#225 Alignment

 Dear all, 

I think of three threads from the past month: The first is an uneasy relationship with a “return to normal”. Chuck is steadily getting better, but do we want to go back to all our habits that were broken by his fight with cancer? COVID has eased and opportunities seem to be opening up, but it seems unlikely that the old normal is around the corner.

Then there is spring, which is pure delight (I could go on and on…). And finally, I’ve been aware of the joys of my work in early childhood—building vision and community in a leadership and advocacy fellowship, being part of heartfelt appreciation at an awards ceremony, co-creating stories for our newsletter that give voice to people who are often unseen. I’m noticing my deep engagement in relationships which are foundational to everything.

I could use some help in promoting my writing. If you have ideas about event venues, interview opportunities or effective ways to use social media, or if you’d like to be part of a support/accountability team, please let me know!

And I am taking in the full moon and looking forward to witnessing the sun rise tomorrow morning.

Love,
Pamela




Alignment

With the invasion of Ukraine, a dedicated and powerful climate activist was trying to get her mind around war. Engaging in her own crash course on the military industrial complex and leverage points for change, she was exhorting her considerable following to do the same. To be anything less than powerfully in motion here, she suggested, was to abdicate our inherent power. I couldn’t disagree, but the thought of it just made me tired.

How much force can one person exert against counterforces that are so much bigger? Reaching for a perspective beyond guilt-infused exhaustion, a series of sailing adventure books from my childhood came to mind. Following these children on the water, we learned a lot about the wind. You go fastest, of course, when it’s at your back. But you can still make progress against a headwind. You just can’t do it head on. You have to go at a diagonal, tacking first to the left then to the right, adjusting your sails to harness the power of the wind. This image has its own power, suggesting the potential of alignment with forces that are larger than ourselves.

As I work with this idea, fruitful possibilities begin to emerge. First is an offering from Frederick Buechner: “Your vocation in life is where your greatest joy meets the world's greatest need.” You don’t sacrifice yourself for the sake of a noble cause. Rather, you find the point of intersection where you flourish as you make a contribution to a larger whole.

I think of my longing to put my skills to their best use in the climate movement, and how I found a place offering individual attention to a handful of dedicated young climate activists. I think of the imperative of relating to indigenous rights, and finding my way into a mutually life-giving relationship with a Haudenosaunee community.

I think of my recent struggle to stand with water defenders against pipelines. Putting my body on the line a thousand miles away in the midst of COVID seemed like facing too strong a headwind. Writing a letter to the president seemed so insignificant as to be pointless, but perhaps a letter a day, along with an invitation to others to do the same, would be better than nothing. The practice on my morning walk of reaching for three or four sentences that connect me with native people, one good man and my love for the earth has been unexpectedly grounding. And who knows? That steady drip of loving call to right relationship might even have an impact.

If we’re facing strong headwinds, we need a good and life-supporting boat. I think of my local public banking coalition, and all the ways that group is nourished—by growing friendships, by drawing on and openly celebrating a variety of strengths, by our resident poet’s offering at the start of each meeting. As we navigate the choppy waters and gusty winds of local politics and rigid bureaucracies, the sturdiness of our vessel is no small part of the story.

Speaking of joy, my mind goes to a scrappy group of Quaker-related climate activists who set their sights on our local electric utility and the imperative to transition to renewable sources. One of their actions involved blocking doorways, and they decided to do it with a dance party. So they turned up the music and invited everyone to join in the electric slide.

There are other ways of aligning. Align with the earth, paying enough attention to the turning of the days and the seasons that we are in tune, drawing nourishment and strength, rather than opposing its forces. Align with physics. It’s amazing the size of a rock that can be moved by a strategically placed lever. And we can stay open to the unexpected. Sometimes a fresh breeze might catch us and draw us along, even though that hadn’t been part of our plan.

There may be occasions for just putting our heads into the wind, drawing on all our resources of sheer determination and pushing toward a goal. At times stubborn opposition may be all that we have available to us. But constant straining against overwhelming odds drains both energy and joy—and it’s hard to invite others in.

I can’t mobilize all my strength against every new injustice. But I can decide to look, grab a hand, consider what is mine to love, and seek ways to align with greater forces that are already at work around me. I can find my place in the arc of the universe that bends toward justice. As we practice this alignment, stepping out from under the oppressive weight of obligation and joining with the great creative spirit that is alive in this world, I wonder if this might be the way we get to be our biggest selves.




Oasis

I’ve picked this little triangle
between park and gas station
clean of winter’s trash,
refresh it every morning now.

As I rest in the beauty
I wonder about others
passing by.
Do they notice
what is no longer
there to be seen?

Or is it just a little less 

grit in the shoe,
sand in the eye?




Dare to imagine: A new economy is possible!
Guaranteed income

A universal basic income has been discussed for many years, as the simplest way to address financial need. Experiments in more targeted programs that guarantee income have been tried out in a variety of places over the years, and are becoming more widespread.

A prominent example is the Stockton Economic Empowerment Demonstration, which put $500 a month into the hands of 125 low-income residents of Stockton, California, for 24 months. Data gathered from the SEED project found that the cash significantly helped recipients stabilize their finances, acquire jobs, and improve their mental health, compared with a control group. Two more recent ones in New York City and Atlanta are showing how modest monthly cash payments to low-income women of color can make a huge difference in alleviating race and gender-based economic inequities.

https://www.yesmagazine.org/economy/2022/02/11/guaranteed-income-projects-economy-more-equitable?

 

Some things that have made me hopeful recently:

Successful union efforts at both Starbucks and Amazon that are shaking up power relationships in the far-reaching food service and warehousing industries.
https://www.vox.com/recode/23005336/amazon-union-new-york-warehouse?
https://www.seattletimes.com/business/seattle-starbucks-workers-vote-to-unionize-hoping-to-send-a-signal-of-change-to-the-food-service-industry/

The collaboration of Finnish Indigenous knowledge holders and scientists to rewild and protect peatlands, revitalizing local ecosystems and economies while expanding carbon sinks again.
https://news.mongabay.com/2022/03/traditional-knowledge-guides-protection-of-planetary-health-in-finland/

Examples of indigenous tribes regaining control of ancestral lands—in Virginia and California—with the potential in California of safeguarding old-growth forests and endangered species.
https://nativenewsonline.net/sovereignty/after-350-years-the-rappahannock-tribe-gets-land-back
https://www.goodgoodgood.co/articles/california-redwood-forest-indigenous-guardianship‍

Denver’s program to dispatch mental health teams instead of police, that is so successful that it is expanding five-fold.
https://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/denver-star-program-expands-in-2022/?utm_campaign=newsletters&utm_medium=weekly_mailout&utm_source=23-03-2022

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) 


More 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/  

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
 

#224 Influence

 Dear all,

As health and well-being are steadily being restored on the homefront I breathe more deeply, very aware of others who are not so fortunate. I think of the suffering of war that has broken through into our consciousness, even as conflict is raging in parts of the world that seem too far away to care. I soak up the miracles of spring, even in the midst of ever-more-sobering climate reports. 

With crocuses and daffodils everywhere, trees in bloom, pea seeds in the ground, worms in my good compost, people flocking to the parks, I stick to the promise of life. And, after a misty morning, I hope to catch a glimpse of the full moon tonight.

Love,
Pamela




Influence

I recently spent some time at the end of my morning walks picking trash out of a little triangle at the intersection of two city streets, just beyond the park and across from a gas station and convenience store.  Love had gone into the plantings in the past, but it had succumbed to the neglect that can take over so easily when resources are thin.

It was covered with a thick and ugly layer of trash when I started, the accumulation of months of inattention. I took the approach I learned as a child when we were set out to weed in our lawn: Choose one small area and clean out every single thing that doesn’t belong, then turn your attention to another small area. It took quite a while, but progress was visible and a sense of accomplishment steady. When one morning I was finally done, I looked at this little triangle, now restored to the original vision, breathed deeply, and rested in its beauty.

The next day I was not surprised to see that a few more pieces of trash had accumulated, but the day after, there was a lot! I had a sinking feeling and realized that this might be harder than the lawn, where it takes some time for the weeds to get reestablished. Could it have been the wind? But there was still not too much to fit in one of the little grocery bags I now kept in my pocket. When there was another strong wind one afternoon several days later, I wondered what I would find the next morning—and indeed the little triangle was awash in trash, with most on the side that faced the gas station.

I wasn’t just picking up the trash that people threw in that one place; I was picking up everything that blew in as well. While this could be discouraging, I also had a quite unexpected and somehow bracing vision of my expanding influence. Just by tending that one small spot, I was having a wider impact. How much more of the city’s trash would I be cleaning up?

As I considered other examples of expanding influence, my mind went to the hemlocks around the cabin we share in the mountains of northern Pennsylvania that have been threatened by a small invasive insect. In my search for a way to respond, I came across a group that raises the beetles that are its natural predator—and fortunately don’t eat anything else. We contracted with these folks to provide us with three little populations of beetles for the most vulnerable parts of the hemlock woods, and they seem to be keeping the damage at bay. But what will they do when they have eaten all the insects within range and start to get hungry? I think of all the hemlocks in that part of the state, all facing the same threat, and imagine our little population of beetles spreading out in an expanding circle of influence.

Of course there are more familiar ways of thinking about circles of influence. I’ve always loved the image of the pebble dropped in the pond, and the ripples that spread out in ever-widening circles. There are many ways to be a pebble—sharing a good idea that gets picked up by one’s inner circle, then the circle around them; listening in a way that increases the capacity of others to listen as well; a kindness that touches someone’s heart and encourages them to do the same.

But my trash example is less like a pebble rippling out and more like a magnet drawing in. As I think about it, there are many ways to be a magnet as well. I can be a magnet for good news; a magnet for stories that are attracted to a listening ear; a magnet for things in need of repair. I can be my own personal magnet for wonder and beauty: the more I make space for it, the more I notice.

I haven’t quite worked out the physics of how being a magnet for trash can transform into pebble’s widening ripples of trash clean-up, but I have a hunch there might be a way. In the meantime, there’s nothing to stop us from exploring the limits of our capacity to influence—as pebbles, or magnets, or both.




Tarp

A bundle of old tarp, pulled aside
yields a patch of pale yellow shoots,
a sickly contrast to the hardy green
of those that took in sun
and flourish on all sides.

Each time I pass, they’ve grown
but not in health.
One day I see the slightest hint
of green on those pale shoots.
I wait and watch. Another week
and steadily more green,
and then the buds—
of daffodils.

The sun has done its work,
brought them back
from the living dead
as I, a member of the audience,
cheered on.

 

 

Dare to imagine: A new economy is possible!
Pay for child care workers

Thousands of child care workers in Washington, D.C., will receive checks for at least $10,000 following a unanimous vote by the D.C. City Council to "create an early educator pay parity program that will provide direct payments to employees of early childhood development providers" in fiscal year 2022. The payments will be made using revenue from a tax increase on wealthy households in D.C. that was passed by the city council last year. When they approved the tax increase, the council voted to set aside approximately $53 million of the revenue in the first year to raise pay for the city's child care workforce, which includes more than 3,000 workers.
https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/592466-dc-council-votes-to-send-10000-checks-to-day-care-workers

 

 

Some things that have made me hopeful recently

The passage of a bill creating the Philadelphia Public Financial Authority—the first step toward a municipal public bank—by an overwhelming 15-1 vote.
https://publicbankinginstitute.org/philadelphia-public-financial-authority-bill-passes-in-an-overwhelming-15-1-vote/

The inclusion in President Bidens Infrastructure law of $1.7 billion to fulfill Indian water rights settlements.
https://www.doi.gov/pressreleases/tribes-receive-17-billion-president-bidens-bipartisan-infrastructure-law-fulfill?

Rights of Nature laws: Panama’s new law guaranteeing the nation’s land, trees, rivers, coral reefs and mountains the ‘right to exist, persist and regenerate’; and Ecuador’s court ruling that the mining industry must now prove that its projects won’t harm ecosystems or endanger species.
https://insideclimatenews.org/news/25022022/panama-rights-of-nature/?
https://insideclimatenews.org/news/21022022/rights-of-nature-laws-ecuador/?

Fishadelphia, a wildly creative project in which school students work with local fisher-people on the Jersey shore to provide affordable fresh seafood to their immigrant families and neighbors and others across Philadelphia (started by a friend of mine…)
https://thephiladelphiacitizen.org/fishadelphia/

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) 


More 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/  

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

#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)