed and clean
suffering indignity and yet intent
to use this time—thrust on them painfully—
to build resilience and capacity
for their return.
An urge to pity the unfortunate
has no place here.
Color
The ladies come to graduation in full flower.
Bright fabrics in traditional design
are everywhere. Last year there were a few.
Reaching for memory of those lean years after the war
color does not come to mind. I breathe
and take in all the beauty of the peace.
Buzz
The motorcycles swarm like bees,
the taxi service of this town.
Young men trade land for buzzing bikes
and hopes to get ahead in modern times,
so fast and cool.
And yet repairs, high price of fuel,
so many with the same big hopes
foretell adversity
cast somber shadows on their dreams.
Repair
The car he drives, though not his own
provides his livelihood.
He keeps it running, cleans it all the time
deals with broken doors as best he can.
Yet back-seat pockets flap, affront
with undone seams. A needle is required.
My tiny hotel sewing kit, once called to mind,
is put to work at once. He makes a neat repair,
and now the car reflects more perfectly his care.
Suburbs
Roads through the hills around the city
are so deeply rutted I tense up,
hold my breath, despair of getting through.
Then, bone-wrenched, we arrive:
gated compounds, well appointed houses
of the middle class.
Country
This house is full of luxury
soft furniture, flush toilets
running water (cold).
Yet many from our country would complain.
The power’s unreliable, to say the least.
The wood-fired kitchen is outside,
no fridge or packaged food in sight.
Clothes washed by hand are hung to dry.
Around the house grow millet, sorghum,
chickens, goats and vegetables.
The family’s head grows dizzy
with requests from those with less.
The question’s always there:
What constitutes enough?
Excess
This gathering for play is a rare thing.
A balloon is blown up for each child, and
laughter fills the room.
Balloons are everywhere. They play and play.
Then more are blown—
and now they fight to have the most.
Needing to protect their hoard, they cannot play.
The tone has shifted. Something has been lost.
Shirts
These men have sweated blood
studied for years to get their jobs.
They take such care with how they dress.
I long to help them with repairs—
such simple things—an extra button, matching thread.
The collar of one well-pressed shirt is deeply frayed.
I have the skill to turn that collar, hide the wear,
would take real pleasure in the task.
I may know him well enough one day
to make the offer—but not yet.
Weight
The water system many places
runs on yellow plastic jerry cans.
They cluster round the bore holes
move on bikes and people’s heads
so common I barely notice any more.
Our last day I face lifting one.
Struggling under unexpected weight,
I see all those water carriers
in a new light.
Life, not wild
An extra day in Tanzania—what to do?
Mt. Kilimanjaro, the Serengeti,
exotic wildlife close at hand.
We choose for homo sapiens instead.
Our hosts live modestly—they’ve squeezed us in.
We help prepare the family meal
eat together, sing, draw children in
trade stories with this Masai man,
who left his tribe for school
and now fights fiercely to protect their land.
We walk through a community
where people still remember socialism
working as a group to meet their common needs.
It’s hard to say goodbye.
We’ve caught a glimpse of life (not wild)
that fills our hearts.
Resources
Money and Soul
A transcript of a keynote address I delivered at a Quaker conference in New Mexico, June 2017
https://westernfriend.org/media/money-and-soul-unabridged
Toward a Right Relationship with Finance
Check out this new book that I co-authored on Debt, Interest, Growth and Security.
The growth economy is failing to provide equitable well-being for humanity and a life-sustaining future for Earth. However our institutional endowments and individual retirement are dependent on that same growth economy. This book:
• offers background on our current economic system--how it is based on unearned income on the one hand and debt on the other, with a built-in momentum toward economy inequality and ecological overshoot;
• frames the conversation within the context of our deepest values and beliefs;
• suggests plausible and historically grounded alternatives to the current system, particularly with regard to financing retirement; and
• invites everyone to imagine new forms of durable economic and social security, and to help create the relationships and institutions that will make them a reality.
With many people now counting as never before on the performance of Wall Street for retirement security, how can this system be challenged with integrity and effectiveness? Can we break with our dependence on financial speculation and build up new structures of security in a transformed, life-centered economy?
To order the book, or read it on line, go to http://www.quakerinstitute.org/?page_id=5 and scroll down.
More resources
www.findingsteadyground.org
Resource from my friend Daniel Hunter, Building a Movement to End the New Jim Crow; An Organizing Guide. http://www.danielhunter.org/books/building-movement-end-new-jim-crow-organizing-guide
Posts on other web/blog sites:
In http://www.classism.org/gifts-american-dream/, Pamela Haines locates her family's homey DIY celebrations on a class spectrum of different connections to upward mobility.
http://www.transitionus.org/blog/unlikely-suspects-–-deep-outreach-diverse-initiating-groups-–-pace-building-trust
http://www.classism.org/demolition-derby
Muscle Building for Peace and Justice; a Non-Violent Workout Routine for the 21st Century--an integration of much of my experience and thinking over the years: https://www.trainingforchange.org/publications/muscle-building-peace-and-justice-nonviolent-workout-routine-21st-century (or just google the title)
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