#208 Fear, love and leadership

 Dear all,

What a time we’ve been through! What an uncertain future we face together! I hope everybody is breathing deeply, finding ways to cherish connections, and taking joy in small pleasures.
I wasn’t sure what I had to offer this month till this came to me as I was waking up. It will be available to be shared on my blog site: http://pamelalivinginthisworld.blogspot.com/2020/11/fear-love-and-leadership.htm

And if you’re looking to pay attention to something else entirely, here’s an opportunity to learn about and contribute to the urban farm that I have been working with for many years, Mill Creek Farm. If anybody would like to contribute to this fundraiser in my name, I would be honored!

Love,

Pamela





Fear, love and leadership

In the wake of this stormy election, and as the waters continue to swirl, what I can’t stop thinking about is how scared we all are. In a bitterly divided country millions of us have been scared that the other side would win. We are so separated, and the more separated we are, the easier it is to demonize. Our deepest fears get projected on the “other”.

I know this is an issue that has caused bitter conflict and divided families. So it was enormously heartening to hear from two people I know with family members who are solidly in the category of “other”. But these two women simply refuse to be divided. They decided that love could win over fear. They dug deep to stay grounded in their love, to stay confident that we are all good, to hold to a belief that ultimately we all want the same things. They decided not to try to convince their family members about the rightness or logic of certain beliefs or points of view, but to tend deeply to the relationships.

This is what I want for all of us. It requires a lot. When we’re scared, it’s easy to feel like victims, to feel jerked around by others who have more power, or are led by people who have more power. And when we feel jerked around, it’s not easy to stay grounded in love. It’s certainly not easy to practice new forms of leadership—to lead in places where we’re not used to leading, or to follow leadership that we’re not used to following. Yet our times are calling out for the courage to try.

In this process, we’ll have to give up some assumptions about “the other”. To lead well, we have to like people. We have to hold out a vision that includes them. We have to have some compassionate and respectful understanding of the ground on which their beliefs have grown. We have to cultivate the humility to be open to learning from them, even as we may continue to hold out a different perspective.

To be led may be even harder. What would it take to listen for truth in someone we’ve never considered as an equal, or have learned to despise? Can we face the possibility of being changed? What would it mean to be genuinely curious to learn how someone ticks—either from a position of trying to lead, or trying to follow? Can we imagine finding a heart connection with somebody we had thought was outside the fold and lost to us forever?

I have to believe that whatever we might be required to give up in this process is something that we would be better off without. No matter how closely we have clung to it, no matter how central it has seemed to our definition of who we are, if we approach this project of “de-othering” with integrity. nothing of enduring value will be lost and we will emerge more fully human.

This doesn’t mean everything else has to stop. We get to continue to mobilize around policies we care about. We get  to share our thinking as clearly and compellingly as we know how. We get to strategize about how to win. But ultimately, this deeper work of the heart may be what saves us as a people.





Election Day evening 

After that great storm of effort
comes a lull. Nerves are jangled
nothing left now but to wait.
The color of the sky calls out.
Another storm? I step outside
into a sunset so intense
it takes my breath away.
A man around the corner stands and looks.
I had to come outside, he says.
All around the block
beauty greets me every way I turn.
Heading west into its glowing fire
a stranger stops me, calls a blessing.
Touched, I take it in
and then continue, drawn on by the light.
Another block, another greeting
What goodness has this night called out?
The color slowly fades.
Back in the dark to neighbors on their porches
all amazed, connected, moved
by such a gift from earth and sun.
I breathe, then go inside and settle in to wait.






Dare to imagine: A new economy is possible!
A citizen’s right to food

Belo Horizonte, a city of 2.5 million in southeastern Brazil, has pioneered a food security system that has effectively eliminated hunger in the city. In 1993 Belo Horizonte enacted a municipal law that established a citizen’s right to food. Today, twenty interconnected programs connect food-producers directly to consumers; offer healthy, fresh food at fixed, low costs at public restaurants; provide food directly to schools, childcare centers, clinics and nursing homes, shelters, and charitable organizations; establish farmers’ markets and stands to allow farmers to sell directly to residents; regulate food prices for 25 specific items, which must be sold at 20-50% below market price; create food banks to distribute unused produce from those markets; and establish community and school gardens, in addition to providing nutrition education. The entire program requires less than 2% of the city’s annual budget.
https://www.yesmagazine.org/social-justice/2020/11/09/covid-brazil-food-security/

 

 

Some things that have made me hopeful recently

The overwhelming vote in San Francisco to tax companies whose CEOs make a hundred more than their lowest paid workers—or more.
https://inequality.org/great-divide/san-francisco-ceo-pay-tax/

How co-ops are showing resilience and community spirit as the pandemic goes on. 
https://blog.equalexchange.coop/pandemic-resilience/

The world’s largest seagrass restoration project, where 600 acres planted in waters off Virginia have grown to 9,000. 
https://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/largest-seagrass-meadow-restoration-in-the-world-in-virginia/

After months of organizing that included the establishment of two protest encampments, Philadelphia’s unhoused people successfully pushed the city to agree to provide housing through a community land trust.
https://truthout.org/articles/philadelphia-agrees-to-provide-community-housing-amid-unhoused-activist-push/
 



 
Resources 

Finding Steady Ground
If you need reminding of some simple ways to stay grounded in challenging times, I recommend this website, which I helped a friend develop following the last presidential election. 
www.findingsteadyground.com   

Other resources from my friend Daniel Hunter
Building a Movement to End the New Jim Crow; An Organizing Guide.  http://www.danielhunter.org/books/building-movement-end-new-jim-crow-organizing-guide  
Climate Resistance Handbook, or I was part of a climate action. Now what? https://commonslibrary.org/climate-resistance-handbook-or-i-was-part-of-a-climate-action-now-what/
Leading Groups On-Line. https://www.trainingforchange.org/training_tools/leading-groups-online-book/ 

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

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)

Fear, love and leadership

 

Fear, love and leadership

In the wake of this stormy election, and as the waters continue to swirl, what I can’t stop thinking about is how scared we all are. In a bitterly divided country millions of us have been scared that the other side would win. We are so separated, and the more separated we are, the easier it is to demonize. Our deepest fears get projected on the “other”.

I know this is an issue that has caused bitter conflict and divided families. So it was enormously heartening to hear from two people I know with family members who are solidly in the category of “other”. But these two women simply refused to be divided. They decided that love could win over fear. They dug deep to stay grounded in their love, to stay confident that we are all good, to hold to a belief that ultimately we all want the same things. They decided not to try to convince their family members about the rightness or logic of certain beliefs or points of view, but to tend deeply to the relationships.

This is what I want for all of us. It requires a lot. When we’re scared, it’s easy to feel like victims, to feel jerked around by others who have more power, or are led by people who have more power. And when we feel jerked around, it’s not easy to stay grounded in love. It’s certainly not easy to practice new forms of leadership—to lead in places where we’re not used to leading, or to follow leadership that we’re not used to following. Yet our times are calling out for the courage to try.

In this process, we’ll have to give up some assumptions about “the other”. To lead well, we have to like people. We have to hold out a vision that includes them. We have to have some compassionate and respectful understanding of the ground on which their beliefs have grown. We have to cultivate the humility to be open to learning from them, even as we may continue to hold out a different perspective.

To be led may be even harder. What would it take to listen for truth in someone we’ve never considered as an equal, or have learned to despise? Can we face the possibility of being changed? What would it mean to be genuinely curious to learn how someone ticks—either from a position of trying to lead, or trying to follow? Can we imagine finding a heart connection with somebody we had thought was outside the fold and lost to us forever?

I have to believe that whatever we might be required to give up in this process is something that we would be better off without. No matter how closely we have clung to it, no matter how central it has seemed to our definition of who we are, if we approach this project of “de-othering” with integrity. nothing of enduring value will be lost and we will emerge more fully human.

This doesn’t mean everything else has to stop. We get to continue to mobilize around policies we care about. We get  to share our thinking as clearly and compellingly as we know how. We get to strategize about how to win. But ultimately, this deeper work of the heart may be what saves us as a people.

#206 Wood chips, elections and miracles

 Dear all,

As we continue to be battered by bad news, back-to-school challenges, and growing fears around the election, I wanted to share a perspective on staying active and grounded. A gift for me recently has been the opportunity to get out each evening for over a week to greet the moon as it has steadily grown from the thinnest crescent on its way to fullness.

I wish you all the best as we find ways to stay upright, connected, and alert to the joy and beauty that is there to be claimed.

Love,
Pamela




Wood chips, elections and miracles

It’s a small dilemma. An enormous pile of woodchips has been dumped in the lot by the community garden, and needs to be moved quickly. We’re urged to all come out on Saturday to weed and haul loads of chips to mulch the paths and common areas. I want to do my part, but am not eager to work in a crowd. On a morning walk I look at the front garden. I know that garden better than anybody. I could come early, commit to finish weeding before the crowds so it would be ready to mulch. I breathe a sigh of relief. That’s the part of the job with my name on it.

What if we all could do the same on a larger scale? As we approach a momentous election, I keep being reminded of a message from theologian Walter Wink—that our job in this world is to listen for what is ours to do; do it faithfully, no less and no more; and then wait in quiet confidence for a miracle.

If we don’t take the first step, our plates can easily be filled with activities that ultimately have little meaning. If we listen but hold back because of our fears and do less than what is ours to do, then we are settling for a version of ourselves that disrespects our inherent power. If we try to do more, we are likely to end up vibrating to the siren of urgency, or laboring under the weight of guilt or obligation, which not only damages the quality of our lives, but limits our effectiveness.

The last step—to wait in quiet confidence for a miracle—seems hopelessly naïve yet somehow profoundly right. If we’ve done our best, then what choice do we have but to wait? And what more powerful way to wait than in quiet confidence? And why settle for anything less than the possibility of a miracle?

So let’s take a stand against the grip of helplessness and hopelessness, and stay open to the reality that there is always something for each of us to do. Hold on to the fact that what we do matters, even though it may be a small part of the whole. Then do it. Be willing to try hard things. Welcome the feelings of fear, loss and outrage that are loosened free as we push against old limits. Do more than we thought we were capable of.

But if we begin to be caught up in the whirlwind of urgency, or pulled down into the quicksand of burdened obligation, it’s time to stop and take a breath. We have entered into the territory of too much. Whether it’s too much work or too much unprocessed emotion, it’s a sign that we need to stop, get some attention, and listen freshly for what belongs on our plate.

I spend about four hours a week helping to ground a handful of climate activists in Sunrise who are mobilizing thousands of young people around the election. Rather than doing direct electoral work myself, I committed to actively sharing opportunities with people who were casting around for something to do. I’ve stayed in close with a diverse circle of friends, and when one shared her plan to encourage voting in a poor urban neighborhood, I did a little fundraising campaign to support her efforts. I decided to prioritize a weekly check in with a friend who is teetering on the brink of overwhelm in her youth work. I invited members of a class I teach to listen to each other on the stupidest things they could do this election season, and things that might be smarter. I decided to respond with an unqualified yes to a dear friend’s request for my thinking and writing support for his project on preparing for a possible coup.

All of this has a rightful place on my plate. It fits my unique circumstances and strengths, and it is not too much. Everyone’s plate will look different; everyone’s work will count. And I really believe that if I do what is mine to do, cheerfully, fully, and to the best of my ability, grounded and alert to the possibility that there may be something else with my name on it, there’s nothing left but to wait in quiet confidence for a miracle.

The pile of wood chips did not disappear that Saturday, despite the good intentions and hard work of many people. So I have had more opportunities to consider my part. The latest came early this morning when I was happily hauling mulch and reflecting on this question of what is ours to do. As phrases—about no more and no less, about the sirens of urgency and the weight of obligation—started coming into my brain, I realized that what was mine to do right then was to stop, go home, and write.

 



Hemlock cathedral

Step out of the bright hot sunshine
busy with sights and sounds
into the cool cathedral hush
of hemlock gorge
tall ceiling of green filtered light
quiet forest floor.





Dare to imagine: A new economy is possible!

A People’s Economy in Toronto: 

The Parkdale People’s Economy is a network of over 30 community-based organizations focused on building just local economies and community wealth in the Parkdale neighborhood of Toronto. During the pandemic, members of Parkdale’s People's Economy have been active in the fight against evictions in their neighborhood as they continue their long-term work to build a local solidarity economy ecosystem with participatory planning, community land trusts, community food distribution, local currencies, and more. Get policy tools to advance a People’s Economy in your own community.
http://parkdalepeopleseconomy.ca/ 
 

 

Some things that have made me hopeful recently:

California Governor Gavin Newsom’s recently announced plans to ban sales of gas cars by 2035 in a state that has the fifth-largest economy in the world.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/california-to-ban-sales-of-new-gas-powered-cars-starting-in-2035-11600882738

How one small stretch of Italian coastline went from a hotbed of drug smuggling to a model of ecological restoration, with the fishing community playing a critical role
https://www.yesmagazine.org/environment/2020/08/24/how-to-save-the-ocean-fishing-community-lessons/

How one small cemetery in Ohio preserved a natural prairie habitat that has allowed for the preservation of vital prairie species.
https://trekohio.com/2016/06/30/bigelow-cemetery-state-nature-preserve/

The statement of China’s President Xi at the UN General Assembly, that committed his nation, the world’s largest carbon emitter, to reaching net-zero emissions by 2060.
https://www.smh.com.au/environment/climate-change/china-s-push-puts-end-of-fossil-fuels-in-sight-20200925-p55zbv.html

 


 

Resources

NEW:  #ChooseDemocracy

www.choosedemocracy.us  

Finding Steady Ground
If you need reminding of some simple ways to stay grounded in challenging times, I recommend this website, which I helped a friend develop following the last presidential election. 
www.findingsteadyground.com   

Other resources from my friend Daniel Hunter
Building a Movement to End the New Jim Crow; An Organizing Guide.  http://www.danielhunter.org/books/building-movement-end-new-jim-crow-organizing-guide  
Climate Resistance Handbook, or I was part of a climate action. Now what? https://commonslibrary.org/climate-resistance-handbook-or-i-was-part-of-a-climate-action-now-what/
Leading Groups On-Line. https://www.trainingforchange.org/training_tools/leading-groups-online-book/ 

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

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)

#205 Midwifery

 Dear all,

In my peer counseling class the other night, we listened to each other about what’s hard and scary in the world these days, took turns to notice things that are hopeful nonetheless, then each considered a range of ways we could respond to the election—from stupidest to smartest—and laughed together as we shared them out. 

Somehow that evening captures much of how I’ve been these days. I’m grateful for a week in the woods with family, good work, and the community that surrounds me in so many different ways.

(And if you’re scared about a power grab in November, check out www.choosedemocracy.us, the initiative of a friend that I’ve been helping out with.)

Love,
Pamela





Midwifery
 
A regular high point in my weeks is being in touch with a handful of young climate activists from the Sunrise Movement. Through a young man who stayed in our spare room while doing student fossil fuel divestment work then went on to be one of the founders of Sunrise, I met another young woman on their Pennsylvania staff, who introduced me to still others. Just getting to know these lovely and deeply committed people is a joy in itself. Being able to be of use to them is an honor.

I think of one of the young women with whom I now do weekly hour-long calls. We have developed a little routine. We start with self-appreciation, since it’s so easy to put all our attention on either our mistakes or the things we have not yet been able to accomplish. Then we exchange listening time, reviewing our emotional state and focusing on whatever we can vent or let go of to free up more attention and flexible thinking in the present. Finally we check whether there’s a puzzle she’s facing at work that needs solving, or a knotty problem that needs untangling.

Often there’s some small thing. She describes the situation. I listen closely, and ask questions to clarify. What does she want? Where does she feel on solid ground? Even if there are things she isn’t sure of, is there a piece of the puzzle she is able to hold out with complete confidence? What is a doable next step? What is the right time, and who are the right people to go to with it?

It’s clear to me that I don’t know the answers. There’s so much I don’t know! Their organizational structure, which is complex, has never been described to me. I’m not exactly sure of her job description or her relationship to decision-makers. I’m not an expert in the types of campaigns they are running and certainly can’t name the strategies that will allow them to succeed.

But I can provide an open space for the problem to be considered. I can ensure that this space is appreciative and free from prescription or judgment. I can listen and probe for what rings true. I can play the role of midwife. And more often than not the labor is quick and painless and the solution slips right out. What had been a worrisome muddle in her mind has become clear enough that she is ready—often eager—to take a confident next step.

Sometimes, of course, the problem is not one with a solution that is easy to think through. People lose track of themselves and each other in the midst of oppression and stress; they bring old and dysfunctional patterns of taking over or going quiet to their group interactions; old feelings of discouragement or desperation or self-blame gum up the works. There is time to tend to these issues in the middle section of our meeting, with attention to feelings of anger, fear, or grief that need to be released so that more space to think can be opened up.

This young woman, and the others that I listen to, are among the full-time staff of a movement that is mobilizing tens of thousands of young people in an effort that may play a critical role in securing a future for our species on this planet. As I do what I can to keep them working well together toward their goals—to increase clarity, restore confidence, amplify thoughtful voices, avoid missteps, seize opportunities, maximize the impact of scarce resources, strengthen relationships—I choose to believe that my small acts of midwifery are part of the labor process to bring a new world to birth. 





Gifts

On my morning walk I open myself up
take in what the world is offering
quiet my mind.

I never know what gift I might receive—
the moon, pink sky of sunrise
a new thought rising to the surface, calm and clear
sunlight on sycamores, a mist of rain
lines to a poem, a fresh breeze
an opening bud, an autumn leaf
the name of someone fallen from my view
a goldfinch, once a morning rainbow
the knowledge that I’m a part of all that is.

Sometime my mind is busy and it’s just a walk
but gifts are there, awaiting me.
My part is to be present, ready to receive.

 

Dare to imagine: A new economy is possible
Community wealth building

The Lancashire city of Preston, in England, has recently come to wider political attention. Starting after the financial crisis Preston’s civic leaders decided to experiment with a radical “community wealth building’ model that aspires to generate more resilient economic growth. The city’s community wealth building approach has five different components:

• Rooted anchor institutions – identifying significant economic actors with a stable presence in the area and focusing economic activity around them.
• Local procurement – which aims to encourage anchor institutions to use their purchasing power to influence their pattern of spending so that more wealth stays within Preston.
• Local capital investment – to seek out new sources of patient capital so investment flows can be democratically directed and focus on keeping more wealth in Preston.
• Worker cooperatives – to nurture new worker cooperatives to meet gaps in anchor institutions’ supply chains that cannot currently be met locally.
• Municipal ownership - to explore and promote new models of local public ownership.

https://demos.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/June-Final-Web.pdf 

 

 

Some things that have made me hopeful recently (all among the grassroots this time):

A family on a quarter acre lot on a Florida barrier island who exchanged their lawn for native plants, and are now hosting a population of endangered butterflies. 

All the people who are pouring time, resources and heart into the children in their neighborhoods. (I’m thinking of three people in a nearby neighborhood in South Philadelphia, but I know there are others everywhere.)

The young climate activists in the Sunrise Movement who have built a base of thousands of energized young people, had remarkable success in getting out the vote for Green New Deal candidates in the primaries, and are now turning their attention to November.

All the people that I don’t know, in the Gulf and on the West Coast, who are extending themselves to others in the face of the devastation of floods and fire.

Resources

Finding Steady Ground
If you need reminding of some simple ways to stay grounded in challenging times, I recommend this website, which I helped a friend develop following the last presidential election. 
www.findingsteadyground.com   

Other resources from my friend Daniel Hunter
Building a Movement to End the New Jim Crow; An Organizing Guide.  http://www.danielhunter.org/books/building-movement-end-new-jim-crow-organizing-guide  
Climate Resistance Handbook, or I was part of a climate action. Now what? https://commonslibrary.org/climate-resistance-handbook-or-i-was-part-of-a-climate-action-now-what/
Leading Groups On-Line. https://www.trainingforchange.org/training_tools/leading-groups-online-book/ 

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

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)

#204 Being vulnerable

 Dear all,

I was struck recently by something I read about how attention to gratitude helps restore a feeling of abundance and attract what we most value. So, with this month very much like the one before, here are some things I’m grateful for. The summer vegetables are coming in. I’ve discovered that a weed we pulled out all through my childhood (called purslane) not only is nutritious, but makes a delicious pesto. I saw the almost-full-just-waning moon on an early morning walk this week, then two rainbows! 

Only having written this, do I remember that there is news—I’ve just received a contract for a book! It’s a collection of my columns: That Clear and Certain Sound; Finding Solid Ground in Perilous Times. Now I just have to find my way through the challenges of publication and promotion. There are so many challenges in this world, big and small. I wish you well with your share of them.

Love,
Pamela


 


Being vulnerable

I’ve been puzzling over why white America was able to take in the killing of George Floyd in a way that opened our nation up to racial injustice at a whole new level. The same things had happened so many times before and we had managed to get back to normal within days.

I was wondering with a friend about whether it might have been the graphicly callous evil of the act, captured so starkly. It was way out there, completely unambiguous. But she reminded me that this was far from the first time that such callous evil had been played out for the whole nation to see. So it wasn’t that. It had to be the pandemic, a different context that allowed us to see differently. But what about it? 

Sharing my perspective on what we are facing with a group of peer counseling teachers that I lead, I found myself talking about vulnerability. Our vulnerabilities are so much closer to the surface than usual these days. Even those of us who are buffered by economic privilege—whose incomes are not in danger, who don’t have to go to work in ways that put us at risk, who are not trying to take care of children while doing our full-time work at home, who have enough indoor space to spread out—are still feeling vulnerable. Even if, whether by chance or fortune, we don’t know of someone who has died of COVID, who hasn’t wondered who among us might be carrying a disease against which we have no protection? Who hasn’t imagined what it would be like to die alone?

As we are more in touch with our own vulnerabilities, with those of our aged relatives and other loved ones, and those of the essential workers we may not know who are putting themselves at risk to provide what we need to live, our hearts are more open. While the impact of a brutal and senseless killing might once have washed over a smooth surface, our raw ends are now more exposed. We are feeling things, taking them in.

In the course of our conversation, other pieces of the puzzle came out. There was all the organizing that had been done over the last six or seven years by the Movement for Black Lives, creating the groundwork for mass protests. There was the fact that schools were closed and young people were restless and already upset. There was the new reality that we can’t just go back to living our regular lives after a day or two of outrage. There is no normal to return to, no readily retrievable status quo in which to take comfort.

One man mentioned something I hadn’t thought of: there were no sports to distract us. With no games, or scores, or plays, or players, or rankings or trades to fill their heads, he said, guys are talking about what’s really going on. It made me think about the incredible amount of addiction and distraction that is built into our daily lives, and how much that has been disrupted by the pandemic.

And so we are embarked on a journey into unchartered territory. It’s scary. There’s so much we don’t know. But maybe we can remember the value of our vulnerability, how it can allow us to pay attention in ways that connect us where we were not connected before, and offer up new opportunities for living together in this world.

 



Wood chips

This little pile of wood chips caught my eye
six weeks ago between the sidewalk and the street.
Were they trash or treasure of this house?
I eyed the pile, could make good use of it.
But when neglect had shown that it was trash
the days had grown so hot that moving it
would be a sweltering task.
Other outdoor needs called urgently
For those cool early morning hours,
and so the little pile remained
and life went on.

A big rain finally came and broke the heat
It brought another change as well:
Mushrooms sprouted from the wood chip pile!
Life had, indeed, been going on.
Fungal threads—mycelia—had taken hold
somewhere within the pile, and spread and spread
till finally, dense enough, they pushed the mushrooms out.

Without a doubt this pile is treasure now.
It’s come alive, is on its way to join the soil
that, with the water and the sun,
sustains us all.

I may dig into this pile or I may not.
Already it has nourished me
with its reminder of abundant life.





Dare to imagine: A new economy is possible
South Korean Coops

Cooperatives have played an important part in the Korean economy for generations. Established in the 1960s to uplift the still largely rural economy, the National Agricultural Cooperative Federation, for example, has grown to include nearly all rural households as its members. Alongside farmer-owned producer cooperatives the federation also runs a banking network which is the second-largest financial group in South Korea in terms of total asset value, but it is not the only cooperative in the financial sector: 900 credit unions in the country boasted 5.9 million members in 2012.  Membership in iCOOP KOREA, which provides consumers with reliable and eco-friendly agricultural products through direct dealing with producers, grew from 11,645 members in 2002 to 294,000 in 2019.

Cooperatives were previously limited to only a few industries, each with their own specific legislation, but this changed following the passing of the 2012 Cooperative Framework Act. Cooperatives can now be established in almost any sector, and requirements to launch one have been drastically reduced. For example, the previous laws required at least 1000 founder-members to form an agricultural coop, 300 for a consumer coop and 100 for a credit union. The passing of the new law reduced the minimum number of members to establish a cooperative to 5. Other substantial changes included recognizing worker cooperatives as a specific legal entity, and making them newly eligible for conventional bank loans for small and medium-sized businesses.

https://coop.exchange/blog/d8bf329f-c512-11ea-b711-06ceb0bf34bd/the-number-of-cooperatives-in-south-korea-has-exploded 

Some things that have made me hopeful recently:

Schools that are turning into solar power stations, saving money and shining a light on solar electricity. 
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/america-schools-turning-into-solar-power-stations_n_5f1f423fc5b69fd473105a63?ncid=engmodushpmg00000006   

The planning process the city of Amsterdam in engaged in to move from a growth economy to one that meets human needs while staying within planetary boundaries. 
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/08/amsterdam-doughnut-model-mend-post-coronavirus-economy   

Cuba’s neighborhood public health doctors, who go to their patients, door by door, to provide preventative care and education.  short video

A Brazilian photographer and his wife, who planted two million trees and created a new forest. 
https://youtu.be/p0Aw3JEtQoU (video) https://allthatsinteresting.com/sebastiao-salgado-forest 

Resources

Finding Steady Ground
If you need reminding of some simple ways to stay grounded in challenging times, I recommend this website, which I helped a friend develop following the last presidential election. 
www.findingsteadyground.com   

Other resources from my friend Daniel Hunter
Building a Movement to End the New Jim Crow; An Organizing Guide.  http://www.danielhunter.org/books/building-movement-end-new-jim-crow-organizing-guide  
Climate Resistance Handbook, or I was part of a climate action. Now what? https://commonslibrary.org/climate-resistance-handbook-or-i-was-part-of-a-climate-action-now-what/
Leading Groups On-Line. https://www.trainingforchange.org/training_tools/leading-groups-online-book/ 

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

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)

#203 Free and bound

Dear all,

A wise Black friend has advised me that, however I respond to this great wave of protest against brutality and injustice, the important thing is to not change. So, if I am compelled to respond without changing who I am, then somehow I need to be more fully myself. I’ve been sitting with this, trying to live into its implications, ever since. Hopefully there will be fruits, and they will show.

In the meantime, I am doing my best to settle into the heat, trying not to be overcome by a growing weariness, glad to have an ongoing role supporting young climate activists, thankful for grandchildren and for all the people I can love via my computer and phone.

Love,

Pamela

Independence Day 2020:  Free and Bound

I wake up before sunrise on July 4, with freedom on my mind. The temperature was 97 degrees yesterday with hot muggy weather forecast for a week, so I am glad to get up and outside in the cool of the morning. I am free to choose when I will be outdoors, bound by weather over which I have no control.

I head out on my usual walk to the park, this time with a jigsaw puzzle under my arm. I had been methodically clearing out our oversupply of books, by taking an armload down to the little free library box at the corner of the park every morning. After three months, however, I was down to a core collection, so I started on the puzzles. It seemed like a small contribution to make to my community during this stay-at-home time, but something that I was able and glad to do. I am free to choose my way of involvement with my neighbors, bound to the community where I have put down roots.

Then I go to the community garden, where I water tomatoes, peppers, eggplant and sweet potatoes, and harvest rhubarb and currants. I had been offered some of the rhubarb by my neighbor; I’ll offer him a jar of marmalade in return. The currants make a delicious sorbet—perfect for this hot weather. A fellow gardener is on the lookout for a food dryer for me, so dried currants (and cherries!) might be in my future. I am bound to the earth on which I depend for this food, bound by agreement and affection to others in this shared space. At the same time, I am free from complete dependency on the supermarket, free to do what I will with my harvest. (Each Wednesday I contribute what is ready and extra to the little church food pantry with which our garden is connected.)

When I get home, I chop the rhubarb and start the marmalade. I am free to make—and enjoy—it, bound by the need to do so before it goes bad.

Later, I spend time on the phone with a couple of friends. I am free to choose who I claim as friends, bound to show up for them in their need and to show myself enough that they can do likewise.

With some blessed unscheduled holiday time after that, I am free to choose my activity (I choose to write!), bound by my belief that I am in this world for a reason. The words of an old folk song by Phil Ochs come to mind: “For I’m only as rich as the poorest of the poor; only as free as a padlocked prison door; only as great as my love for this land; only as tall as I stand.”

We take a walk after sunset in the cool of the evening in search of the full moon. It doesn’t show itself, but we are surrounded by the sound of unseen fireworks. When we get home, in an attempt to unlock this double mystery, I go up on the roof. There I discover the moon, just rising, and can see fireworks shows in every direction. It’s one big party, spread out this year in neighborhoods all over the city. I am free to participate in this party in any way I like, soaking up the quiet serenity of the moon, or taking in the bright sparkle of fireworks—or both. Regardless, I am bound—to this country where so very much is wrong even as much is right, and to the moon and the planet it calls home.





 Plowing the prairie

Leaning into the plow—
an enduring symbol of virtuous work
Pioneers breaking virgin ground,
bent on mastering the prairie
whatever the cost.

The harder the work
the more noble the cause.

And subdue the prairie they did—
along with all the beings
that called it home.

The prairie, we are learning,
was the keeper of our soil.
Washed to the gulf
we wish it back.

The dead substrate
that’s left behind
cannot nourish on its own.
We pour in more and more,
for less and less return.

If we could listen
to the natives of the prairie,
now gone like the soil,
what might we learn?

Maybe they would tell us
that some work
though it seems so masterful
is better left undone.





Dare to imagine: A new economy is possible!
A Community Development Credit Union

Hope Credit Union, founded in 1995 and first run by volunteers in a church in Jackson, Mississippi, is now a hybrid of a credit union and a nonprofit loan fund. It opened new branches in New Orleans the year Katrina hit, then expanded in the Mississippi Delta during the Great Recession, and now is the size of a community bank, with $307 million in assets. The loan fund has another $150 million in assets, mostly loans to economic revitalization projects considered too risky for a credit union. The credit union has more than 35,000 members, more than 70 percent of whom are black, located all up and down the Mississippi Delta, New Orleans, and Memphis, and has had positive net income every year since 2011.

The non-profit loan fund and credit union were founded as separate organizations at first, both looking to use finance to support communities that were devastated by check cashers and payday lenders, facing structural barriers compounded over generations of slavery, Jim Crow, redlining, and continued discrimination. Paired, they provide a means for outside investors and depositors to put their wealth to use in places where wealth has been extracted for generations, dating back to before the Civil War.

The loans they are able to make, like the credit union itself, are small compared to the trillions of dollars in wealth in the financial sector. But every dollar grown is that much more wealth taken back by the communities that own Hope.

https://nextcity.org/daily/entry/community-development-credit-union-that-grows-every-time-there-disaster

Some things that have made me hopeful recently

This month they fall into two big categories—challenges across the country to the fossil fuel industry and to oppressive policing systems:
               
Oil And Gas Pipelines Look Like Increasingly Risky Bets
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/oil-pipeline-risky-bet_

Climate Campaigners Respond to Cancelled Pipeline: ‘The Future Does Not Belong to You’
https://inequality.org/research/atlantic-coast-pipeline/

Minneapolis City Council members announced their intent to disband their police department and invest in proven community-led public safety.
https://theappeal.org/minneapolis-city-council-members-announce-intent-to-disband-the-police-department-invest-in-proven-community-led-public-safety/

As nationwide protests over police brutality continue, cities across the US are cutting and reallocating police funding.
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/06/12/nationwide-protests-over-police-brutality-continue-cities-across-us-cut-and?


 

Resources

Finding Steady Ground
If you need reminding of some simple ways to stay grounded in challenging times, I recommend this website, which I helped a friend develop following the last presidential election. 
www.findingsteadyground.com   

Other resources from my friend Daniel Hunter
Building a Movement to End the New Jim Crow; An Organizing Guide.  http://www.danielhunter.org/books/building-movement-end-new-jim-crow-organizing-guide  
Climate Resistance Handbook, or I was part of a climate action. Now what? https://commonslibrary.org/climate-resistance-handbook-or-i-was-part-of-a-climate-action-now-what/
Leading Groups On-Line. https://www.trainingforchange.org/training_tools/leading-groups-online-book/ 

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

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)

#202 The gift

Dear all,

What a world we live in! It’s a challenge to stay grounded as great waves of change sweep in and engulf us. I’ve struggled to find my footing in this newest wave, the national uprising around racism and policing. I’m not content with making statements, but not prepared to risk infection by joining protests in the streets. It’s been good to take the time to learn about the history of police systems, and humbling to acknowledge that I’d never done so before (check out mpd150.com). I realize that what I most want for white people is to tend to ourselves and our relationships in the light of racism—to feel the heartbreak, dare to make mistakes, decide to stay. When we have practiced going through that fire, we’ll have so much more to offer the world around us. And so I come to realize that the piece I decided not to share in March, just as we had been knocked off our feet by the wave of COVID, may be my best offering as we work to ground ourselves in this next great wave.

Love,
Pamela




The gift

Building on dual passions, for urban agriculture and for connections across barriers that divide us, I joined the board of a local urban farming project years ago. The farm, then a white-led initiative in a black neighborhood, was full of everything that is right and everything that is wrong in our society. It has been a rich and wonderful experience, and nothing about it has been easy.

As we struggled with the problems of any small non-profit, with scarcity on all fronts, we also found ourselves dealing with gut-wrenching staff issues centered around gender and race, all within the context of an unfulfilled vision of local leadership, and ever-present second-guessing about the appropriateness of white people like me being involved at all.

I had to look hard at the ugliness of racism as it affected all of us in so many ways. Several years in, I found myself leading the board because no one else would do it, and we all knew I could. I felt the weight of the farm’s survival heavy on my shoulders as I tried to nurture new board members and staff of color, follow the leadership that was there, and hold everything together in the face of unrelenting challenges.

Our commitment to grounding the farm back in its neighborhood led to a shared decision a few years ago to not make a new administrative hire till we could hire locally, which led to more work for our one farmer, greater burden on the few remaining board members, and an increasingly stressed context for both program work and fundraising.

We’ve done amazingly well under the circumstances, made good decisions, survived. The potential remains enormous and I’ve never regretted the choice to put so much time and energy into nurturing this jewel of an urban farm. I’ve loved being around all the people who love it, and have known that it was a gift in my life. One fellow board member, who clearly values me but just doesn’t reassure or comfort my whiteness, has shown a light on parts of me that might otherwise have gone unexamined. Life just would have been so much more comfortable if I’d looked away and settled for smaller challenges!

Months ago there was a turnaround—with new local board members of color, some very successful grant-writing, and a vision on the part of this friend, now our board leader. to transform to a cooperative model based in the black farmers movement. That first newly-expanded and energized board meeting brought more unexpected emotional work for me. Now, rather than feeling overwhelmed by just trying to keep the farm afloat, I was overwhelmed by feelings that I was no longer needed—clearly the wrong color, in the wrong place.

I fought my way, slowly and painfully, to the perspective that it’s not my job to act preemptively on the assumption that I’m not welcome, even if I’m white, even if it would feel easier to give up and disappear. It’s not mine to make assumptions about how others perceive me. That’s their job. My job is to keep showing up as fully as I know how, despite my feelings, and to let others take the lead in evaluating my contribution and working out the racial composition of the board going forward. At some point, everything I’m doing now may well be adequately and more appropriately done by others, but I can still be fully present till then. I can continue to treasure the relationships that have been built through struggle over the years. I can even make new ones.

In the midst of all this hard work—emotional and otherwise—I had the opportunity to support a young climate activist friend. His vision, commitment and initiative had put him in the center of the national climate movement, with all its contentious issues around turf, leadership, and direction, and with opportunities to make race-related mistakes at every turn. He was engaged in a delicate racially-charged alliance-building project and glad for the opportunity to get some attention.

What became abundantly clear was that living through the challenges in my own little corner of the world had set me up to understand experientially the challenges he was dealing with. By bringing my own hard-won experience to the table, knowing in my bones something of what he was going through, he could rest in feeling seen and understood. He could use the space I was able to offer to look at his hardest feelings, regain perspective and think freshly about next steps. As I stretched to bring everything I had to support this man I loved, doing work that mattered deeply to me, I was thankful beyond words for the gifts I had been given by the farm.





Slipping the leash
Good human.
Stay inside.
Walk with a mask.
Don’t consort with strangers
(or anyone else).
Do your work safely.
Wash your hands.
Follow the rules.

Life can be good
indoors and on a leash.
Pleasures can be sniffed out.
There can be rewards.

But, oh to run free!

Escape far into the woods.
Leave life on a leash
far behind.
Take in deep and fearless breaths
Cavort, play, run, explore
in exquisite freedom.

Till the time comes
to return
and submit once more
to the leash.  





Dare to imagine:  Another economy is possible!

Many worker cooperatives around the world are responding to the pandemic by producing personal protective equipment. In Spain, a cooperative of the Mondragón group is adapting its production to manufacture 60 million masks over a six-month period. On a smaller scale, members of the largely-female worker coop Ipiranga in Brazil, the Tejiendo Paz Cooperative in Colombia, Cooperative Home Care Associates sewing coop in the US, twelve Italian coops, 17 Bulgarian worker coops employing people with disabilities, the French worker cooperative SCOP TI, the Polish Social Cooperative “Centrum Aktywizacji Zawodowej” which reintegrates people with disabilities in the job market, and the Druchema coop in the Union of Czech Production cooperatives have all adapted their production to personal protective equipment and disinfectant products.

https://www.cicopa.coop/news/covid19-how-cooperatives-in-industry-and-services-are-responding-to-the-crisis/





Some things that have made me hopeful recently:

All the courage, civic-mindedness and commitment to justice that has been evident over the last couple of weeks, among so many people all across our country.

The decision by the Minneapolis City Council to switch to investing in proven community-led public safety rather than traditional policing models.
https://theappeal.org/minneapolis-city-council-members-announce-intent-to-disband-the-police-department-invest-in-proven-community-led-public-safety/

The success of a three-year campaign to stop a major fracked gas pipeline in New York City has been stopped for good thanks to a 3-year Stop Williams Pipeline campaign, sending a signal across the U.S. that we don’t need more fossil fuel infrastructure.
https://350.org/williamspipelinevictory/?akid=121761.1048214.Pogdjn&rd=1&t=6

A federal judge’s ruling against the Bureau of Land Management’s recent approval of oil and gas leases across staggering swaths of Montana’s public lands, a victory that protects local groundwater and the climate for Montana landowners, farmers, and conservation groups.
https://earthjustice.org/news/press/2020/news-rural-landowners-farmers-and-conservation-groups-celebrate-court-victory-halting-risky-oil-and-gas-giveaway

Resources

Finding Steady Ground
If you need reminding of some simple ways to stay grounded in challenging times, I recommend this website, which I helped a friend develop following the last presidential election.
www.findingsteadyground.com 

Other resources from my friend Daniel Hunter
Building a Movement to End the New Jim Crow; An Organizing Guide.  http://www.danielhunter.org/books/building-movement-end-new-jim-crow-organizing-guide 
Climate Resistance Handbook, or I was part of a climate action. Now what? https://commonslibrary.org/climate-resistance-handbook-or-i-was-part-of-a-climate-action-now-what/
Leading Groups On-Line. https://www.trainingforchange.org/training_tools/leading-groups-online-book/

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

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)