Dear all,
I was setting up to send something about an experience of being deeply challenged by an issue of oppression and getting a gift from my willingness to face it squarely. It was going to be a break from COVID-19. But as I took a walk this morning, I concluded that putting attention to a different serious thing may not be the break that people need. A woman in our Quaker meeting (which has suspended gatherings for the forseeable future) has been sending out some of her quirky little poems, and people have been receiving them with great appreciation. So, as I think of and value you all, here are some poems that have given me pleasure, as well as some hopeful things. (If it’s a disappointment not to get more, please let me know, or feel free to browse through old posts at www.pamelalivinginthisworld.blogspot.com.)
If you need reminding of some simple ways to stay grounded in challenging times, I recommend www.findingsteadyground.com, which I helped a friend develop following the last presidential election. I wish you many moments of deep appreciation for the people you know and love—and bottomless creativity in finding ways to connect—as we journey through this great unknown.
Love,
Pamela
Enough
He doles out the little plastic animals with care.
We each get two, then five, nine, eleven.
He counts each time to be sure.
We each have eleven. Now we can start the game.
He considers his pile.
“Eleven is too many. Let’s each just have four.”
We choose which ones to keep.
He counts again. “Now we’re ready.”
Our animals surround the ramp
begin to jump and play at our command.
He stops. “Four is too many. Let’s just have two.”
Now he can settle and enjoy the game.
A small miracle. This child, in this culture,
resists the soul-sucking pull of more,
sees his self-interest in downsizing
to enough.
Boardroom rumble
The measured words
about audit
and fiscal prudence
float above
a clattery rumble
as a distinguished elderly banker
with large hands
pulls chips
one by one
out of a small
foil
bag.
Sighting
As a species
the mail carrier
is a loner
marking his own territory
making his rounds
in solitary self-sufficiency
Yet here was a pair
male and female
each marked with that distinctive
uniform and bag
moving side by side
down the street
up steps together
and back down
as if inseparable
A remarkable sighting
An invitation
to turn what we know
on its head--
imagine the impossible.
Dare to imagine: A new economy is possible!
National Recycling
After two years Lithuania has a recycling rate of 91.9% for all bottles and cans and 74% for plastic packaging—44% higher than the EU average. When the consumer buys a product packaged in a returnable recyclable container, they pay a €0.10 tax which is held in trust until the consumer returns the packaging to a special reverse-vending machine, whereupon the ten cents is repaid. Consumers are paid in vouchers that can be redeemed in store as cash or credit toward their shopping bill. According to the EU’s Circular Economy platform, 97% of the country’s consumers were satisfied with the deposit-return system, which has collected over 2 billion returns and 56,000 tons of material since its deployment in 2016, a figure of mass equal to 6 Eiffel Towers.
https://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/lithuania-steals-crown-for-best-european-recycler/
Some things that have made me hopeful recently
166 million tons of coal and 4.5 gigatons of CO₂from Latin America’s largest open-pit mine that will stay in the ground, the fruit of a partnership between climate justice groups in Brazil, a local Indigenous association, and others.
https://350.org/coal-goliath-has-lost-2/?akid=114669.48046.uARLHD&rd=1&t=8
Students in Ottawa, who will now read Canadian indigenous authors in their literature classes.
https://ottawacitizen.com/news/local-news/grade-11-students-in-ottawa-are-ditching-shakespeare-for-canadas-indigenous-authors
The news that Vancouver-based Teck Resources Ltd. has withdrawn its application to build a massive oilsands project in northern Alberta, citing the ongoing debate over climate policy in Canada.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/teck-frontier-1.5473370?
An integrated effort in Hawai’i to educate and empower youth, fight hunger and injustice, improve health and nutrition, and grow a local, organic and fair agriculture industry.
https://www.maoorganicfarms.org/our_valueshttps://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/dec/20/dutch-supreme-court-upholds-landmark-ruling-demanding-climate-action?CMP=share_btn_link
Resources
Money and Soul
My new book (based on a pamphlet of the same name) available via QuakerBooks or other on-line distributors.
("If money troubles your soul, try this down-to-earth Quaker perspective on economies large and small.")
Money, Debt and Liberation
A video of a talk I gave at Pendle Hill in January, 2019
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f7nP8eJ5vy8
Toward a Right Relationship with Finance
A book that I co-authored on Debt, Interest, Growth and Security.
The growth economy is failing to provide equitable well-being for humanity and a life-sustaining future for Earth. However our institutional endowments and individual retirement are dependent on that same growth economy. This book:
• offers background on our current economic system--how it is based on unearned income on the one hand and debt on the other, with a built-in momentum toward economy inequality and ecological overshoot;
• frames the conversation within the context of our deepest values and beliefs;
• suggests plausible and historically grounded alternatives to the current system, particularly with regard to financing retirement; and
• invites everyone to imagine new forms of durable economic and social security, and to help create the relationships and institutions that will make them a reality.
With many people now counting as never before on the performance of Wall Street for retirement security, how can this system be challenged with integrity and effectiveness? Can we break with our dependence on financial speculation and build up new structures of security in a transformed, life-centered economy?
To order the book, or read it on line, go to http://www.quakerinstitute.org/?page_id=5 and scroll down.
More resources
www.findingsteadyground.com
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: New link: https://www.peaceworkersus.org/docs/muscle_building_for_peace_and_justice.pdf (or just google the title)
Thursday, March 19, 2020
Saturday, February 15, 2020
#198 Right to repair
Dear all,
My big news is that I’ve cut down my hours at work—a just-right-sized step toward retirement—and am feeling the spaciousness of time. So far it’s been easily filled by long-delayed visits with friends, time with a grandson I've seen too rarely this year, and relaxed, connected social change work. I’m heartened by developments in the public banking campaign, glad to offer emotional support to organizers in the youth climate movement, Sunrise, and helping my congregation be more active in the movement to end cash bail.
Once again we celebrated Valentines Day by sending a love/news-letter to our widespread community, and receiving a shower of love-notes in return. If you didn’t get a copy and would like one, just let me know.
Love,
Pamela
Right to repair
Last fall the European Union passed groundbreaking new “right to repair” legislation. Major appliances must now be produced to be repairable and recyclable. What a concept! But there’s more. As of last spring around twenty states in the US had considered right-to-repair bills to protect consumers’ ability to fix their electronic property—whether through parts, software, independent repair shops or skilled friends. The goal is to break the grip that companies have on unnecessarily expensive repairs, that are tipping us toward dumping the old one—whether washer or cell phone—in the landfill and buying a new one instead. What a sea change it would be to claim our right to repair!
I know what it’s like to make a good repair and extending the life of something that has value through my time and skill. Sometimes it’s as simple as sewing back a button on a shirt or a favorite pair of jeans. Stitching up a seam to make a beloved stuffed animal that is losing its stuffing as good as new can take just a few minutes, but bring joy to a child. We found an old chest on the street—wobbly and falling apart in many ways—but glue and clamps were really all that were needed to make it a lovely and desirable piece of furniture again. Our grandchildren are entranced by the possibility and the process of fixing broken toys. They are clear about the joy and power of repair.
I know what it is like to find a good repair person who can pick up where my skills let off. I place great value on these relationships, and am never quite comfortable with a new appliance till I find someone who can keep it going. It was a pleasure to visit with and get to know the man who was so good with our washer, dryer and stove, resting in the knowledge that I was in the very best of hands. I’ll never forget the sewing machine repair man who once sent home not only my repaired machine, but another one that he had on hand and thought I could use! I have a deep respect for their skills, and my life is better for knowing them.
I also know the frustration of being unable to make a repair. Those crappy plastic toys that came into our house when the children were small, and broke soon thereafter used to drive me crazy. (I’m sure the manufacturers count on adults preferring to buy new ones than having to handle the big upsets of small children!) But it’s not just children’s toys. Last fall my computer’s battery failed. Even our tech-savvy friend was unable to install a new one. The computer was more than a couple of years old, and intended for obsolescence; making people buy new ones is so much better for the company’s bottom line.
What would it mean to have a right to repair? We could call on manufacturers to have the integrity to produce with the sustainability of products and the planet in mind. This would not only cut down waste, extend product life, and support a cadre of skilled repair people, but reorient our whole culture to one of valuing what we have rather than focusing always on the next new thing.
Maybe it would invite us to think even more broadly about repair. Just as those who are already skilled in repair take pride in their craft, maybe we could become a whole culture of repairers. What if we believed that we could build the skills to repair other things that are broken—broken relationships, broken communities, broken economic systems?
Of course, some things should never be produced in the first place, and some are simply beyond repair. But maybe if we set our sights higher than just getting better at recycling plastic bottles, we can expand the categories of things we don’t throw away—to include phones, washers, computers, small towns, marginalized people. To repair assumes agency and power. What if we claimed it as a human right?
Misinformation
The automated voice on the el
Is seriously off track.
As we travel east
below the city center
stopping at 15th, 11th, 8th
she announces neighborhood stations
heading west:
Huntingdon, Dauphin, Berks, Girard.
We have to shut that voice out
focus on what we see and what we know
trust ourselves to find our way.
It’s disorienting to exist
within a narrative so false
spoken with such authority.
At least here, on the subway
we’re a savvy bunch.
We don’t get fooled.
Dare to imagine: A new economy is possible!
Municipalization of private ownership
(Re)municipalization is redefining public ownership in the 21st century, offering a new route towards community-led, climate conscious and gender-sensitive public services. With more than 1,400 successful (re)municipalization cases, involving over 2,400 cities in 58 countries, resistance to privatization has turned into a powerful force for change:
Philippine cities Binalonan, Caloocan and Lanuza are recentering their public services to prioritize the needs of the most marginalized people in society. Other cities, such as Paris, Terrassa and Wolfhagen, are sharing decision-making powers and opening up ownership models to representatives of users, workers, civil society and research institutions.
(Re)emunicipalization efforts go beyond the most common sectors of water and energy, to include waste management in some countries in Africa, the many new public pharmacies in Chile, and the call of the UK Labour Party to provide public internet access as a human right.
https://www.tni.org/en/publication/the-future-is-public
Some things (among many!) that have made me hopeful recently:
The Saugeen Ojibway Nation’s decision to forego $150 million to prevent a nuclear waste facility from being built on the shores of Lake Huron.
https://www.counterpunch.org/2020/02/04/saugeen-ojibway-nation-has-saved-lake-huron-from-a-nuclear-waste-dump/
Twenty-four cities in Turkey, representing 25% of the population, announcing a “Cities for Climate Action” declaration; and also in Turkey, a Living Soil, Local Seed initiative that provides livelihoods for Turkish women and Syrian refugees, while also working toward climate-proof local agriculture.
https://350.org/press-release/24-turkish-local-authorities-say-we-are-in-on-the-paris-climate-agreement/?akid=109855.1048214.j88VgK&rd=1&t=5
https://truthout.org/articles/this-turkish-chef-is-fighting-climate-change-with-the-help-of-syrian-refugees/
A second decision by a federal judge ruling in favor of faith-based volunteers who were prosecuted for providing aid to migrants traveling through the dangerous Arizona desert.
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/02/04/rejecting-profoundly-disturbing-logic-criminalizes-empathy-judge-reverses?cd-origin=rss&utm
Put People First-PA, a group of Pennsylvanians from rural, small town and urban areas who bring people together to find solutions to the problems we all face—in the school system, in the workplace, or in the effort to make ends meet.
https://www.putpeoplefirstpa.org/who-we-are/
Resources
Money and Soul
My new book (based on a pamphlet of the same name) available via QuakerBooks or other on-line distributors.
("If money troubles your soul, try this down-to-earth Quaker perspective on economies large and small.")
Money, Debt and Liberation
A video of a talk I gave at Pendle Hill in January, 2019
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f7nP8eJ5vy8
Toward a Right Relationship with Finance
A book that I co-authored on Debt, Interest, Growth and Security.
The growth economy is failing to provide equitable well-being for humanity and a life-sustaining future for Earth. However our institutional endowments and individual retirement are dependent on that same growth economy. This book:
• offers background on our current economic system--how it is based on unearned income on the one hand and debt on the other, with a built-in momentum toward economy inequality and ecological overshoot;
• frames the conversation within the context of our deepest values and beliefs;
• suggests plausible and historically grounded alternatives to the current system, particularly with regard to financing retirement; and
• invites everyone to imagine new forms of durable economic and social security, and to help create the relationships and institutions that will make them a reality.
With many people now counting as never before on the performance of Wall Street for retirement security, how can this system be challenged with integrity and effectiveness? Can we break with our dependence on financial speculation and build up new structures of security in a transformed, life-centered economy?
To order the book, or read it on line, go to http://www.quakerinstitute.org/?page_id=5 and scroll down.
More resources
www.findingsteadyground.com
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: New link: https://www.peaceworkersus.org/docs/muscle_building_for_peace_and_justice.pdf (or just google the title)
My big news is that I’ve cut down my hours at work—a just-right-sized step toward retirement—and am feeling the spaciousness of time. So far it’s been easily filled by long-delayed visits with friends, time with a grandson I've seen too rarely this year, and relaxed, connected social change work. I’m heartened by developments in the public banking campaign, glad to offer emotional support to organizers in the youth climate movement, Sunrise, and helping my congregation be more active in the movement to end cash bail.
Once again we celebrated Valentines Day by sending a love/news-letter to our widespread community, and receiving a shower of love-notes in return. If you didn’t get a copy and would like one, just let me know.
Love,
Pamela
Right to repair
Last fall the European Union passed groundbreaking new “right to repair” legislation. Major appliances must now be produced to be repairable and recyclable. What a concept! But there’s more. As of last spring around twenty states in the US had considered right-to-repair bills to protect consumers’ ability to fix their electronic property—whether through parts, software, independent repair shops or skilled friends. The goal is to break the grip that companies have on unnecessarily expensive repairs, that are tipping us toward dumping the old one—whether washer or cell phone—in the landfill and buying a new one instead. What a sea change it would be to claim our right to repair!
I know what it’s like to make a good repair and extending the life of something that has value through my time and skill. Sometimes it’s as simple as sewing back a button on a shirt or a favorite pair of jeans. Stitching up a seam to make a beloved stuffed animal that is losing its stuffing as good as new can take just a few minutes, but bring joy to a child. We found an old chest on the street—wobbly and falling apart in many ways—but glue and clamps were really all that were needed to make it a lovely and desirable piece of furniture again. Our grandchildren are entranced by the possibility and the process of fixing broken toys. They are clear about the joy and power of repair.
I know what it is like to find a good repair person who can pick up where my skills let off. I place great value on these relationships, and am never quite comfortable with a new appliance till I find someone who can keep it going. It was a pleasure to visit with and get to know the man who was so good with our washer, dryer and stove, resting in the knowledge that I was in the very best of hands. I’ll never forget the sewing machine repair man who once sent home not only my repaired machine, but another one that he had on hand and thought I could use! I have a deep respect for their skills, and my life is better for knowing them.
I also know the frustration of being unable to make a repair. Those crappy plastic toys that came into our house when the children were small, and broke soon thereafter used to drive me crazy. (I’m sure the manufacturers count on adults preferring to buy new ones than having to handle the big upsets of small children!) But it’s not just children’s toys. Last fall my computer’s battery failed. Even our tech-savvy friend was unable to install a new one. The computer was more than a couple of years old, and intended for obsolescence; making people buy new ones is so much better for the company’s bottom line.
What would it mean to have a right to repair? We could call on manufacturers to have the integrity to produce with the sustainability of products and the planet in mind. This would not only cut down waste, extend product life, and support a cadre of skilled repair people, but reorient our whole culture to one of valuing what we have rather than focusing always on the next new thing.
Maybe it would invite us to think even more broadly about repair. Just as those who are already skilled in repair take pride in their craft, maybe we could become a whole culture of repairers. What if we believed that we could build the skills to repair other things that are broken—broken relationships, broken communities, broken economic systems?
Of course, some things should never be produced in the first place, and some are simply beyond repair. But maybe if we set our sights higher than just getting better at recycling plastic bottles, we can expand the categories of things we don’t throw away—to include phones, washers, computers, small towns, marginalized people. To repair assumes agency and power. What if we claimed it as a human right?
Misinformation
The automated voice on the el
Is seriously off track.
As we travel east
below the city center
stopping at 15th, 11th, 8th
she announces neighborhood stations
heading west:
Huntingdon, Dauphin, Berks, Girard.
We have to shut that voice out
focus on what we see and what we know
trust ourselves to find our way.
It’s disorienting to exist
within a narrative so false
spoken with such authority.
At least here, on the subway
we’re a savvy bunch.
We don’t get fooled.
Dare to imagine: A new economy is possible!
Municipalization of private ownership
(Re)municipalization is redefining public ownership in the 21st century, offering a new route towards community-led, climate conscious and gender-sensitive public services. With more than 1,400 successful (re)municipalization cases, involving over 2,400 cities in 58 countries, resistance to privatization has turned into a powerful force for change:
Philippine cities Binalonan, Caloocan and Lanuza are recentering their public services to prioritize the needs of the most marginalized people in society. Other cities, such as Paris, Terrassa and Wolfhagen, are sharing decision-making powers and opening up ownership models to representatives of users, workers, civil society and research institutions.
(Re)emunicipalization efforts go beyond the most common sectors of water and energy, to include waste management in some countries in Africa, the many new public pharmacies in Chile, and the call of the UK Labour Party to provide public internet access as a human right.
https://www.tni.org/en/publication/the-future-is-public
Some things (among many!) that have made me hopeful recently:
The Saugeen Ojibway Nation’s decision to forego $150 million to prevent a nuclear waste facility from being built on the shores of Lake Huron.
https://www.counterpunch.org/2020/02/04/saugeen-ojibway-nation-has-saved-lake-huron-from-a-nuclear-waste-dump/
Twenty-four cities in Turkey, representing 25% of the population, announcing a “Cities for Climate Action” declaration; and also in Turkey, a Living Soil, Local Seed initiative that provides livelihoods for Turkish women and Syrian refugees, while also working toward climate-proof local agriculture.
https://350.org/press-release/24-turkish-local-authorities-say-we-are-in-on-the-paris-climate-agreement/?akid=109855.1048214.j88VgK&rd=1&t=5
https://truthout.org/articles/this-turkish-chef-is-fighting-climate-change-with-the-help-of-syrian-refugees/
A second decision by a federal judge ruling in favor of faith-based volunteers who were prosecuted for providing aid to migrants traveling through the dangerous Arizona desert.
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/02/04/rejecting-profoundly-disturbing-logic-criminalizes-empathy-judge-reverses?cd-origin=rss&utm
Put People First-PA, a group of Pennsylvanians from rural, small town and urban areas who bring people together to find solutions to the problems we all face—in the school system, in the workplace, or in the effort to make ends meet.
https://www.putpeoplefirstpa.org/who-we-are/
Resources
Money and Soul
My new book (based on a pamphlet of the same name) available via QuakerBooks or other on-line distributors.
("If money troubles your soul, try this down-to-earth Quaker perspective on economies large and small.")
Money, Debt and Liberation
A video of a talk I gave at Pendle Hill in January, 2019
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f7nP8eJ5vy8
Toward a Right Relationship with Finance
A book that I co-authored on Debt, Interest, Growth and Security.
The growth economy is failing to provide equitable well-being for humanity and a life-sustaining future for Earth. However our institutional endowments and individual retirement are dependent on that same growth economy. This book:
• offers background on our current economic system--how it is based on unearned income on the one hand and debt on the other, with a built-in momentum toward economy inequality and ecological overshoot;
• frames the conversation within the context of our deepest values and beliefs;
• suggests plausible and historically grounded alternatives to the current system, particularly with regard to financing retirement; and
• invites everyone to imagine new forms of durable economic and social security, and to help create the relationships and institutions that will make them a reality.
With many people now counting as never before on the performance of Wall Street for retirement security, how can this system be challenged with integrity and effectiveness? Can we break with our dependence on financial speculation and build up new structures of security in a transformed, life-centered economy?
To order the book, or read it on line, go to http://www.quakerinstitute.org/?page_id=5 and scroll down.
More resources
www.findingsteadyground.com
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: New link: https://www.peaceworkersus.org/docs/muscle_building_for_peace_and_justice.pdf (or just google the title)
Saturday, January 18, 2020
#197 Inclusion
Dear all,
After a busy holiday season and a busy stretch at work (while dealing with a nasty cold) I feel like I’m finally rested and well and ready to face a new year. What an interesting and challenging year it’s shaping up to be! I wish us all the best as we reach for a relaxed sense of power and possibility, and confidence that what we do can make a difference.
Love,
Pamela
Inclusion
Who are “we”? And how does that sense of identification affect our world view? When we ask who is inside and who is outside of our circle, of course there are many answers that are accurate, depending on the context. But the question of who gets included or excluded, and on what basis, is worth considering.
Sometimes the narrowness of a “we” is quite circumstantial. We just haven’t been exposed to others in a way that makes them real, but if we met them we might feel an immediate sense of connection and easily include them in a larger “we”. Sometimes there is a thin layer of difference over an easily-recognizable commonality—a distinctiveness of culture or style that is interesting and enriching to explore. At other times, circumstance joins with systemic ways we have been divided from each other, to make that sense of commonality harder to see or claim. And other times, we may think we’ve included everybody, but just haven’t looked closely enough.
I thought about this question a lot on our recent trip to Uganda. Africa is a continent that is not included in many people’s “we”. In it are a lot of countries that few of us know anything about. Some can name Uganda, some may even place it in East Africa, and a few may have heard of the airport at Entebbe. But who can picture the town of Gulu far in the north, almost up to South Sudan?
This is already an enormous stretch, yet there is more. If we picture a bustling primary school in Gulu, the teachers and administrators are likely to be the easiest to include in our circle of “we”. They are responsible adults, doing work that many can recognize and value. In this case, they are an articulate, generally passionate, accessible and likeable group. But what if we zoom in a little farther?
The teachers have been invited to a two-day training on global citizenship, and are working in groups on how to translate UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) into projects that students can take on as a part of their education. Also invited—in a momentous first—have been other members of the school community. At one table, an old man who works as a guard at the school shares materials with a tiny 11-year old girl as they and several teachers prepare to explain one of the SDGs to the larger group. A young man who works on maintenance, the man who is in charge of sanitation, and the students are all eloquent in their presentations on possible projects they could take on.
The old man struggles to complete a written assessment at the end of the training. I listen and offer encouragement, then ask what he would like to contribute to enrich the curriculum of the school. He says that he’d love to teach the children Swahili—the trade language of East Africa that few people in this part of the country know. I had no idea. This training would have been great with just the teachers; he and the others could easily have remained invisible. But if all we see is a guard, and he’s left out of the circle, who knows what riches we will miss?
Later, in an animated discussion among a group of deeply committed and articulate leaders from the board and PTA of the school, the men dominate. I have to assert to create space for the one other woman in the room. A sturdy quiet farmer, she is not likely to push her way into a conversation. Yet she was the founder of a local women’s dairy cooperative and has run it for years; her business sense and practical experience are as valuable as gold.
Many people are trying conscientiously to expand their “we”. Yet there can be traps, even in our most virtuous intentions. I think of a warning that has stuck with me: “We are not a homogeneous community struggling to become diverse; we are an incomplete community struggling to become whole.”
As I spend time in this community I have grown to know and love in Northern Uganda, I am acutely aware of my incompleteness, and of the blessing of having this opportunity to try to become more whole.
A world awry
We tramp around his little farm
millet, ground nuts, cassava, maize.
In our eyes all is new
to him the yield just disappoints.
Too much rain, he says.
The talk is all of rain.
It has outstayed its welcome.
The dry season is long overdue
and yet the clouds keep
opening, day after day.
We cannot will the rain away.
It cools, but all is wrong.
We come to where his sim-sim—
sesame—is stacked in racks to dry.
He pulls a sheaf to show the grain
Instead of clean white seeds,
there’s mildew. All the crop is lost.
One good man who works the land,
one mildewed sheaf of grain,
and the weight of what we’ve done
to sky and sea, to this good earth,
to all who tend the soil
is more than I know how to bear.
Dare to imagine—a new economy is possible!
An alternative to the GDP
Created in 2008, the Happy Planet Index examines sustainable happiness on a national level, ranking 143 countries according to three measurements: how happy its citizens are, how long they live, and how much of the planet’s resources they each consume. The HPI multiplies years of life expectancy by life satisfaction (as measured by the Gallup Poll and the World Values Survey), to obtain “Happy Life Years,” which are then divided by pressure on ecosystems, as measured by the ecological footprint. (The ecological footprint, in turn, measures how much land and water it takes to provide for each person.)
The Happy Planet Index,” says New Economics Foundation researcher Saamah Abdallah, “measures what goes in, in terms of resource use, and the outcomes that are important, which are happy and healthy lives for us all. In this way, it reminds us that the economy is there for a purpose—and that is to improve our lives.”
https://www.yesmagazine.org/issues/climate-action/why-costa-rica-tops-the-happiness-index-20190131
Some things that have made me hopeful recently:
Over 160 cities in the Ukraine have signed up to make the transition to 100% renewable energy, and the momentum is growing.
https://gofossilfree.org/a-huge-win-in-ukraine/?akid=109855.1048214.j88VgK&rd=1&t=3
Ducks are being used in rice paddies to keep them clean, eliminating the need for artificial fertilizers, herbicides and pesticides.
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/culture/food/the-plate/2016/09/want-cleaner-rice-paddies--consider-ducks/
When Pacific Gas and Power in California cut off power in Humboldt County to reduce the risk of wildfire last fall, the Blue Lake Rancheria tribe’s solar micro-grid not only met their own needs but also served more than 10,000 people in Humboldt during the outage — including some who were critically ill.
https://microgridknowledge.com/blue-lake-rancheria-microgrid-outages/
Scientists have created an edible honey bee vaccine to protect them from deadly diseases.
https://www.foxnews.com/science/scientists-create-edible-honey-bee-vaccine-to-protect-them-from-deadly-diseases
Resources
Money and Soul
My new book (based on a pamphlet of the same name) available via QuakerBooks or other on-line distributors.
("If money troubles your soul, try this down-to-earth Quaker perspective on economies large and small.")
Money, Debt and Liberation
A video of a talk I gave at Pendle Hill in January, 2019
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f7nP8eJ5vy8
Toward a Right Relationship with Finance
A book that I co-authored on Debt, Interest, Growth and Security.
The growth economy is failing to provide equitable well-being for humanity and a life-sustaining future for Earth. However our institutional endowments and individual retirement are dependent on that same growth economy. This book:
• offers background on our current economic system--how it is based on unearned income on the one hand and debt on the other, with a built-in momentum toward economy inequality and ecological overshoot;
• frames the conversation within the context of our deepest values and beliefs;
• suggests plausible and historically grounded alternatives to the current system, particularly with regard to financing retirement; and
• invites everyone to imagine new forms of durable economic and social security, and to help create the relationships and institutions that will make them a reality.
With many people now counting as never before on the performance of Wall Street for retirement security, how can this system be challenged with integrity and effectiveness? Can we break with our dependence on financial speculation and build up new structures of security in a transformed, life-centered economy?
To order the book, or read it on line, go to http://www.quakerinstitute.org/?page_id=5 and scroll down.
More resources
www.findingsteadyground.com
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: New link: https://www.peaceworkersus.org/docs/muscle_building_for_peace_and_justice.pdf (or just google the title)
After a busy holiday season and a busy stretch at work (while dealing with a nasty cold) I feel like I’m finally rested and well and ready to face a new year. What an interesting and challenging year it’s shaping up to be! I wish us all the best as we reach for a relaxed sense of power and possibility, and confidence that what we do can make a difference.
Love,
Pamela
Inclusion
Who are “we”? And how does that sense of identification affect our world view? When we ask who is inside and who is outside of our circle, of course there are many answers that are accurate, depending on the context. But the question of who gets included or excluded, and on what basis, is worth considering.
Sometimes the narrowness of a “we” is quite circumstantial. We just haven’t been exposed to others in a way that makes them real, but if we met them we might feel an immediate sense of connection and easily include them in a larger “we”. Sometimes there is a thin layer of difference over an easily-recognizable commonality—a distinctiveness of culture or style that is interesting and enriching to explore. At other times, circumstance joins with systemic ways we have been divided from each other, to make that sense of commonality harder to see or claim. And other times, we may think we’ve included everybody, but just haven’t looked closely enough.
I thought about this question a lot on our recent trip to Uganda. Africa is a continent that is not included in many people’s “we”. In it are a lot of countries that few of us know anything about. Some can name Uganda, some may even place it in East Africa, and a few may have heard of the airport at Entebbe. But who can picture the town of Gulu far in the north, almost up to South Sudan?
This is already an enormous stretch, yet there is more. If we picture a bustling primary school in Gulu, the teachers and administrators are likely to be the easiest to include in our circle of “we”. They are responsible adults, doing work that many can recognize and value. In this case, they are an articulate, generally passionate, accessible and likeable group. But what if we zoom in a little farther?
The teachers have been invited to a two-day training on global citizenship, and are working in groups on how to translate UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) into projects that students can take on as a part of their education. Also invited—in a momentous first—have been other members of the school community. At one table, an old man who works as a guard at the school shares materials with a tiny 11-year old girl as they and several teachers prepare to explain one of the SDGs to the larger group. A young man who works on maintenance, the man who is in charge of sanitation, and the students are all eloquent in their presentations on possible projects they could take on.
The old man struggles to complete a written assessment at the end of the training. I listen and offer encouragement, then ask what he would like to contribute to enrich the curriculum of the school. He says that he’d love to teach the children Swahili—the trade language of East Africa that few people in this part of the country know. I had no idea. This training would have been great with just the teachers; he and the others could easily have remained invisible. But if all we see is a guard, and he’s left out of the circle, who knows what riches we will miss?
Later, in an animated discussion among a group of deeply committed and articulate leaders from the board and PTA of the school, the men dominate. I have to assert to create space for the one other woman in the room. A sturdy quiet farmer, she is not likely to push her way into a conversation. Yet she was the founder of a local women’s dairy cooperative and has run it for years; her business sense and practical experience are as valuable as gold.
Many people are trying conscientiously to expand their “we”. Yet there can be traps, even in our most virtuous intentions. I think of a warning that has stuck with me: “We are not a homogeneous community struggling to become diverse; we are an incomplete community struggling to become whole.”
As I spend time in this community I have grown to know and love in Northern Uganda, I am acutely aware of my incompleteness, and of the blessing of having this opportunity to try to become more whole.
A world awry
We tramp around his little farm
millet, ground nuts, cassava, maize.
In our eyes all is new
to him the yield just disappoints.
Too much rain, he says.
The talk is all of rain.
It has outstayed its welcome.
The dry season is long overdue
and yet the clouds keep
opening, day after day.
We cannot will the rain away.
It cools, but all is wrong.
We come to where his sim-sim—
sesame—is stacked in racks to dry.
He pulls a sheaf to show the grain
Instead of clean white seeds,
there’s mildew. All the crop is lost.
One good man who works the land,
one mildewed sheaf of grain,
and the weight of what we’ve done
to sky and sea, to this good earth,
to all who tend the soil
is more than I know how to bear.
Dare to imagine—a new economy is possible!
An alternative to the GDP
Created in 2008, the Happy Planet Index examines sustainable happiness on a national level, ranking 143 countries according to three measurements: how happy its citizens are, how long they live, and how much of the planet’s resources they each consume. The HPI multiplies years of life expectancy by life satisfaction (as measured by the Gallup Poll and the World Values Survey), to obtain “Happy Life Years,” which are then divided by pressure on ecosystems, as measured by the ecological footprint. (The ecological footprint, in turn, measures how much land and water it takes to provide for each person.)
The Happy Planet Index,” says New Economics Foundation researcher Saamah Abdallah, “measures what goes in, in terms of resource use, and the outcomes that are important, which are happy and healthy lives for us all. In this way, it reminds us that the economy is there for a purpose—and that is to improve our lives.”
https://www.yesmagazine.org/issues/climate-action/why-costa-rica-tops-the-happiness-index-20190131
Some things that have made me hopeful recently:
Over 160 cities in the Ukraine have signed up to make the transition to 100% renewable energy, and the momentum is growing.
https://gofossilfree.org/a-huge-win-in-ukraine/?akid=109855.1048214.j88VgK&rd=1&t=3
Ducks are being used in rice paddies to keep them clean, eliminating the need for artificial fertilizers, herbicides and pesticides.
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/culture/food/the-plate/2016/09/want-cleaner-rice-paddies--consider-ducks/
When Pacific Gas and Power in California cut off power in Humboldt County to reduce the risk of wildfire last fall, the Blue Lake Rancheria tribe’s solar micro-grid not only met their own needs but also served more than 10,000 people in Humboldt during the outage — including some who were critically ill.
https://microgridknowledge.com/blue-lake-rancheria-microgrid-outages/
Scientists have created an edible honey bee vaccine to protect them from deadly diseases.
https://www.foxnews.com/science/scientists-create-edible-honey-bee-vaccine-to-protect-them-from-deadly-diseases
Resources
Money and Soul
My new book (based on a pamphlet of the same name) available via QuakerBooks or other on-line distributors.
("If money troubles your soul, try this down-to-earth Quaker perspective on economies large and small.")
Money, Debt and Liberation
A video of a talk I gave at Pendle Hill in January, 2019
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f7nP8eJ5vy8
Toward a Right Relationship with Finance
A book that I co-authored on Debt, Interest, Growth and Security.
The growth economy is failing to provide equitable well-being for humanity and a life-sustaining future for Earth. However our institutional endowments and individual retirement are dependent on that same growth economy. This book:
• offers background on our current economic system--how it is based on unearned income on the one hand and debt on the other, with a built-in momentum toward economy inequality and ecological overshoot;
• frames the conversation within the context of our deepest values and beliefs;
• suggests plausible and historically grounded alternatives to the current system, particularly with regard to financing retirement; and
• invites everyone to imagine new forms of durable economic and social security, and to help create the relationships and institutions that will make them a reality.
With many people now counting as never before on the performance of Wall Street for retirement security, how can this system be challenged with integrity and effectiveness? Can we break with our dependence on financial speculation and build up new structures of security in a transformed, life-centered economy?
To order the book, or read it on line, go to http://www.quakerinstitute.org/?page_id=5 and scroll down.
More resources
www.findingsteadyground.com
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: New link: https://www.peaceworkersus.org/docs/muscle_building_for_peace_and_justice.pdf (or just google the title)
Saturday, December 28, 2019
#196 For love of the land
Dear all,
We are now back from three weeks in Northern Uganda, where we dug our roots back into a community we have come to know and love, deepened relationships, made new friends, and, in the midst of great oppression and resilience, took on hard challenges together. I may have more to say later. In the meantime, if you would like a copy of the letter with updates on the school we support, please let me know.
As we enter a season where the minds of many of us are turned to giving, I wanted to share what was perhaps the biggest gift I received this year.
Love,
Pamela
For love of the land
I’ve loved this bit of land for over fifty years. Coming up over the hill, my heart always opens anew to the jewel of a valley spread out below, part of the rolling farmland and woodlots of central New York state. My father bought an old farm here in the 60’s, preparing for a job move that didn’t work out. But my family loved the land. The old farmhouse became a focal point for a group of young adult Quakers, a gathering and landing place as we attempted to shape lives that aligned with our deepest faith values. Our community loved the land.
Then my mother moved up there in her retirement and it became the center of family gatherings for her six children and growing extended family. My sister, Liseli, lived across the road on adjoining farmland, and dug her roots in deep. When my mother died, it took us some time to decide that we needed to sell the house, but none of us wanted to sell the land. How could we ensure that it would continue to be loved as we loved it?
My sister and her partner had been on their own journey, building ever-closer relationships with members of the neighboring Onondaga nation, and coming under the weight of our country’s history of broken treaties, stolen land, and destruction of whole indigenous nations. Living on traditional Oneida territory, Liseli had started exploring the idea of a land trust with the Haudenosaunee Confederacy (who used to be known as the Iroquois) of which the Oneida are a part. But as time passed with no visible progress, the outcome seemed increasingly uncertain.
Then, last fall she met an Oneida woman who was working with others in Wisconsin and southern Ontario to rekindle a shared traditional identity—a challenge, given that the only tiny remnant of their traditional homeland was now given over to a casino and entertainment complex. This meeting was the opening my sister had been waiting and hoping for. Over the next nine months, they worked together to create a nonprofit organization, my sister consulted with her siblings, and we joyfully agreed to return that thirty acres to these Oneida women.
At a ceremony in July, the three groups of Oneida women gathered on the land to mark its return. They sang to the land in its home language. They squished their toes in the wet earth. I can’t imagine any better resolution, any better future for that land that so many of us have loved over all these years—and so many Oneida people had loved long before.
I was already struggling to take in the terrible injustice of our nation’s treatment of native people. But being able to be part of one tiny thing that was so completely right has opened me up in a new way—both to the heartbreak and to the possibilities of healing.
Late harvest
The weather has turned cold.
The sweet potatoes wait, still in the ground.
I seize an unexpected daylight hour,
take old coat, old gloves, a fork,
a shopping cart of leaves,
go out to dig—
and step into an ancient rite.
It’s true I tucked in little slips last spring.
Vines have grown and leaves have multiplied
but who knows what has happened underground?
Now, vines stripped away,
all that’s left to see is barren ground.
What magic has been working down below?
And so I dig.
Each time I turn the earth
there’s treasure to be found.
I straighten to a stunning sunset
spread across the sky
(I would have missed it from indoors).
My harvest grows
the colors shift, then fade.
I pile the leaves as cover for the soil,
fill my basket, head for home
Darkness settles.
All is well.
Dare to Imagine: A new economy is possible!
Free Public Transit
Lawmakers in Kansas City, Missouri have voted to make public transportation in the city free of charge, setting the stage for it to be the first major U.S. city to have free public transit. They will set aside $8 million to cover the costs, with hopes that the effort will have a positive impact on economic inequality and boost the overall economy.
Estonia is the world leader in free public transit. In 2013, all public transit in its capital, Tallinn, became free to local residents (but not tourists or other visitors, even those from other parts of the country). The new national free-ride scheme with extend this model even further, making all state-run bus travel in rural municipalities free and extending cost-free transit out from the capital into other regions.
https://portside.org/2019-12-06/kansas-city-missouri-approves-free-public-transit-all
https://www.citylab.com/transportation/2018/05/estonia-will-roll-out-free-public-transit-nationwide/560648/
Some things that have made me hopeful recently
A female chief in Malawi who has broken up more than 1000 child marriages so girls can go back to school.
https://www.lifegate.com/people/news/theresa-kachindamoto-child-marriage-malawi
The decision by the lending arm of the EU, the world’s largest multinational lending institution, to become first ‘climate bank’ by ending financing of oil, gas and coal projects after 2021.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/nov/15/european-investment-bank-to-phase-out-fossil-fuels-financing
A determined Indian farmer who proved the government wrong by planting trees in an area known as “uncultivable”.
https://www.onegreenplanet.org/environment/farmer-plants-trees-desert/
(There was one more, but my computer deleted everything as I was trying to send, and these are the threeI can remember… Look for it next time!)
Resources
Money and Soul
My new book (based on a pamphlet of the same name) available via QuakerBooks or other on-line distributors.
("If money troubles your soul, try this down-to-earth Quaker perspective on economies large and small.")
Money, Debt and Liberation
A video of a talk I gave at Pendle Hill in January, 2019
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f7nP8eJ5vy8
Toward a Right Relationship with Finance
A book that I co-authored on Debt, Interest, Growth and Security.
The growth economy is failing to provide equitable well-being for humanity and a life-sustaining future for Earth. However our institutional endowments and individual retirement are dependent on that same growth economy. This book:
• offers background on our current economic system--how it is based on unearned income on the one hand and debt on the other, with a built-in momentum toward economy inequality and ecological overshoot;
• frames the conversation within the context of our deepest values and beliefs;
• suggests plausible and historically grounded alternatives to the current system, particularly with regard to financing retirement; and
• invites everyone to imagine new forms of durable economic and social security, and to help create the relationships and institutions that will make them a reality.
With many people now counting as never before on the performance of Wall Street for retirement security, how can this system be challenged with integrity and effectiveness? Can we break with our dependence on financial speculation and build up new structures of security in a transformed, life-centered economy?
To order the book, or read it on line, go to http://www.quakerinstitute.org/?page_id=5 and scroll down.
More resources
www.findingsteadyground.com
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)
We are now back from three weeks in Northern Uganda, where we dug our roots back into a community we have come to know and love, deepened relationships, made new friends, and, in the midst of great oppression and resilience, took on hard challenges together. I may have more to say later. In the meantime, if you would like a copy of the letter with updates on the school we support, please let me know.
As we enter a season where the minds of many of us are turned to giving, I wanted to share what was perhaps the biggest gift I received this year.
Love,
Pamela
For love of the land
I’ve loved this bit of land for over fifty years. Coming up over the hill, my heart always opens anew to the jewel of a valley spread out below, part of the rolling farmland and woodlots of central New York state. My father bought an old farm here in the 60’s, preparing for a job move that didn’t work out. But my family loved the land. The old farmhouse became a focal point for a group of young adult Quakers, a gathering and landing place as we attempted to shape lives that aligned with our deepest faith values. Our community loved the land.
Then my mother moved up there in her retirement and it became the center of family gatherings for her six children and growing extended family. My sister, Liseli, lived across the road on adjoining farmland, and dug her roots in deep. When my mother died, it took us some time to decide that we needed to sell the house, but none of us wanted to sell the land. How could we ensure that it would continue to be loved as we loved it?
My sister and her partner had been on their own journey, building ever-closer relationships with members of the neighboring Onondaga nation, and coming under the weight of our country’s history of broken treaties, stolen land, and destruction of whole indigenous nations. Living on traditional Oneida territory, Liseli had started exploring the idea of a land trust with the Haudenosaunee Confederacy (who used to be known as the Iroquois) of which the Oneida are a part. But as time passed with no visible progress, the outcome seemed increasingly uncertain.
Then, last fall she met an Oneida woman who was working with others in Wisconsin and southern Ontario to rekindle a shared traditional identity—a challenge, given that the only tiny remnant of their traditional homeland was now given over to a casino and entertainment complex. This meeting was the opening my sister had been waiting and hoping for. Over the next nine months, they worked together to create a nonprofit organization, my sister consulted with her siblings, and we joyfully agreed to return that thirty acres to these Oneida women.
At a ceremony in July, the three groups of Oneida women gathered on the land to mark its return. They sang to the land in its home language. They squished their toes in the wet earth. I can’t imagine any better resolution, any better future for that land that so many of us have loved over all these years—and so many Oneida people had loved long before.
I was already struggling to take in the terrible injustice of our nation’s treatment of native people. But being able to be part of one tiny thing that was so completely right has opened me up in a new way—both to the heartbreak and to the possibilities of healing.
Late harvest
The weather has turned cold.
The sweet potatoes wait, still in the ground.
I seize an unexpected daylight hour,
take old coat, old gloves, a fork,
a shopping cart of leaves,
go out to dig—
and step into an ancient rite.
It’s true I tucked in little slips last spring.
Vines have grown and leaves have multiplied
but who knows what has happened underground?
Now, vines stripped away,
all that’s left to see is barren ground.
What magic has been working down below?
And so I dig.
Each time I turn the earth
there’s treasure to be found.
I straighten to a stunning sunset
spread across the sky
(I would have missed it from indoors).
My harvest grows
the colors shift, then fade.
I pile the leaves as cover for the soil,
fill my basket, head for home
Darkness settles.
All is well.
Dare to Imagine: A new economy is possible!
Free Public Transit
Lawmakers in Kansas City, Missouri have voted to make public transportation in the city free of charge, setting the stage for it to be the first major U.S. city to have free public transit. They will set aside $8 million to cover the costs, with hopes that the effort will have a positive impact on economic inequality and boost the overall economy.
Estonia is the world leader in free public transit. In 2013, all public transit in its capital, Tallinn, became free to local residents (but not tourists or other visitors, even those from other parts of the country). The new national free-ride scheme with extend this model even further, making all state-run bus travel in rural municipalities free and extending cost-free transit out from the capital into other regions.
https://portside.org/2019-12-06/kansas-city-missouri-approves-free-public-transit-all
https://www.citylab.com/transportation/2018/05/estonia-will-roll-out-free-public-transit-nationwide/560648/
Some things that have made me hopeful recently
A female chief in Malawi who has broken up more than 1000 child marriages so girls can go back to school.
https://www.lifegate.com/people/news/theresa-kachindamoto-child-marriage-malawi
The decision by the lending arm of the EU, the world’s largest multinational lending institution, to become first ‘climate bank’ by ending financing of oil, gas and coal projects after 2021.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/nov/15/european-investment-bank-to-phase-out-fossil-fuels-financing
A determined Indian farmer who proved the government wrong by planting trees in an area known as “uncultivable”.
https://www.onegreenplanet.org/environment/farmer-plants-trees-desert/
(There was one more, but my computer deleted everything as I was trying to send, and these are the threeI can remember… Look for it next time!)
Resources
Money and Soul
My new book (based on a pamphlet of the same name) available via QuakerBooks or other on-line distributors.
("If money troubles your soul, try this down-to-earth Quaker perspective on economies large and small.")
Money, Debt and Liberation
A video of a talk I gave at Pendle Hill in January, 2019
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f7nP8eJ5vy8
Toward a Right Relationship with Finance
A book that I co-authored on Debt, Interest, Growth and Security.
The growth economy is failing to provide equitable well-being for humanity and a life-sustaining future for Earth. However our institutional endowments and individual retirement are dependent on that same growth economy. This book:
• offers background on our current economic system--how it is based on unearned income on the one hand and debt on the other, with a built-in momentum toward economy inequality and ecological overshoot;
• frames the conversation within the context of our deepest values and beliefs;
• suggests plausible and historically grounded alternatives to the current system, particularly with regard to financing retirement; and
• invites everyone to imagine new forms of durable economic and social security, and to help create the relationships and institutions that will make them a reality.
With many people now counting as never before on the performance of Wall Street for retirement security, how can this system be challenged with integrity and effectiveness? Can we break with our dependence on financial speculation and build up new structures of security in a transformed, life-centered economy?
To order the book, or read it on line, go to http://www.quakerinstitute.org/?page_id=5 and scroll down.
More resources
www.findingsteadyground.com
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, November 16, 2019
#195 Hemlocks
Dear all,
It’s been a rich month—a weekend reunion of the nonviolent social change community that shaped my life as a young adult; the first frost and then a freeze, signaling the end of the growing season; lovely community building opportunities at work as I look, with profound ambivalence, toward retirement; grandchildren; precious time with new and old friends—and tomorrow we leave for three weeks in Northern Uganda. Oh my!
It’s good to take this quiet moment with all of you. Thanks for being there.
Love,
Pamela
Hemlocks
Last spring, faced with a threat to a beloved hemlock forest in northern Pennsylvania, I couldn’t imagine just sitting back and doing nothing. But how can one person take on an invasive insect? The only thing I could think of was to be proactive in planting other trees. So I worked to propagate a flat of tiny slips of larch, cut from the tips of a healthy larch that grows near the hemlocks by the pond.
It didn’t work. I must have done some part of the process wrong, and each fresh little green slip eventually dried up and died. But while I was in motion, I looked up the name of the tiny insect that was sucking the life out of these great trees. Browsing the internet, I found not only its name—woolly adelgid—but the name of a group that offered a biological remedy. A new seed began to take root and grow.
I shared this resource with my biologist friend, John, who had first seen the telltale whiteness on the tip of a hemlock branch. They seemed legitimate to him, and I reached out. We were offered an on-site consultation, but only during a narrow window of time in the fall, and only on a weekday. The logistics were daunting, but finally one evening in late October we got in a car and headed north.
Hurtling through the night in our little cocoon, we took advantage of this spacious opportunity to catch up on months of news. As we got closer, on narrow roads winding through deep woods, we caught glimpses of the gold of fall in the maples. Then we were there, stepping out into a starry night, opening up a cold cabin at midnight and burrowing under covers. In the morning, there was the luxury of reading by the fire as we waited for the Tree Savers man to complete his two-hour journey to this bit of woods.
With no cell phone service and no address for a GPS, the directions I’d sent in advance were all we had, but he found us. We walked together to look at the hemlocks around the pond, then back to the cabin to the ones I had transplanted twenty years ago—now big young trees—then down the old logging road, through the fields that are now turning to woods, to the forest in the gorge, where we could hear the stream rushing over the little waterfall. This is one of my favorite places on earth, where you step out of the sunshine into the quiet cool cathedral of towering hemlocks.
I liked this young man. His cousin had invited him into her project when he was just sixteen, he’d gone off to college in environmental science, and now this was all he did. His knowledge about the trees, the life cycle of the wooly adelgid, and the habits of the beetle that survives by eating it, was deep. He was proud of the work they were doing together to breed this foreign beetle and help save hemlock forests all up and down the east coast. And he loved the trees. He would stand back and take in an individual hemlock—admiring its shape, its fullness, its color.
Clearly we were in good hands. And best of all, we might not be too late. He spoke of seeing miles of devastated hemlock forest not far away, all dead and gray. “But your trees are still healthy,” he said. “You’ve caught it in time.”
We came back to the cabin, worked out the beginnings of a plan, and noted the details I’d need to get clarified before presenting a proposal to the larger group. Then he left. And John and I packed our few things and got back in the car for the long ride home.
There was an otherworldly quality to the whole experience—that journey in the dark, meeting a young stranger in the middle of the woods, bearer of the gift of precious good news, then traveling back to our real lives, seemingly unchanged, but carrying that treasure within us. And the message continues to warm my heart. It’s good to try. Little seeds can grow to bear fruit. And maybe we’re not too late. Maybe we can do this thing.
Rain choice
Out from work
and into steady rain.
I’ll reach the trolley quickest turning right
yet there’s a sandwich
lying heavy in my bag.
I missed my homeless friend
on the way in,
won’t find him if I take the shorter route,
may not find him anyhow.
I hover as the rain pours down
and then turn left
at rest in that good choice.
And then I find him,
give the sandwich
chat beneath an overhang—
a spot of brightness
in the midst of all that rain.
Dare to Imagine: A new economy is possible!
Green Bay Packers Coop
The Green Bay Packers football team are owned by the fans, making them the only publicly owned, not-for-profit, major professional team in the United States. In 1923, the Packers, on the brink of bankruptcy, decided to sell shares to the community at a couple of dollars a piece to keep the team afloat. Now more than a hundred thousand stockholders own more than four million shares. They are limited to no more than two hundred thousand shares, keeping any individual from gaining control over the club. Shareholders receive no dividend check and no free tickets. They elect a board of directors and a seven-member executive committee to stand in at N.F.L. owners meetings, with football decisions made by the General Manager.
Wisconsin fans get to enjoy the team with the confidence that their owner won’t threaten to move to get a better deal. Volunteers work concessions, with sixty per cent of the proceeds going to local charities. Even the beer is cheaper than at a typical N.F.L. stadium. Not only has home field been sold out for two decades, but during snowstorms, the team routinely puts out calls for volunteers to help shovel and is never disappointed by the response.
https://www.newyorker.com/sports/sporting-scene/those-non-profit-packers
Some things that have made me hopeful recently
So many successful local efforts to combat fossil fuels:
--a Philippine province declared coal free https://www.rappler.com/move-ph/225951-youth-behind-coal-free-negros-occidental,
--a Berkeley ordinance banning the use of natural gas in new construction https://www.dailycal.org/2019/08/07/mayor-jesse-arreguin-officially-signs-natural-gas-ban-into-berkeley-law/mayor,
--a coal plant project that would have damaged a fragile marine ecosystem in Kenya stopped by the courts, https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/kenya-court-stops-china-backed-lamu-coal-plant-project/ar-AADut6v,
--and New York City’s sweeping climate change legislation, https://www.motherjones.com/environment/2019/04/new-york-city-just-passed-historic-climate-legislation-its-own-green-new-deal/
New “right to repair” legislation in the European Union that includes requirements for improving the life span, maintenance, re-use, upgrade, recyclability, and waste handling of appliances. https://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/eu-approves-groundbreaking-right-to-repair-laws/
All the thousands of people who worked so hard to send a great Working Families Party candidate to Philadelphia City Council—and all the other hopeful election news.
A grassroots bee petition in Bavaria that garnered signatures from more than 10% of the population, and led the German state’s premier to have the petition’s language—turning grassland into meadow and calling for a third of farms to be organic—written into law. https://www.positive.news/environment/grassroots-bee-petition-forces-greener-farming-measures-in-bavaria/
Resources
Money and Soul
My new book (based on a pamphlet of the same name) available via QuakerBooks or other on-line distributors.
("If money troubles your soul, try this down-to-earth Quaker perspective on economies large and small.")
Money, Debt and Liberation
A video of a talk I gave at Pendle Hill in January, 2019
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f7nP8eJ5vy8
Toward a Right Relationship with Finance
A book that I co-authored on Debt, Interest, Growth and Security.
The growth economy is failing to provide equitable well-being for humanity and a life-sustaining future for Earth. However our institutional endowments and individual retirement are dependent on that same growth economy. This book:
• offers background on our current economic system--how it is based on unearned income on the one hand and debt on the other, with a built-in momentum toward economy inequality and ecological overshoot;
• frames the conversation within the context of our deepest values and beliefs;
• suggests plausible and historically grounded alternatives to the current system, particularly with regard to financing retirement; and
• invites everyone to imagine new forms of durable economic and social security, and to help create the relationships and institutions that will make them a reality.
With many people now counting as never before on the performance of Wall Street for retirement security, how can this system be challenged with integrity and effectiveness? Can we break with our dependence on financial speculation and build up new structures of security in a transformed, life-centered economy?
To order the book, or read it on line, go to http://www.quakerinstitute.org/?page_id=5 and scroll down.
More resources
www.findingsteadyground.com
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)
It’s been a rich month—a weekend reunion of the nonviolent social change community that shaped my life as a young adult; the first frost and then a freeze, signaling the end of the growing season; lovely community building opportunities at work as I look, with profound ambivalence, toward retirement; grandchildren; precious time with new and old friends—and tomorrow we leave for three weeks in Northern Uganda. Oh my!
It’s good to take this quiet moment with all of you. Thanks for being there.
Love,
Pamela
Hemlocks
Last spring, faced with a threat to a beloved hemlock forest in northern Pennsylvania, I couldn’t imagine just sitting back and doing nothing. But how can one person take on an invasive insect? The only thing I could think of was to be proactive in planting other trees. So I worked to propagate a flat of tiny slips of larch, cut from the tips of a healthy larch that grows near the hemlocks by the pond.
It didn’t work. I must have done some part of the process wrong, and each fresh little green slip eventually dried up and died. But while I was in motion, I looked up the name of the tiny insect that was sucking the life out of these great trees. Browsing the internet, I found not only its name—woolly adelgid—but the name of a group that offered a biological remedy. A new seed began to take root and grow.
I shared this resource with my biologist friend, John, who had first seen the telltale whiteness on the tip of a hemlock branch. They seemed legitimate to him, and I reached out. We were offered an on-site consultation, but only during a narrow window of time in the fall, and only on a weekday. The logistics were daunting, but finally one evening in late October we got in a car and headed north.
Hurtling through the night in our little cocoon, we took advantage of this spacious opportunity to catch up on months of news. As we got closer, on narrow roads winding through deep woods, we caught glimpses of the gold of fall in the maples. Then we were there, stepping out into a starry night, opening up a cold cabin at midnight and burrowing under covers. In the morning, there was the luxury of reading by the fire as we waited for the Tree Savers man to complete his two-hour journey to this bit of woods.
With no cell phone service and no address for a GPS, the directions I’d sent in advance were all we had, but he found us. We walked together to look at the hemlocks around the pond, then back to the cabin to the ones I had transplanted twenty years ago—now big young trees—then down the old logging road, through the fields that are now turning to woods, to the forest in the gorge, where we could hear the stream rushing over the little waterfall. This is one of my favorite places on earth, where you step out of the sunshine into the quiet cool cathedral of towering hemlocks.
I liked this young man. His cousin had invited him into her project when he was just sixteen, he’d gone off to college in environmental science, and now this was all he did. His knowledge about the trees, the life cycle of the wooly adelgid, and the habits of the beetle that survives by eating it, was deep. He was proud of the work they were doing together to breed this foreign beetle and help save hemlock forests all up and down the east coast. And he loved the trees. He would stand back and take in an individual hemlock—admiring its shape, its fullness, its color.
Clearly we were in good hands. And best of all, we might not be too late. He spoke of seeing miles of devastated hemlock forest not far away, all dead and gray. “But your trees are still healthy,” he said. “You’ve caught it in time.”
We came back to the cabin, worked out the beginnings of a plan, and noted the details I’d need to get clarified before presenting a proposal to the larger group. Then he left. And John and I packed our few things and got back in the car for the long ride home.
There was an otherworldly quality to the whole experience—that journey in the dark, meeting a young stranger in the middle of the woods, bearer of the gift of precious good news, then traveling back to our real lives, seemingly unchanged, but carrying that treasure within us. And the message continues to warm my heart. It’s good to try. Little seeds can grow to bear fruit. And maybe we’re not too late. Maybe we can do this thing.
Rain choice
Out from work
and into steady rain.
I’ll reach the trolley quickest turning right
yet there’s a sandwich
lying heavy in my bag.
I missed my homeless friend
on the way in,
won’t find him if I take the shorter route,
may not find him anyhow.
I hover as the rain pours down
and then turn left
at rest in that good choice.
And then I find him,
give the sandwich
chat beneath an overhang—
a spot of brightness
in the midst of all that rain.
Dare to Imagine: A new economy is possible!
Green Bay Packers Coop
The Green Bay Packers football team are owned by the fans, making them the only publicly owned, not-for-profit, major professional team in the United States. In 1923, the Packers, on the brink of bankruptcy, decided to sell shares to the community at a couple of dollars a piece to keep the team afloat. Now more than a hundred thousand stockholders own more than four million shares. They are limited to no more than two hundred thousand shares, keeping any individual from gaining control over the club. Shareholders receive no dividend check and no free tickets. They elect a board of directors and a seven-member executive committee to stand in at N.F.L. owners meetings, with football decisions made by the General Manager.
Wisconsin fans get to enjoy the team with the confidence that their owner won’t threaten to move to get a better deal. Volunteers work concessions, with sixty per cent of the proceeds going to local charities. Even the beer is cheaper than at a typical N.F.L. stadium. Not only has home field been sold out for two decades, but during snowstorms, the team routinely puts out calls for volunteers to help shovel and is never disappointed by the response.
https://www.newyorker.com/sports/sporting-scene/those-non-profit-packers
Some things that have made me hopeful recently
So many successful local efforts to combat fossil fuels:
--a Philippine province declared coal free https://www.rappler.com/move-ph/225951-youth-behind-coal-free-negros-occidental,
--a Berkeley ordinance banning the use of natural gas in new construction https://www.dailycal.org/2019/08/07/mayor-jesse-arreguin-officially-signs-natural-gas-ban-into-berkeley-law/mayor,
--a coal plant project that would have damaged a fragile marine ecosystem in Kenya stopped by the courts, https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/kenya-court-stops-china-backed-lamu-coal-plant-project/ar-AADut6v,
--and New York City’s sweeping climate change legislation, https://www.motherjones.com/environment/2019/04/new-york-city-just-passed-historic-climate-legislation-its-own-green-new-deal/
New “right to repair” legislation in the European Union that includes requirements for improving the life span, maintenance, re-use, upgrade, recyclability, and waste handling of appliances. https://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/eu-approves-groundbreaking-right-to-repair-laws/
All the thousands of people who worked so hard to send a great Working Families Party candidate to Philadelphia City Council—and all the other hopeful election news.
A grassroots bee petition in Bavaria that garnered signatures from more than 10% of the population, and led the German state’s premier to have the petition’s language—turning grassland into meadow and calling for a third of farms to be organic—written into law. https://www.positive.news/environment/grassroots-bee-petition-forces-greener-farming-measures-in-bavaria/
Resources
Money and Soul
My new book (based on a pamphlet of the same name) available via QuakerBooks or other on-line distributors.
("If money troubles your soul, try this down-to-earth Quaker perspective on economies large and small.")
Money, Debt and Liberation
A video of a talk I gave at Pendle Hill in January, 2019
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f7nP8eJ5vy8
Toward a Right Relationship with Finance
A book that I co-authored on Debt, Interest, Growth and Security.
The growth economy is failing to provide equitable well-being for humanity and a life-sustaining future for Earth. However our institutional endowments and individual retirement are dependent on that same growth economy. This book:
• offers background on our current economic system--how it is based on unearned income on the one hand and debt on the other, with a built-in momentum toward economy inequality and ecological overshoot;
• frames the conversation within the context of our deepest values and beliefs;
• suggests plausible and historically grounded alternatives to the current system, particularly with regard to financing retirement; and
• invites everyone to imagine new forms of durable economic and social security, and to help create the relationships and institutions that will make them a reality.
With many people now counting as never before on the performance of Wall Street for retirement security, how can this system be challenged with integrity and effectiveness? Can we break with our dependence on financial speculation and build up new structures of security in a transformed, life-centered economy?
To order the book, or read it on line, go to http://www.quakerinstitute.org/?page_id=5 and scroll down.
More resources
www.findingsteadyground.com
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, October 19, 2019
#194 Ignorance
Dear all,
I continue to be heartened by gathered voices and steps forward in this world—such as the climate strike and new public banking law in California—while weighed down by the scary challenges we face. I keep reminding myself of the resources on connecting and grounding that we developed at www.findingsteadyground.com, and that the essence of my work is to be who I am, as big as I can be.
I am always stunned by the amazing transformation from summmer to fall that we experience here in the northeastern US, and it's been a blessing to have more clear days this month to follow the cycle of the moon.
Love,
Pamela
Ignorance
I’ve been wondering recently whether a greater appreciation of our ignorance might shine a light on the pathway to wisdom.
Someone I know led off a workshop on race and racism not long ago by asking participants to rank themselves as beginning, intermediate or advanced on the issue. It’s an intriguing question. I think I would have said that I’m sufficiently advanced to know what a beginner I am. A few years ago I might have claimed the rank of advanced. After all, I’ve learned history, puzzled over theory, built a wide variety of relationship, done lots of emotional work, helped others engage with the issues.
Since then, however, I’ve taken a deep dive into the nitty-gritties of racism in an urban farm project that has had to address thorny issues of black spaces, reparations and community control. I am deeply grateful for that very painful opportunity, and have learned much in the process. I think I knew enough to play a role that was more positive than negative, but am amazed at the extent of my naivete and blind spots. There is no way I can avoid my ignorance.
This is hard to admit. In my family growing up, ignorance was viewed as a terrible thing. Right answers were prized, and intellectual ability was encouraged above all else. My parents thought of themselves as outside of the mainstream, but I’ve come to see that these values of theirs were in complete alignment with the beliefs of the Enlightenment and the Scientific Revolution that have shaped our culture for hundreds of years. The pursuit of knowledge is the noblest endeavor; with it we can master the world. Ignorance is the enemy.
Yet where has this perspective led us? I recently came across a book, Earth in Mind, by David Orr, that is eloquent on this subject. Ignorance is not a solvable problem, he says. Rather it is an inescapable part of the human condition. Knowledge, on the other hand, is a fearful thing. He reminds us that to know the name of something traditionally was to hold power over it. Misused, that power would break the sacred order and wreak havoc. Why, I wonder, does that ancient warning ring so eerily true in our present condition?
He suggests that we cannot say that we know something until we understand the effects of this knowledge on real people and their communities. If we are too smug about the explosive increase of knowledge in modern times, we may fail to notice the knowledge that is being lost, and the critical nature of that knowledge for the survival of our species. We have broken the world down into billions of discrete knowable bits, but are lost when it comes to understanding what makes it whole.
Examples of the flaws of putting all our eggs in the knowledge basket are everywhere. Children are pushed to learn letters and numbers ever earlier, yet long-term success in school correlates more closely with a foundation of love of learning and strong social-emotional and problem-solving skills. Business schools turn out graduates who have aced classes on finance, planning and management, yet industry is desperate for the intangible qualities of leadership and entrepreneurial spirit. Scientists have mastered mixing chemicals to increase crop yields (as least temporarily), yet know virtually nothing about what creates soil health.
What would it take to decouple knowledge from hubris and from the blindness that seems always to come with it? Can we find the humility to accept our ignorance, to assume that anything we learn will illuminate bigger areas of unknowing that were previously invisible to us, and to cultivate an attitude of wonder at the unknowable? Perhaps then we can exchange the goal of mastery through attainment of knowledge for the ability to ask the questions that get to the heart of the matter.
Neighbors
The red car is gone.
For weeks (could it be months?)
it stood there in the lot
beside our garden fence.
Two young men were living there.
We said hello, talked about the heat.
They were not bad neighbors
though the smell of pee grew strong.
I knew they were in need
didn’t step in to save
didn’t complain
chose instead for steady warm civility.
And now they’re gone
not by choice, it’s said.
I wish them well, wherever they may be,
and wonder: Could I have been
a better neighbor?
Dare to imagine: A new economy is possible!
Fair Trade in Columbia
Established 21 years ago, the ColyFlor Solidarity Economic Circuit comprises 200 suppliers (rural families, women, indigenous and Afro-Colombian communities) growing agro-ecological foods in the region of MedellÃn, Colombia to sell at their fair trade store. It also includes a network of responsible consumers who live in Medellin and nearby municipalities. The store offers agro-ecological tours to small peasant farms, cooking courses with healthy foods, and promotion of participation in fairs and peasant markets in the city.
This effort has influenced local government rural development policies to promote agro-ecological good practice and sustainable consumption, and technical assistance for agricultural development. There are now around 17 initiatives in the region that focus on the sale of organic and agro-ecological products.
https://transformativecities.org/atlas-of-utopias/atlas-58/
Some things that have made me hopeful recently:
At least eight states and 130 cities have legally changed Columbus Day to Indigenous People’s day, including Washington DC and Wisconsin in the last month.
https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/dc-joins-100-cities-changing-columbus-day-indigenous/story?id=66183074
The governor of California has signed a law enabling the establishment of public banks in the state, and efforts in LA and San Francisco are already underway.
https://www.publicbankinginstitute.org/
Four million people around the world took part in September’s global climate strike:
Short video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=za-S4p4BwqY&feature=youtu.be
Costa Rica has doubled its forest cover, from 26% in 1983 to 52% today.
https://www.positive.news/environment/costa-rica-doubles-its-forest-cover-in-30-years/
Resources
Money and Soul
My new book (based on a pamphlet of the same name) available via QuakerBooks or other on-line distributors.
("If money troubles your soul, try this down-to-earth Quaker perspective on economies large and small.")
Money, Debt and Liberation
A video of a talk I gave at Pendle Hill in January, 2019
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f7nP8eJ5vy8
Toward a Right Relationship with Finance
A book that I co-authored on Debt, Interest, Growth and Security.
The growth economy is failing to provide equitable well-being for humanity and a life-sustaining future for Earth. However our institutional endowments and individual retirement are dependent on that same growth economy. This book:
• offers background on our current economic system--how it is based on unearned income on the one hand and debt on the other, with a built-in momentum toward economy inequality and ecological overshoot;
• frames the conversation within the context of our deepest values and beliefs;
• suggests plausible and historically grounded alternatives to the current system, particularly with regard to financing retirement; and
• invites everyone to imagine new forms of durable economic and social security, and to help create the relationships and institutions that will make them a reality.
With many people now counting as never before on the performance of Wall Street for retirement security, how can this system be challenged with integrity and effectiveness? Can we break with our dependence on financial speculation and build up new structures of security in a transformed, life-centered economy?
To order the book, or read it on line, go to http://www.quakerinstitute.org/?page_id=5 and scroll down.
More resources
www.findingsteadyground.com
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 continue to be heartened by gathered voices and steps forward in this world—such as the climate strike and new public banking law in California—while weighed down by the scary challenges we face. I keep reminding myself of the resources on connecting and grounding that we developed at www.findingsteadyground.com, and that the essence of my work is to be who I am, as big as I can be.
I am always stunned by the amazing transformation from summmer to fall that we experience here in the northeastern US, and it's been a blessing to have more clear days this month to follow the cycle of the moon.
Love,
Pamela
Ignorance
I’ve been wondering recently whether a greater appreciation of our ignorance might shine a light on the pathway to wisdom.
Someone I know led off a workshop on race and racism not long ago by asking participants to rank themselves as beginning, intermediate or advanced on the issue. It’s an intriguing question. I think I would have said that I’m sufficiently advanced to know what a beginner I am. A few years ago I might have claimed the rank of advanced. After all, I’ve learned history, puzzled over theory, built a wide variety of relationship, done lots of emotional work, helped others engage with the issues.
Since then, however, I’ve taken a deep dive into the nitty-gritties of racism in an urban farm project that has had to address thorny issues of black spaces, reparations and community control. I am deeply grateful for that very painful opportunity, and have learned much in the process. I think I knew enough to play a role that was more positive than negative, but am amazed at the extent of my naivete and blind spots. There is no way I can avoid my ignorance.
This is hard to admit. In my family growing up, ignorance was viewed as a terrible thing. Right answers were prized, and intellectual ability was encouraged above all else. My parents thought of themselves as outside of the mainstream, but I’ve come to see that these values of theirs were in complete alignment with the beliefs of the Enlightenment and the Scientific Revolution that have shaped our culture for hundreds of years. The pursuit of knowledge is the noblest endeavor; with it we can master the world. Ignorance is the enemy.
Yet where has this perspective led us? I recently came across a book, Earth in Mind, by David Orr, that is eloquent on this subject. Ignorance is not a solvable problem, he says. Rather it is an inescapable part of the human condition. Knowledge, on the other hand, is a fearful thing. He reminds us that to know the name of something traditionally was to hold power over it. Misused, that power would break the sacred order and wreak havoc. Why, I wonder, does that ancient warning ring so eerily true in our present condition?
He suggests that we cannot say that we know something until we understand the effects of this knowledge on real people and their communities. If we are too smug about the explosive increase of knowledge in modern times, we may fail to notice the knowledge that is being lost, and the critical nature of that knowledge for the survival of our species. We have broken the world down into billions of discrete knowable bits, but are lost when it comes to understanding what makes it whole.
Examples of the flaws of putting all our eggs in the knowledge basket are everywhere. Children are pushed to learn letters and numbers ever earlier, yet long-term success in school correlates more closely with a foundation of love of learning and strong social-emotional and problem-solving skills. Business schools turn out graduates who have aced classes on finance, planning and management, yet industry is desperate for the intangible qualities of leadership and entrepreneurial spirit. Scientists have mastered mixing chemicals to increase crop yields (as least temporarily), yet know virtually nothing about what creates soil health.
What would it take to decouple knowledge from hubris and from the blindness that seems always to come with it? Can we find the humility to accept our ignorance, to assume that anything we learn will illuminate bigger areas of unknowing that were previously invisible to us, and to cultivate an attitude of wonder at the unknowable? Perhaps then we can exchange the goal of mastery through attainment of knowledge for the ability to ask the questions that get to the heart of the matter.
Neighbors
The red car is gone.
For weeks (could it be months?)
it stood there in the lot
beside our garden fence.
Two young men were living there.
We said hello, talked about the heat.
They were not bad neighbors
though the smell of pee grew strong.
I knew they were in need
didn’t step in to save
didn’t complain
chose instead for steady warm civility.
And now they’re gone
not by choice, it’s said.
I wish them well, wherever they may be,
and wonder: Could I have been
a better neighbor?
Dare to imagine: A new economy is possible!
Fair Trade in Columbia
Established 21 years ago, the ColyFlor Solidarity Economic Circuit comprises 200 suppliers (rural families, women, indigenous and Afro-Colombian communities) growing agro-ecological foods in the region of MedellÃn, Colombia to sell at their fair trade store. It also includes a network of responsible consumers who live in Medellin and nearby municipalities. The store offers agro-ecological tours to small peasant farms, cooking courses with healthy foods, and promotion of participation in fairs and peasant markets in the city.
This effort has influenced local government rural development policies to promote agro-ecological good practice and sustainable consumption, and technical assistance for agricultural development. There are now around 17 initiatives in the region that focus on the sale of organic and agro-ecological products.
https://transformativecities.org/atlas-of-utopias/atlas-58/
Some things that have made me hopeful recently:
At least eight states and 130 cities have legally changed Columbus Day to Indigenous People’s day, including Washington DC and Wisconsin in the last month.
https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/dc-joins-100-cities-changing-columbus-day-indigenous/story?id=66183074
The governor of California has signed a law enabling the establishment of public banks in the state, and efforts in LA and San Francisco are already underway.
https://www.publicbankinginstitute.org/
Four million people around the world took part in September’s global climate strike:
Short video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=za-S4p4BwqY&feature=youtu.be
Costa Rica has doubled its forest cover, from 26% in 1983 to 52% today.
https://www.positive.news/environment/costa-rica-doubles-its-forest-cover-in-30-years/
Resources
Money and Soul
My new book (based on a pamphlet of the same name) available via QuakerBooks or other on-line distributors.
("If money troubles your soul, try this down-to-earth Quaker perspective on economies large and small.")
Money, Debt and Liberation
A video of a talk I gave at Pendle Hill in January, 2019
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f7nP8eJ5vy8
Toward a Right Relationship with Finance
A book that I co-authored on Debt, Interest, Growth and Security.
The growth economy is failing to provide equitable well-being for humanity and a life-sustaining future for Earth. However our institutional endowments and individual retirement are dependent on that same growth economy. This book:
• offers background on our current economic system--how it is based on unearned income on the one hand and debt on the other, with a built-in momentum toward economy inequality and ecological overshoot;
• frames the conversation within the context of our deepest values and beliefs;
• suggests plausible and historically grounded alternatives to the current system, particularly with regard to financing retirement; and
• invites everyone to imagine new forms of durable economic and social security, and to help create the relationships and institutions that will make them a reality.
With many people now counting as never before on the performance of Wall Street for retirement security, how can this system be challenged with integrity and effectiveness? Can we break with our dependence on financial speculation and build up new structures of security in a transformed, life-centered economy?
To order the book, or read it on line, go to http://www.quakerinstitute.org/?page_id=5 and scroll down.
More resources
www.findingsteadyground.com
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, September 21, 2019
#193 Rebirth
Dear all,
I continue to savor the experience of a big 70th birthday party, where people from all parts of my life got to meet each other and fill in their picture of who I am, while eating and drinking the fruits of my garden—so much fun!
And what a thrill to be one of four million people on Friday following our youth in speaking out against climate change! It was wonderful to go with young teens and their parents from our family center and our six-year-old grandson. I loved a sign that read: “Listen to your Youngers”.
Love,
Pamela
Rebirth
The great canopy of trees and the swell of cicada song dominate my senses as I walk to the park early on an August morning. So much life!
My mind goes to what I’ve learned recently of the history of this city neighborhood. In the mid-1800’s it was hilly wooded countryside cut through by a creek. But, with the city pushing west and money to be made from development, came a change of staggering proportions. Roads were laid out to be roughly level and the surrounding land was cut and filled—shovel by shovel, cart by cart, in a stupendous undertaking—to pave the way for long blocks of city row houses. The creek, which was already being used as a sewer by local factories, was buried in a great sewer pipeline. Nothing of the natural landscape—hills, ravines, flowing water, plants, trees—remained. Men spoke with pride of this ability to obliterate nature so completely. I never knew.
Then, more recently, I heard an interview with a man who grew up on a farm in Iowa, and has spent the last several decades restoring 30 acres of degraded land to prairie. He spoke of how, once some critical mass of biodiversity had been restored, other species started showing up—first plants and insects, then birds and mammals. I am inspired and grateful for his work and the similar work of many others throughout the great plains. And I am left with his final story echoing in my ears.
He had gone out one night to enjoy the evening and the songs of all the birds and insects that had found their way to his prairie home. Something moved him to walk to a farm neighbor’s cornfield. He listened there, in what we city folks think of as bucolic countryside, and heard—nothing.
Just like all those decades ago in my neighborhood, when a monoculture of row houses obliterated all previous life, so this monoculture of corn rows, dependent on fossil fueled machinery, chemical fertilizers and deadly pesticides, has obliterated the prairie—and all the life associated with it. And the process had the same roots. Instead of men with shovels, it was men with plows, holding fast to a vision of mastery in the name of progress, bending their backs to eradicate everything that stood in their way.
While my part of the city has had 150 years for new trees to grow and ecosystems to regenerate, our prairies are still under relentless assault. We can hear—in the silence—that this system of industrial agriculture is bad for biodiversity. It’s also bad for small farmers and farm communities that have been increasingly squeezed out by deep-pocketed giant conglomerates. It’s bad for the land, with thousands of years’ accumulation of topsoil washing away. It’s bad for the water, as great quantities of chemical fertilizers and pesticides steadily drain from the fields. It’s bad for the climate, with its fossil-fuel intensive technology, and exposed winter fields that can’t hold in the carbon. Slick attempts to characterize agro-business as part of the solution are gearing up; the “Impossible Burger” is being marketed to cash in on the growing vegetarian/vegan market—with a pseudo-food grown from fossil fuels, high-tech labs, GMO soy and Round-Up. But this is a system without a future.
The good news is that the urge to live, and to create the conditions for more life, is a strong one. I think of all the farmers all over the country (and the world), who love and nourish the health of their land. I think of how food scraps and dead plant life anywhere can turn into rich living compost. I think of how urban gardens and farms are springing up everywhere, as people of all backgrounds reclaim their ties to the earth. I think of how the honey bees flourish amid the diverse flowering plants of the city and suburbs.
Maybe cities like mine can be among the leaders here, with our big trees and urban garden lots, our hospitable honey bee habitat, and all our people who are reaching for connection. Maybe we have lessons to share around diversity, and making the most of small spaces, and how the earth nurtures community. As I listen to the song of the cicadas, I can’t help but hope.
Treasure
Dump the compost
discover an avocado plant
growing in the pile.
Go to get the pot
picked from the trash
the other day,
perfect for the avocado—
Find a sweet little
succulent
abandoned in the bottom.
Two for the price of, what?
Paying attention and
loving the earth.
Dare to Imagine: A New Economy is Possible!
Cooperative Community of New West Jackson
The Cooperative Community of New West Jackson is a grassroots, resident-led development model that seeks to revitalize West Jackson, Mississippi, through an inventive “inside out” strategy. They match residents’ underemployed skillsets and abandoned property resources with a creative placemaking effort that centers on local food production, folk art, and the construction trades.
With 90% of residents having a farming background, overgrown lots and abandoned houses defining the neighborhood, and everyone needing to eat, they are working to institute a neighborhood food economy to include a production farm, farmer’s market, cottage kitchen, bulk pantry, eatery, folk art studio, and educational resources. They are starting the process of determining a new shared socio-economic reality by affirming what they want, understanding what they know, and reclaiming what they have forgotten, together.
https://www.coopnwj.org/
Some things that have made me hopeful recently
The ruling by Botswana’s high court in June to decriminalize homosexuality, overturning a colonial-era law, and moving out in front of many other sub-Saharan countries. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-48594162
Israel’s partnership with seven of its mostly-Muslim neighbours to collaborate on a coral protection research project in the Red Sea. This partnership between Israel, Jordan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Eritrea, Djibouti and Sudan is thought to be the largest regional project of its kind. https://www.timesofisrael.com/israel-to-ally-with-arab-neighbors-around-red-sea-in-bid-to-save-worlds-corals/
New Zealand’s plan to plant a billion trees to fight climate change, and their allocation of $485 million for the first three years to implement the plan https://www.healthyfoodhouse.com/new-zealand-is-planting-1-billion-trees-to-fight-climate-change/
The growth of the movement for public banking throughout the United States, including a campaign on the brink of success in California, and new grassroots effort in Philadelphia. www.publicbankinginstitute.org
Resources
Money and Soul
My new book (based on a pamphlet of the same name) available via QuakerBooks or other on-line distributors.
("If money troubles your soul, try this down-to-earth Quaker perspective on economies large and small.")
Money, Debt and Liberation
A video of a talk I gave at Pendle Hill in January, 2019
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f7nP8eJ5vy8
Toward a Right Relationship with Finance
A book that I co-authored on Debt, Interest, Growth and Security.
The growth economy is failing to provide equitable well-being for humanity and a life-sustaining future for Earth. However our institutional endowments and individual retirement are dependent on that same growth economy. This book:
• offers background on our current economic system--how it is based on unearned income on the one hand and debt on the other, with a built-in momentum toward economy inequality and ecological overshoot;
• frames the conversation within the context of our deepest values and beliefs;
• suggests plausible and historically grounded alternatives to the current system, particularly with regard to financing retirement; and
• invites everyone to imagine new forms of durable economic and social security, and to help create the relationships and institutions that will make them a reality.
With many people now counting as never before on the performance of Wall Street for retirement security, how can this system be challenged with integrity and effectiveness? Can we break with our dependence on financial speculation and build up new structures of security in a transformed, life-centered economy?
To order the book, or read it on line, go to http://www.quakerinstitute.org/?page_id=5 and scroll down.
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 continue to savor the experience of a big 70th birthday party, where people from all parts of my life got to meet each other and fill in their picture of who I am, while eating and drinking the fruits of my garden—so much fun!
And what a thrill to be one of four million people on Friday following our youth in speaking out against climate change! It was wonderful to go with young teens and their parents from our family center and our six-year-old grandson. I loved a sign that read: “Listen to your Youngers”.
Love,
Pamela
Rebirth
The great canopy of trees and the swell of cicada song dominate my senses as I walk to the park early on an August morning. So much life!
My mind goes to what I’ve learned recently of the history of this city neighborhood. In the mid-1800’s it was hilly wooded countryside cut through by a creek. But, with the city pushing west and money to be made from development, came a change of staggering proportions. Roads were laid out to be roughly level and the surrounding land was cut and filled—shovel by shovel, cart by cart, in a stupendous undertaking—to pave the way for long blocks of city row houses. The creek, which was already being used as a sewer by local factories, was buried in a great sewer pipeline. Nothing of the natural landscape—hills, ravines, flowing water, plants, trees—remained. Men spoke with pride of this ability to obliterate nature so completely. I never knew.
Then, more recently, I heard an interview with a man who grew up on a farm in Iowa, and has spent the last several decades restoring 30 acres of degraded land to prairie. He spoke of how, once some critical mass of biodiversity had been restored, other species started showing up—first plants and insects, then birds and mammals. I am inspired and grateful for his work and the similar work of many others throughout the great plains. And I am left with his final story echoing in my ears.
He had gone out one night to enjoy the evening and the songs of all the birds and insects that had found their way to his prairie home. Something moved him to walk to a farm neighbor’s cornfield. He listened there, in what we city folks think of as bucolic countryside, and heard—nothing.
Just like all those decades ago in my neighborhood, when a monoculture of row houses obliterated all previous life, so this monoculture of corn rows, dependent on fossil fueled machinery, chemical fertilizers and deadly pesticides, has obliterated the prairie—and all the life associated with it. And the process had the same roots. Instead of men with shovels, it was men with plows, holding fast to a vision of mastery in the name of progress, bending their backs to eradicate everything that stood in their way.
While my part of the city has had 150 years for new trees to grow and ecosystems to regenerate, our prairies are still under relentless assault. We can hear—in the silence—that this system of industrial agriculture is bad for biodiversity. It’s also bad for small farmers and farm communities that have been increasingly squeezed out by deep-pocketed giant conglomerates. It’s bad for the land, with thousands of years’ accumulation of topsoil washing away. It’s bad for the water, as great quantities of chemical fertilizers and pesticides steadily drain from the fields. It’s bad for the climate, with its fossil-fuel intensive technology, and exposed winter fields that can’t hold in the carbon. Slick attempts to characterize agro-business as part of the solution are gearing up; the “Impossible Burger” is being marketed to cash in on the growing vegetarian/vegan market—with a pseudo-food grown from fossil fuels, high-tech labs, GMO soy and Round-Up. But this is a system without a future.
The good news is that the urge to live, and to create the conditions for more life, is a strong one. I think of all the farmers all over the country (and the world), who love and nourish the health of their land. I think of how food scraps and dead plant life anywhere can turn into rich living compost. I think of how urban gardens and farms are springing up everywhere, as people of all backgrounds reclaim their ties to the earth. I think of how the honey bees flourish amid the diverse flowering plants of the city and suburbs.
Maybe cities like mine can be among the leaders here, with our big trees and urban garden lots, our hospitable honey bee habitat, and all our people who are reaching for connection. Maybe we have lessons to share around diversity, and making the most of small spaces, and how the earth nurtures community. As I listen to the song of the cicadas, I can’t help but hope.
Treasure
Dump the compost
discover an avocado plant
growing in the pile.
Go to get the pot
picked from the trash
the other day,
perfect for the avocado—
Find a sweet little
succulent
abandoned in the bottom.
Two for the price of, what?
Paying attention and
loving the earth.
Dare to Imagine: A New Economy is Possible!
Cooperative Community of New West Jackson
The Cooperative Community of New West Jackson is a grassroots, resident-led development model that seeks to revitalize West Jackson, Mississippi, through an inventive “inside out” strategy. They match residents’ underemployed skillsets and abandoned property resources with a creative placemaking effort that centers on local food production, folk art, and the construction trades.
With 90% of residents having a farming background, overgrown lots and abandoned houses defining the neighborhood, and everyone needing to eat, they are working to institute a neighborhood food economy to include a production farm, farmer’s market, cottage kitchen, bulk pantry, eatery, folk art studio, and educational resources. They are starting the process of determining a new shared socio-economic reality by affirming what they want, understanding what they know, and reclaiming what they have forgotten, together.
https://www.coopnwj.org/
Some things that have made me hopeful recently
The ruling by Botswana’s high court in June to decriminalize homosexuality, overturning a colonial-era law, and moving out in front of many other sub-Saharan countries. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-48594162
Israel’s partnership with seven of its mostly-Muslim neighbours to collaborate on a coral protection research project in the Red Sea. This partnership between Israel, Jordan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Eritrea, Djibouti and Sudan is thought to be the largest regional project of its kind. https://www.timesofisrael.com/israel-to-ally-with-arab-neighbors-around-red-sea-in-bid-to-save-worlds-corals/
New Zealand’s plan to plant a billion trees to fight climate change, and their allocation of $485 million for the first three years to implement the plan https://www.healthyfoodhouse.com/new-zealand-is-planting-1-billion-trees-to-fight-climate-change/
The growth of the movement for public banking throughout the United States, including a campaign on the brink of success in California, and new grassroots effort in Philadelphia. www.publicbankinginstitute.org
Resources
Money and Soul
My new book (based on a pamphlet of the same name) available via QuakerBooks or other on-line distributors.
("If money troubles your soul, try this down-to-earth Quaker perspective on economies large and small.")
Money, Debt and Liberation
A video of a talk I gave at Pendle Hill in January, 2019
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f7nP8eJ5vy8
Toward a Right Relationship with Finance
A book that I co-authored on Debt, Interest, Growth and Security.
The growth economy is failing to provide equitable well-being for humanity and a life-sustaining future for Earth. However our institutional endowments and individual retirement are dependent on that same growth economy. This book:
• offers background on our current economic system--how it is based on unearned income on the one hand and debt on the other, with a built-in momentum toward economy inequality and ecological overshoot;
• frames the conversation within the context of our deepest values and beliefs;
• suggests plausible and historically grounded alternatives to the current system, particularly with regard to financing retirement; and
• invites everyone to imagine new forms of durable economic and social security, and to help create the relationships and institutions that will make them a reality.
With many people now counting as never before on the performance of Wall Street for retirement security, how can this system be challenged with integrity and effectiveness? Can we break with our dependence on financial speculation and build up new structures of security in a transformed, life-centered economy?
To order the book, or read it on line, go to http://www.quakerinstitute.org/?page_id=5 and scroll down.
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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