#223 Numb

Dear all, 

I get to share the good news his month that we are finished with cancer treatments and Chuck is getting steadily better every day—what a gift! We are still are enjoying loving gifts of food, were blessed by a long visit from his sister, and now find ourselves a little off-balance as we navigate the welcome but unfamiliar territory of convalescence.  Though I never stopped writing, I am trying to be ever more intentional and unapologetic in sharing my voice. Thanks to wonderful friends and family, I now have not only a new website but a Facebook page where you can like Pamela Haines, Author.

I didn’t post this message with the full moon, not because I forgot—far from it!—but because it was so close to Valentines Day and the love letter we send then (if you want a copy, just let me know). A joy earlier this month was working with a couple of others to prune the peach tree in the little orchard we are growing in front of our community garden. And I’ve started some of my cold weather seeds indoors—in confidence that spring will come.

Love,
Pamela




Numb

A friend had been estranged from loved one for years and was now experiencing the miracle of reconnection. She was telling of her disorientation, wondering at the unexpected feeling of great sorrow in a time that should have been one of undiluted joy.

My mind went back to childhood times of playing out in the snow. On those cold winter days, our fingers grew steadily colder, till we could no longer feel them at all. Heedlessly, we kept on playing. Then there was that time back inside, as we warmed up sitting by the fire or with a cup of hot chocolate, when the feeling started to come back. Our fingers tingled. They burned. It was an exquisitely uncomfortable sensation—coming on just when everything should have been feeling ultimately warm and cozy.

My friend had experienced great loss, and found a way to keep on going. It’s as if she’d packed that loss up in a box and pushed it way to the back of a tall shelf in a dark closet so that she could pay attention to other things. But now, with contact restored, it was like stepping back from a frozen outdoors into the warmth of a fire and hot chocolate. All of a sudden the box was out and wide open, and she was tingling all over with that exquisite pain of coming back to life.

As children, we couldn’t play in the snow with numb fingers forever. After a while we had to come in out of the cold, and we had to feel that pain as those fingers came back to life. There was no other choice. But with other options available, how many of us would still choose to stick with numbness? It can certainly seem like a friend. Sometimes it’s a no-brainer. We get the Novocain so that we can tolerate the drilling, or the anesthesia so that we can get through an operation (though it can be argued that both are heavily overused, and that a few seconds of sharp pain might be preferable to hours of heavy fogginess).

Then there are the ongoing challenges in life, and all the things we consume and activities we engage in with the goal of avoiding or numbing pain. Alcohol, of course, comes immediately to mind, along with other drugs that serve to directly blunt our fears or sorrows. Some of us use eating—sweets or otherwise—to this end. Others go for distraction of different kinds, in entertainment, or screens, or reading, or sports. Some of us just keep working.

Whole industries have grown up, offering a dizzying array of services and products designed to help us numb to pain. Yet, they come at a cost. More and more, we are seeing pain as something to be avoided, something to buy our way out of, something that has no place in the Good Life to which we all aspire. Given this tendency, it’s not surprising that we struggle to find a home for loss, including the universal of aging and death, in our lives.

We all find our own ways to numb ourselves to the pain we didn’t know how to handle as children, and continue to face as adults. If I can’t fix a situation that involves suffering—in myself, in others, or in the world around me—my personal go-to strategy has been to retreat to create a little emotional distance, and turn my attention to something that I can do. It’s not the worst strategy, but it keeps me a little apart. As I’ve faced a loved one’s suffering recently, I’ve noticed that this bit of distance is not what I would choose. I would choose to be able to feel how sad or sorry I am even if there’s nothing I can do to make it better. The only way forward that I can see is to dare to step out from my protected position of numbness and just feel how sorry I am, for his suffering, for mine, for that of the world.

I believe we all need to come out of the numbing cold and go through that exquisitely painful process of coming back to life. Then we will be able to be fully present, not only to the sorrows of this world, but to all of its joys as well.

 


West and east

Pre-dawn after the full moon
and all my attention is on the west,
now thick with clouds.
Will I catch a glimpse?
Though the chance seems thin
I look and look again.

Heading home, my eye is caught
by color in the east
that grows and grows
catching low clouds
in rippling bands of pink
rising higher, filling the sky.

I am reminded that
we don’t always get
to choose our gifts.




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

The city of Preston, in northern England, is pioneering in community wealth building: establishing cooperative banks, insourcing services, expanding worker and employee ownership, supporting democratic ownership of land, and developing municipally owned green energy works and key commercial activity in local authority ownership. They are collaborating with large local institutions like hospitals and universities to encourage them to spend more locally, employ residents in deprived areas, and protecting their community-owned land and assets for progressive purposes rather than extractive, gentrifying development—a crucial aspect of maintaining local democracy.

Recently they have brought forward a living wage increase benefitting municipal staff. They have registered five new worker-owned firms, with plans for more potentially involving retrofitters, translators, makers, and new cooperatives in partnership with minority communities and former prisoners. One, founded by members of Preston Trades Council, is being tasked to work with unions to support new cooperative businesses that their members will own and control. They are in the midst of developing a regional community bank and delivering regeneration of the city center, primarily in municipal ownership, including a cooperative housing project.

https://www.jacobinmag.com/2022/01/preston-england-matthew-brown-municipal-socialism-community-wealth-building?mc_cid=f8b25fae00&mc_eid=b2f3d85ae2

Some things that have made me hopeful recently

A landslide victory by Mexican General Motors Workers, voting in an independent union, breaking the vice grip of the employer-friendly unions that have long dominated Mexico’s labor movement.
https://www.labornotes.org/2022/02/landslide-victory-mexican-gm-workers-vote-independent-union

Indigenous communities in Indonesia that are regaining management rights to their customary forests and teaching their youth how to care for them.
https://news.mongabay.com/2022/02/field-school-teaches-young-indigenous-indonesians-how-to-care-for-their-forests/

The successful movement in New York  to add a green amendment to their state constitution, winning citizen rights to a healthful environment and providing a model for other states.
https://www.sierraclub.org/sierra/how-new-yorkers-won-right-healthful-environment

How cultivation of seaweed on the west coast is helping indigenous communities restore their connection to the ocean.
https://news.mongabay.com/2022/01/by-cultivating-seaweed-indigenous-communities-restore-connection-to-the-ocean/




Resources

Alive in this World
A book of poetry in three parts: A Home with the Trees, Commuter Encounters, and A Home with the Earth

https://bookshop.org/books/alive-in-this-world/9789768273260

That Clear and Certain Sound; Finding Solid Ground in Perilous Times
A book of essays from this blog.

https://bookshop.org/books/quaker-quicks-that-clear-and-certain-sound-finding-solid-ground-in-perilous-times/9781789047653

Public Banking Has the Potential to Truly Revolutionize Our Economy
An article on my experience with the public banking movement as revolutionary reform.
https://truthout.org/articles/public-banking-has-the-potential-to-truly-revolutionize-our-economy/

Envision or Perish; Why we must start imagining the world we want to live in

An article I co-authored with George Lakey
https://wagingnonviolence.org/2021/02/envision-or-perish-why-we-must-start-imagining-the-world-we-want/  

The Financial Roots of the Climate Crisis 
Link to a talk I gave at a church in Houston 
https://vimeo.com/showcase/7910215

Money and Soul; Quaker Faith and Practice and the Economy
If money troubles your soul, try this down-to-earth Quaker perspective on economies large and small. 

https://bookshop.org/books/quaker-quicks-money-and-soul-quaker-faith-and-practice-and-the-economy/9781789040890

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; Debt, Interest, Growth and Security.

https://bookshop.org/books/toward-a-right-relationship-with-finance-debt-interest-growth-and-security/9789768142887

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 read it on line, go to http://www.quakerinstitute.org/?page_id=5 and scroll down.

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)

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/   


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

#222 Holidays and cultural appropriation

Dear all,

I’m thinking of the model of Martin Luther King, wishing us vision and strength to continue. And I’m pleased to offer my new website, all the way below.

 

That said, I have to say that this has been among the roughest months of my adult life, with a cascading series of medical issues growing from Chucks radiation and chemo treatment sending us to the ER twice and leading to a five-day hospital stay. Thank goodness we’ve not only lived to tell the tale but are back home, with Chuck steadily regaining strength.

Two learnings/reminders stand out. One is the importance of noticing every possible bit of color and joy in days that are full of gray, and building my capacity to absorb the support and love that surrounds me. The other is about the critical difference between noting that I may not get what I want at any particular point in time and giving up on wanting altogether.

So thanks to everyone who has been sending love our direction, and to all that is life giving, including the earth—and to our moon which will be full tonight whether we can see it or not.

Love,
Pamela





Holidays and cultural appropriation

The waning moon, encircled by a visible ring in the clouds, is a stunning presence in the pre-dawn of this late December day. We’ve been in the midst of a rough patch at home, and I take comfort in that steady glow.

At this time of year, I think of the Christmas traditions from my childhood that I hold so dear: Making gifts, thinking of what we could create that would give pleasure, and all the delicious secrets we kept from one another in the process. Cutting the tree, from a row my father planted close together years ago, knowing they could be thinned for just this purpose. Stringing the lights, decorating the tree, hanging stockings, singing traditional carols around the fire on Christmas Eve. The attention we all gave to the extended gift-giving process in a large family. The sweets.

Aside from the carols, it was not a particularly Christian holiday for us. So one could question the passion I bring to my dislike of the secular commercialized holiday that we are sold so relentlessly these days. I can’t really advocate from my own experience for centering the story of the Christ child’s birth, though that seems far more wholesome than feeding an insatiable holiday consumption machine in the attempt to prove love.

This year, COVID and health vulnerability kept other family members away, and energy was low, so our only outward signs of Christmas were the carols we listened to and the holly, ivy, yew branches and string of lights with which I decorated our bay window.

I’m aware that Christmas was nested in ancient sacred ritual times around darkness and light and cycles of life. We’re sensitive these days to appropriation of indigenous and Black culture, but this Christian celebration is certainly an example of cultural appropriation. And our current secular celebration is yet another layer of appropriation of that tradition.

My family of origin appropriated a bit of this and a bit of that. In my own family, I added a home-made manger complete with rough clay figures as a counterweight to the consumerism. Later we went to the Christmas Eve carol service at the Catholic church across the street, as another way to be present to the heart of the story. But I also added the holly and the ivy, which were their pagan precursors—as are the Christmas trees of course, and the lights.

Where do we stand on cultural appropriation here? Is Christianity enough of an advance over what came before that its shaping of earlier rituals and celebrations to fit its own story is justified? I do find something compelling in the Christian message of radical love and hope and forgiveness, but the package of institutional religion with all its complicity in systems of power and domination seems pretty problematic. From another angle, if Christianity is an advance over that which came before, is the secular consumption that is replacing it even better?

Maybe the way forward is as simple as looking deeply for what rings true in our hearts, and for what we can claim as our own. Not something that makes us feel part of the cool group, or distances us from what we’re rebelling against, or leans on somebody else’s convenient short-cut, but our own hard-won understanding of who we are, where we come from, and what feeds our souls. If we find our way to the spirit that animated our ancient ancestors then found a place in the Christian trinity, that is not appropriation. That is coming home.

I’m curious what kinds of mid-winter holiday traditions would grow in such soil. Our son’s mixed Christian and Jewish family tried out a Solstice celebration this year, which I think will grow roots. I’m pretty sure that mine will always have home-made gifts, simple expressions of love, greenery that comes indoors in winter, lights and that music I love so deeply. And somehow, it will have to include the moon.

 

 

Middle room

Our middle room, long empty
children grown
sometime guest room
gradually filled with junk

Cleaned out this fall
to meet a young friend’s need
then transformed into a sick room
trach, radiation, chemo
hospital bed, equipment
boxes of supplies.

We find a rhythm
separating our nights
into these two rooms until
a trip to the hospital,
extended for days,
changes it all again.

I pass the middle room at night

lonely in its silent emptiness
willing it to be
restored to life.

 



Dare to imagine—a new economy is possible!
Healthcare Anchor Network

The Healthcare Anchor Network was conceived by the Democracy Collaborative to leverage the hiring, purchasing, and investment practices of these local "anchor institutions” to contribute to equitable, local economic impact and to build community wealth. The network now includes more than 1,000 hospitals that employ more than 2 million people, purchase over $75 billion annually, and have over $150 billion in invested assets.

Members signing the Place-based Investment Commitment commit to redirecting a portion of their investable assets toward impact investments that are place-based and address community conditions that create racial, economic and environmental disparities. Members signing the “Impact Purchasing Commitment”—to build healthy, equitable, and climate-resilient local economies through what and how they spend their dollars—commit to increasing spending with Minority and Women Owned Business Enterprises as well as local and employee-owned, cooperatively owned and/or nonprofit-owned enterprises, by at least $1 billion collectively over five years. 

https://democracycollaborative.org/
https://www.hcinnovationgroup.com/population-health-management/health-equity/news/21252161/healthcare-anchor-network-movement-gains-momentum





Some things that have made me hopeful recently:

A massive increase in the monarch butterfly count on the west coast.  
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/nov/21/western-monarch-butterflies-migration-increase-california

 

The growth of momentum in building electrification in US cities.
https://www.utilitydive.com/news/building-electrification-momentum-cities-decarbonization-policies-denver-ithaca/611175/

Wind power becoming Spain’s leading energy source for 2021, with renewable sources already covering almost half the country’s consumption needs.
https://english.elpais.com/economy-and-business/2021-12-14/wind-power-becomes-spains-leading-energy-source-for-2021.html?

California’s enactment of the largest mandatory residential food waste recycling program in the US.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/dec/09/california-food-waste-recycling-program-us?

More than 1,500 pension funds, universities and other organizations around the world that have announced that they will divest from fossil fuel assets, doubling from five years earlier.
https://asia.nikkei.com/Spotlight/Environment/Climate-Change/Global-exodus-from-fossil-fuel-holdings-tops-1-500-institutions

 

 

Resources

Alive in this World
A book of poetry in three parts: A Home with the Trees, Commuter Encounters, and A Home with the Earth

https://bookshop.org/books/alive-in-this-world/9789768273260

That Clear and Certain Sound; Finding Solid Ground in Perilous Times
A book of essays from this blog.

https://bookshop.org/books/quaker-quicks-that-clear-and-certain-sound-finding-solid-ground-in-perilous-times/9781789047653

Public Banking Has the Potential to Truly Revolutionize Our Economy
An article on my experience with the public banking movement as revolutionary reform.
https://truthout.org/articles/public-banking-has-the-potential-to-truly-revolutionize-our-economy/

Envision or Perish; Why we must start imagining the world we want to live in

An article I co-authored with George Lakey
https://wagingnonviolence.org/2021/02/envision-or-perish-why-we-must-start-imagining-the-world-we-want/  

The Financial Roots of the Climate Crisis 
Link to a talk I gave at a church in Houston 
https://vimeo.com/showcase/7910215

Money and Soul; Quaker Faith and Practice and the Economy
If money troubles your soul, try this down-to-earth Quaker perspective on economies large and small. 

https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/quaker-quicks-money-and-soul-pamela-haines/1129872483?ean=9781789040890

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; Debt, Interest, Growth and Security.

https://bookshop.org/books/toward-a-right-relationship-with-finance-debt-interest-growth-and-security/9789768142887

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 read it on line, go to http://www.quakerinstitute.org/?page_id=5 and scroll down.


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/   


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) 

#221 Our story

 Dear all,

Chuck and I are finding our way as we finish the second week of chemo and radiation—doing well and very thankful for the circle of love and care that surrounds us. It's a blessing to still have space for other parts of my life—a rich and heartwarming Thanksgiving with my siblings, being part of a City Council hearing where public banking legislation was voted out of committee with unanimous backing (!), hauling leaves to mulch the big front flower bed at the community garden, making gifts with grandchildren—all the while soaking up the goodness of relationships.

I’m not sure that my reflection below is done, but I think I’ll share it in this form rather than wait for perfection. And I look forward to taking in the moon, which I know is shining and full even though it’s currently covered by clouds.

Love,
Pamela



Our story

At a training on race and equity at work, a lovely and thoughtful woman walked us through our country’s history of imperialism, colonialism and racism and the devastating impact that origin story continues to have on our lives today. In one small group we were invited to consider our responses to that history and reflect on what our country’s story is in the present. She closed with a provocative question. Can we recover from that damage? If so, how? If not, why not?

I’ve been pondering her questions. What is our story today? Of course we know the founding narrative, taught to schoolchildren generation after generation down through the years. We are the birthplace of freedom. We are a land of sturdy colonists, intrepid pioneers, fierce defenders of liberty—a melting pot that offers opportunity for all. A strong, coherent and compelling story, it has been a durable source of pride for many of us.

Yet here we are in the present, increasingly unable to ignore the unstable foundations on which it was built, or all of its structural weaknesses. Some of us are ready to just throw the whole thing out in horror and disgust. How can a story that was built on the wholesale dehumanization of black and indigenous people have a place in any mind or heart with a scrap of moral fiber? Others are clinging to this origin story fiercely, holding out for the ideals, willing it to be true ever more desperately as the weaknesses are exposed, shoring it up with intense loyalty and anger at those who would do the exposing.

Our conflict over this story is driving us apart. Those who have grown rich off the American Dream and want to hang onto its benefits, along with others who identify with those sturdy (mostly white male) settlers and still have some hope of benefiting, tend to inhabit one side. Those who never felt included in this dream or were explicitly excluded from it, along with others with the space or inclination to question or a desire to stand in solidarity with the oppressed, inhabit the other. If we would tell a new story going forward, what would it be?

My mind goes to our own family stories—many of which diverged significantly from our lived reality. My parents were from white first-generation college-educated families who had been in this country for a long time. Their story was of hardworking and upstanding citizens, with values better than most, raising a good and happy family. There is much about this story that is true. My parents certainly believed deeply in those ideals. They worked hard. They loved us. And yet all was not well. Unspoken conflicts simmered. Issues of domination played out, and we breathed in the oppressive messages that were in the air. Their judgment of others was harsh, and their need for us to be happy was a burden to carry. I wonder if any of us escaped that misalignment between story and lived reality.

What do we do with our broken family stories—and our broken families? We dare to face what really happened, even if it means digging through layers and years of denial. We work to heal what can be healed, and make right what can be made right. We love, staying connected to, or working to retrieve, that which is solid and good. We grieve that which is lost. And we reach to understand and forgive those whose struggles amidst scarcity and misinformation caused harm.

Could this be a model for a new story for our country? Flawed and misinformed people doing damaging things that left lasting scars, even as they held to big ideals and love as deeply as they were able? We can’t call people from the past to account for the things they did. We can be clear about what was wrong and put our feet on a different path, even as we strive for some kind of understanding of the context in which they did those things. Perhaps our country’s story going forward is that of a people with a fractured and blood-stained past, with ideals not yet fully realized but still worth striving for, trying to find our way together toward repair, healing, and ever greater integrity.





At ease

The chrysanthemums you buy in pots
call out their magnificence—
great masses of bold color
each stem and flower trained
to play its role in that one glorious whole.
They stand at attention, in formation,
aim to please—until they dry up and are done.

The mums in our front garden
bloom luxuriantly year after year.
They claim the space that other flowers,
less hardy, have abandoned to the cold.
At ease, they spread and stretch
in softer loveliness, relaxed, at home
inviting all the neighbors in.


 

 
Dare to imagine: A new economy is possible!
Buy Nothing

The Buy Nothing Project is a social movement that has over 6,500 groups worldwide. It's a network of hyper-local gift economies where neighbors can come together and share pretty much everything with each other, from a cup of sugar to corner sofas, without exchanging money. Founded in 2013 by two friends in Bainbridge Island, Washington, current numbers indicate 4.25 million participants in 44 countries. The purpose of the group is to be able to give and receive things for free among neighbors ("Give Where You Live” is the founding principle). It helps not only with decluttering and finding things you need, but also with recycling and community building.
https://www.today.com/tmrw/how-buy-nothing-project-taught-me-rethink-how-i-shop-t228063

Some things that have made me hopeful recently:

Indian farmers, who have scored a big win after a year-long strike, forcing the prime minister to roll back laws that threatened to corporatize agriculture and threaten the food security of more than 800 million people.
https://inequality.org/research/indian-farmers-victory/?

A young man from Sierra Leone who has developed a simple technology to create electricity from the impact of pedestrians’ feet and cars on local roads.
https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20210713-how-pedestrians-are-lighting-homes-in-sierra-leone

A landmark decision from Ecuador’s high court that affirms constitutional protections for the rights of nature.
https://insideclimatenews.org/news/03122021/ecuador-rights-of-nature/?

How growing crops under solar panels proves to be advantageous for both harvests and energy production.
https://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/agrivoltaics-of-solar-power-and-farming-are-a-big-success-on-this-boulder-farm/?    

 

Resources

Alive in this World
A book of poetry in three parts: A Home with the Trees, Commuter Encounters, and A Home with the Earth

https://bookshop.org/books/alive-in-this-world/9789768273260

That Clear and Certain Sound; Finding Solid Ground in Perilous Times

A book of essays from this blog.

https://bookshop.org/books/quaker-quicks-that-clear-and-certain-sound-finding-solid-ground-in-perilous-times/9781789047653

Public Banking Has the Potential to Truly Revolutionize Our Economy

An article on my experience with the public banking movement as revolutionary reform.

https://truthout.org/articles/public-banking-has-the-potential-to-truly-revolutionize-our-economy/

Envision or Perish; Why we must start imagining the world we want to live in

An article I co-authored with George Lakey
https://wagingnonviolence.org/2021/02/envision-or-perish-why-we-must-start-imagining-the-world-we-want/  

The Financial Roots of the Climate Crisis 

Link to a talk I gave at a church in Houston 
https://vimeo.com/showcase/7910215

Money and Soul; Quaker Faith and Practice and the Economy

If money troubles your soul, try this down-to-earth Quaker perspective on economies large and small. 

https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/quaker-quicks-money-and-soul-pamela-haines/1129872483?ean=9781789040890

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; Debt, Interest, Growth and Security.

https://bookshop.org/books/toward-a-right-relationship-with-finance-debt-interest-growth-and-security/9789768142887

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 read it on line, go to http://www.quakerinstitute.org/?page_id=5 and scroll down.


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/   


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)

#220 Efficiency

 Dear all,

Well, a lot has been going on in our house since my last post. Chuck got diagnosed with a cancerous tongue/throat tumor, so we’ve been thrust headlong into a big and intense health journey. Fortunately, it’s a type that’s very responsive to treatment, and the supportive communities around us are both wide and deep.

At the same time, I get to announce two writing milestones. My book of reflections, That Clear and Certain Sound; Finding Solid Ground in Perilous Times, is now available for purchase, and I’ve learned that there’s a non-Amazon small business option. I hope you keep it—and my poetry book—in mind during this season of giving. And just yesterday I learned that an article I wrote on public banking for Waging Nonviolence got picked up not only by TruthOut, but by YES Magazine. I’m very pleased!

Then there is the full moon, and harvesting my sweet potato crop with our local grandchildren, and being part of the 50th reunion of the founding of the social change community we came of age in. In the midst of everything, it’s not hard to count my blessings.

Love,

Pamela

Efficiency

As I harvest my little crop of black-eyed peas in the community garden—inefficiently, I’m sure—I think also of the time I recently spent weeding an invasive and persistent weed out of a tiny section of the big flower bed in front. Considering all the other projects that should perhaps have a stronger claim to my attention, I can’t help but wonder about the choices we make about our time.

I was raised on the value of efficiency—doing things with the least possible steps, time, or money: don’t expend any extra when there is an alternative. I’ve lived my life by this rule, cleaning without wasted motion, choosing the shortest route for travel, always on the lookout at a meeting for how we can wrap up a conversation and move on.

It’s good to have the ability to do these things, but as a rule of life, I’m discovering that it has its flaws. Limiting the number of times I go up and down the steps as I clean also limits my exercise. Always taking the shortest route cuts out unexpected beauty and adventure. Keeping the group moving along means lost opportunities to stop and really hear everyone, or share the informal stories that will bind us together and make everything go better.

On a larger scale, the problems with efficiency are just compounded. With cost-cutting division of labor come mind-numbing assembly jobs. With the standardization of products and “economies” of scale, delightful local quirks are squeezed out by behemoth monocultures. A focus on efficiency seems to favor pyramids, with money and power rising from the wide bottom to the tiny top.

The costs and distortions are great. If I am in a position to organize others around a goal of my own choosing, yet have never fully considered what constitutes a meaningful life, how can I design a life-supporting system?  If I have not invested time, energy and love in the caring economy—cooking, cleaning, tending to children and the elderly—how will that work be valued in the places where I wield power?

I can see the lures of being too important for the little things. Looking back to earlier periods of my life I realize that, as I’ve increasingly discovered my ability to have a wider influence, I’ve spent less time on cleaning and repair and general attention to the calls of my immediate environment. Why prioritize such “low-level” work when I could spend the time writing a piece that might impact the lives of others?

While I could argue that I’m using my skills and talents for the common good, if I’m too busy to tend to the needs right around me, there’s a way that I’m fundamentally off-balance—and contributing to imbalance in society at large. And, ultimately, if my skill with words leads me to spend all my time writing, when do I live the life that gives me something to say?

Efficiency—at its heart a way of maximizing return on investment—may have its place, and may be useful in organizing us around small tasks and windows of time, but it simply lacks the breadth or depth to help with the big questions. There’s just too much we don’t know, too much that gets left out of the picture—and I can see no way to be efficient about caring.

Reflecting on all of this, I’m inclined to defend my very inefficient black-eyed pea harvest, welcome extra trips up and down the stairs, enjoy the scenic route, and clean with greater appreciation. Perhaps I can organize myself around a simple intention to show up to the world as fully as I know how. Realizing that what this looks like will shift as I find ways to show up ever more fully, I can keep in mind that my significance may have less to do with measurable returns and more with my capacity to do small things with great love.





Moon behind clouds

Stepping outside to morning clouds

I wonder if I’ll glimpse the moon.
Looking up to where I saw her yesterday
I follow the arc of that day’s journey in my mind,
pick a spot where she might be.

I see a rounded light spot in the shifting clouds.
I hold my gaze and wait, entranced.
Could this be my moon? I think it could.

Seen or unseen of course she’s there
radiant, whole in the heavens above
and will be there far on beyond my time—
and yet it’s good to lift my eyes and look
in love and hope.





Dare to imagine: A new economy is possible!

Worker-owned cooperatives creating their own funding networks

Seed Commons is a national network of locally-rooted, non-extractive loan funds that brings the power of big finance under community control. Because of their unorthodox ownership structures, cooperatively owned businesses don’t fit neatly into most lenders’ boxes. So one group decided to build their own source of funding. Founded by a coop that was struggling to find financing, Seed Commons has grown to bring together worker co-op incubators and loan funds in cities across the country. Loans of as little as $15,000 or $20,000 can be transformational in getting a new co-op up and running; they have now made loans as large as $1 million. Seed Commons can also offer technical advice and training, and access to networks of resources, that are critical to the health of the co-op sector. Seed Commons has now invested over $15 million in a national network of worker-owned co-ops that are building their own non-extractive funding streams.
https://www.yesmagazine.org/economy/2021/02/12/worker-owned-cooperatives-investment-network?
 

Some things that have made me hopeful recently: 

NYC taxi drivers who organized to take on predatory lenders and won, paving the way for future debt relief.
https://inequality.org/great-divide/nyc-taxi-drivers-hunger-strike/?

New banking services that are offered by post offices, testing the possibility of a wider system that could benefit the unbanked.
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/return-postal-banking-postal-service-tests-new-financial-services-rcna2502?

Uruguay’s journey from dependence on fossil fuel imports to becoming a renewable energy pioneer, with nearly 100% of its power now coming from renewable sources.
https://www.dw.com/en/uruguay-leads-green-energy-charge-in-latin-america/a-59492982

The move by the Biden administration moving to bar federal oil and gas leasing around the Chaco Culture National Historical Park, siding with tribal heritage against economic interests.
https://www.santafenewmexican.com/content/tncms/live/

 
 

Resources

Alive in this World
A book of poetry in three parts: A Home with the Trees, Commuter Encounters, and A Home with the Earth
https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/alive-in-this-world-pamela-haines/1139506943.

That Clear and Certain Sound; Finding Solid Ground in Perilous Times

A book of essays, many from this blog, available for pre-order till late November
https://www.johnhuntpublishing.com/christian-alternative-books/our-books/quaker-quicks-that-clear-certain-sound.

The Financial Roots of the Climate Crisis 
Link to a talk I gave at a church in Houston 
https://vimeo.com/showcase/7910215

Envision or Perish; Why we must start imagining the world we want to live in

An article I co-authored with George Lakey
https://wagingnonviolence.org/2021/02/envision-or-perish-why-we-must-start-imagining-the-world-we-want/  

Money and Soul
My newish 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.


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/   


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)

#219 Fragility and healing

 Dear all,

The seasons are finally changing, and the different parts of my life—so many parts!—seem to be fitting into a workable and satisfying whole.

I’ve been struggling with my identity as a writer. Having to market myself—and now having two more book contracts (yikes!)—is really requiring me to stretch. It feels like I’m stepping into alien territory or crawling out of an old skin—facing vulnerability, unknowns, untested strengths. It’s more important than ever to remember that I’m not alone.

I’ve had a precious opportunity this past month to spend several days at the shore with family, immersing myself in a wonderful ecosystem that is full of new delights and mysteries. And the moon is full.

Love,

Pamela

Fragility and healing

There are contexts in which everything will go better if we honor fragility—the special plates or glasses that will break if not handled carefully, but that signal a time of great celebration; a delicate plant that must be carefully nurtured for its full beauty to be enjoyed; the medically fragile humans who are complete treasures just as they are. I’m sure there are many more contexts and occasions to honor fragility and tend to its needs, with love, respect and gratitude. This is an important lesson for me as I struggle with the ripples from life-long training to see just about any kind of fragility as problematic.

Yet there is also learned emotional fragility that drains our lives of possibilities and burdens those around us, and there are wrongly assigned assumptions of fragility that just sow confusion and disempowerment. While we don’t want to lay burdens on our children that are too heavy for their small shoulders, for example, treating them as fragile and trying to protect them from all risks brings its own peril. What if we could see this kind of learned or assigned fragility as separate from our true nature, and keep our sights on building our strength and resilience?

There is a peculiar set of dynamics here among men and women. We live so intimately together—we love and need and hope and despair and hate so openly, and in such close quarters. The story line in the West is that it is the women who are fragile. There may be some biological base in the vulnerability of women who are giving birth and caring for infants. Yet the life that has been pumped into this narrative of feminine fragility seems to be less about the true nature of women, and more about the emotional needs of men to have a counterfoil to their felt need to be strong. Where is the real fragility here?

In the US, in the context of our history of slavery, there is no space for Black fragility in any amount or any form. So we find white men needing white women to be close in and fragile, white people needing Black people to be apart and strong, and Black people experiencing whites as oppressively fragile.

There are compelling indications that nobody who is steeped in oppression—at either end—can grow up without being deeply wounded by it and forced into unnatural shape. The wounds of those in oppressed groups are deep and open, kept raw in the present by pervasive systems of injustice and daily acts of intentional or unintentional belittling. The wounds of those in the dominant or oppressive role can be more hidden—at least to those carrying them—covered over by protective layers of privilege and misinformation and insulation from reality.

As we engage together in the great work of healing, there are different needs. Those whose wounds are raw can be helped by some protective bandaging, by relief from constant abrasion. Those whose wounds are deep and hidden need to start with the kind of painful lancing that exposes the pus that must be drained away for true healing to occur.

We can use each other’s thoughtful help in this healing process: understanding how seemingly small things can affect unprotected nerve endings; seeing the depths of the hidden wounds that may be invisible to those who carry them; making the not-always-welcomed offers of help with lancing. It helps to remember that none of us can be fully healed until the systems of oppression and domination are dismantled, and that all of us have the seed of wholeness within.

Willingness to accept fragility that we can’t control is no easy feat in a culture that worships the bursting health that manifests in youth. At the same time, we are challenged to combat false messages of fragility that needlessly limit us—the assumptions that we are dependent for emotional care on women or Black people, or that the trait of fragility assigned to us, as white women for example, has anything to do with our true nature. Those understandings are the solid foundation for doing the hard emotional work, both individually and together, that will result in true community healing and resilience.

Portal

Sun after rain, the puddles
on this wooded trail are irresistible.
Jump in, jump over, wade through
test the depth of the biggest ones.

The six year old is captivated—
jumps and splashes, but sees more.
Look, he says, and points to a reflection:
It’s a portal to the sky.

Dare to Imagine: A New Economy is Possible!

Just Banking

Triodos Bank, in the Netherlands, is one of the world's leading sustainable banks, and one that gets a high rating from Ethical Consumer. Its mission is “to make money work for positive social, environmental and cultural change.”

It has extensive ‘minimum standards’ for companies that it invests in, which cover areas such as health and safety, governance and human rights, and screening for involvement in conflict minerals and human or labour rights abuses, and arms-related activities. In 2017, 38% of its loans went to environmental projects, including renewable energy, organic agriculture and other projects across the agricultural chain, recycling, and nature conservation. It ranks at Ethical Consumer’s top for transparency. Not only does it have a clear policy for its investments and lending, it publishes a full list of the companies in which it holds shares.

https://www.ethicalconsumer.org/company-profile/triodos-bank-nv




Some things that have made me hopeful recently:

All the environmental rights struggles—and successes—across the country that are documented in The World We Need.

https://thenewpress.com/books/world-we-need

How the mineral rich Indian state of Chhattisgarh is moving away from mining, and giving fair prices for forest produce and creating more jobs.

https://www.goodgoodgood.co/articles/indian-mining-state-shifting-from-coal-to-forest-fruits-and-flowers?

During the pandemic and recession, farmers are realizing they have more in common with immigrant meatpackers than agribusiness CEOs.
https://otherwords.org/farmers-and-meatpackers-are-teaming-up-for-pandemic-safety/

The growth of bee populations by 73% in Maine, and 14% nationwide in the last two years, as reported by the US Department of Agriculture.

https://mymodernmet.com/bee-colony-increase/

Resources

Alive in this World
A book of poetry in three parts: A Home with the Trees, Commuter Encounters, and A Home with the Earth
https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/alive-in-this-world-pamela-haines/1139506943.

That Clear and Certain Sound; Finding Solid Ground in Perilous Times

A book of essays, many from this blog, available for pre-order till late November
https://www.johnhuntpublishing.com/christian-alternative-books/our-books/quaker-quicks-that-clear-certain-sound.

The Financial Roots of the Climate Crisis 
Link to a talk I gave at a church in Houston 
https://vimeo.com/showcase/7910215

Envision or Perish; Why we must start imagining the world we want to live in

An article I co-authored with George Lakey
https://wagingnonviolence.org/2021/02/envision-or-perish-why-we-must-start-imagining-the-world-we-want/  

Money and Soul
My newish 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.


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/   


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)