Living in this World

#109 Sacrifice

2012-01-30T21:59:00.000-05:00

Dear all,
Well, we're back from British Columbia and a wonderful visit with Andrew and Erin and our new grandbaby--what a a treat!
The poem is an older one, evoking snow, which we haven't had much of this winter. And hopefully it will balance the essay on human sacrifice, which is just a tad serious. But I continue to marvel at how the conversation about economics has changed in just a few months--one of the things I'm finding most hopeful these days.
Love,
Pamela

Snowed in

Walk to the farmers market at the park
in freshly-falling snow
Bring home potatoes and parsnips
in the pack.
make fruitcakes & potato filling,
Set off for the Messiah sing
in dark and ever-deepening snow
picking through drifts,
raising voices that each count
when most are caught at home.

Snow falling all night
car buried in unplowed street
shovel the walk a third time, then
potato filling balanced in a basket on the arm
set out through knee-deep snow
hoping for the trolley
walking, looking back
then climb gratefully aboard
enjoy the service, the singing, the holiday meal
with those who ventured out
and found their way.

Snow day—stay late in bed
walk to the used bookstore
choosing the route most shoveled,
gather for evening class
with those who can walk.

Visit an elderly neighbor, then
bake a great batch of cookies
fill sixteen little bags
tie with bright ribbon
walk the neighborhood
to storefronts where we’ve shopped
throughout the year,
in snow and winter sunset
giving blessings, getting as much
or more.

As life returns to normal—
cars, work, rush—
give thanks
for these four days.

Human sacrifice

Most of us would see the ability to choose to sacrifice as a good and human thing. I can sacrifice immediate pleasure for a longer-range goal. I can sacrifice what I want for myself in the immediate situation because I see the more pressing need of somebody else. I can sacrifice a cherished dream that is no longer possible without contaminating my future with bitterness. I can cheerfully sacrifice convenience and comfort when community wellbeing or justice calls for it. I can even sacrifice my life, if necessary, in service to a higher good. Though not limited to our species, this seems to be a very human quality.

Of course sacrifice can go to extremes. There is a habit of self-sacrifice, of never acknowledging our value and always putting the perceived needs of others first, in a way that is ultimately helpful to no one. But in general we would choose to hang out with people who have the capacity to make sacrifices; we can trust that they have the larger picture—of not just themselves, not just this moment—in mind.

All of these, however, are examples of people choosing to make sacrifices. It can get a little trickier when the sacrifice is being called for by someone else. If you feel part of that body, it can still work. When the US entered World War II, for example, most people saw themselves as part of that effort. They were willing to make sacrifices—as civilians with fewer amenities and more work, as soldiers with their lives on the line.

But, as our sense of connection to those calling for sacrifice gets thinner, the enthusiasm wanes. At the far end of this spectrum is human sacrifice in the literal historical meaning of the term, where people are thrown into the gaping maw an all-powerful and angry god. Probably few of us would see anything noble or human about this.

It’s not pretty. Those who call for human sacrifice in these situations rarely offer themselves. They are the high priests, claiming to have the ear of the gods, who have gained enough ascendancy over the population, either through sophisticated psychology or coercive threat, that such sacrifice becomes an acceptable part of the religion.

Luckily that’s all way in the past, not something we have to worry about in our enlightened modern era. Or is it? A friend recently suggested—and I have to agree—that we are in the midst of just such a time. The new gods are the financial markets. These “markets” demand billions of dollars from governments to keep them fed, and more and more austerity measures in more and more countries. They must be not only obeyed but placated.

The high priests are the economists and Wall Street gurus. They claim that only they can understand the language of the gods. If we are to have any kind of future, we just have to trust them and do what they say,

The human sacrifice is… us. There may be others in front of us in line—those facing mortgage foreclosures, the unemployed and the poor in our richer countries, and almost everybody in the global south. But the line seems to be speeding up, and the call for human sacrifice on a larger and larger scale is growing. We are being called to sacrifice our jobs, our health, our homes, our very capacity to care for our families, all on the altar of the financial markets. Whole countries are being required to dismantle their safety nets. With gods and high priests like this, no one is safe.

We all do it because this is our religion, and when such big gods are angry, what other choice to you have? The pivotal scene from The Wizard of Oz seems uncannily apt. The Emperor of Oz, the Great and Terrible, is booming terrible commands and smoke is swirling and everybody is shaking in terror, when the little dog pulls back a curtain at the side of the great hall, revealing a little man at the controls of a fancy image-making machine. That clever little man, with the ominous pseudo-reality he has created, is willing to sacrifice everybody else in single-minded pursuit of his own self-interest. Are our high priests of finance any different?

This would be a really good time to pull back the curtain, shake our heads free of the illusion that seems so real, discredit those high priests, and refuse to sacrifice to those gods. Then we could get down to the business of deciding what kind of common good we’re willing to make sacrifices for.

A few things that have made me hopeful recently:

A new baby!

Seattle's ex-police chief, who is now working to end the war on drugs.

President Obama's rejection of a permit for the Keystone XL Pipeline, a decision made possible because of resistance that started in the indigenous communities of Canada and grew into a grassroots direct action effort, joined by a broad coalition of environmental and economic justice groups.

The growing interest in a financial transaction tax, that has the potential to raise billions of dollars, and perhaps discourage the casino mentality in our global financial institutions--at least a little bit.

Check out: www.ourchildrenourselves.org, a home for all the parenting
writing I've done over the past 20 years.

Also: www.startguide.org. START: a way to study and work together with
others to create a better world.

For earlier columns, go to www.pamelascolumn.blogspot.com.
(If the background is too dark to read, I hope you can get a computer whiz
to help--and let me know what you figured out! When I go there on my Mac
via Safari, it's fine.)

If you're in Philadelphia and want to move your money out of a big bank, go
to www.moveyourmoneyphilly.org.

#108 Winter Beauty

2011-12-29T11:27:00.000-05:00

Dear all,
I send a mix of winter beauty, a challenge to think freshly about economics, and some hopeful things. Along with friends and loved ones, and a heart for right relationship, what else do we need?
Love,
Pamela

Winter beauty

Leaves fallen, flowers gone
time to change my route, perhaps
leave the park to barren winter,
zip to work more speedily.

I look with care amid the grays and browns
find leaves of plants that bloomed
so brightly in the spring
now lovely muted reds and greens, soft golds,
Study branches bare against the sky
notice all the seed balls
nature’s quiet decoration,
Come across a bird
perched at the top of a tiny tree
singing cheerily.

Next day the muted colors greet my eye again
and tiny balls in towering sycamores
and all the sky
No bird, but a memory of where it sat and sang
as clear as day.

These spare lines and quiet colors
call for a sharper eye
alert for smaller, subtler signs,
The need to look more closely
calls out more from me
whets the appetite,
To persevere in face of grey/brown scarcity
makes every find a treasure.

These small beauties fill me up
the longer route remains my choice
and I am glad.

DARING TO THINK--
A new economy is possible!

Adam Smith, whose ideas about the Invisible Hand of markets serve as the founding principles of free-market economics, has this to say in his book, The Theory of Moral Sentiments: "How selfish soever man may be supposed, there are evidently some principles in his nature, which interest him in the fortunes of others, and render their happiness necessary to him, though he derives nothing from it except the pleasure of seeing it." "To feel much for others and little for ourselves,... to restrain our selfish, and to indulge our benevolent, affections constitutes the perfect of human nature, and can alone produce among mankind that harmony of sentiments and passions in which consists their whole grace and propriety."

Some things that have made me hopeful recently:

Residents of four New York City districts getting the opportunity, for the first time in history, to be directly involved in allocating more than $6 million of the city’s budget, in a grassroots democratic system that allows anyone to present proposals for improvements in their communities.

The unanimous passage by the City Council of Los Angeles of a resolution calling for a constitutional amendment to end corporate personhood (joining voters this year in Boulder, Missoula, and Madison).

The opening of a window for public dissent in Russia, along with the quiet work of many small groups there: promoting conscientious objection to war and alternatives to violence; supporting immigrants, refugees, orphans and young people with special needs; and strengthening educational and social service initiatives.

The Seattle City Council vote to ban single-use plastic bags from groceries and other retail stores, joining a growing trend among cities that embrace green values.

Check out: www.ourchildrenourselves.org, a home for all the parenting
writing I've done over the past 20 years.

Also: www.startguide.org. START: a way to study and work together with
others to create a better world.

For earlier columns, go to www.pamelascolumn.blogspot.com.
(If the background is too dark to read, I hope you can get a computer whiz
to help--and let me know what you figured out! When I go there on my Mac
via Safari, it's fine.)

If you're in Philadelphia and want to move your money out of a big bank, go
to www.moveyourmoneyphilly.org.

#107 Microorganisms and Fertility

2011-11-30T21:51:00.000-05:00

There’s something about the earth that calls to me. I love the feel of a good rich soil, knowing how it nourishes the plants we depend on to stay alive. I love making compost, finding earthworms, breaking up clumps of soil with my hands to create a bed for new seeds. So I’m thrilled to be reading a book that links the fertility of our soil with our wealth. At one point it talks about all the millions of microorganisms in every little bit of good soil. Those microorganisms have never gotten much respect. Scientists have been much more interested in how adding fertilizers and pesticides can increase yields. But they also know that after a while you have to add more fertilizers to get an increase, and then you have to add even more to maintain that yield, and then, even with such high dosages, crop yields start to decline.

Why? It seems that those heavy doses of fertilizers and pesticides kill off the microorganisms, so you end up with the soil as a sterile medium, useful only for receiving outside inputs and physically holding up the plants. And for some reason, that’s just not enough to make them thrive. Nobody seems to know exactly what all those microorganisms are and how they all work together, but it turns out that they’re critical to the fertility of the soil.

Well, this got me thinking. None of those microorganisms make the difference by themselves. But that big community all working together creates something of enormous value. It reminds me of human communities, creating culture, creating wealth, creating a fertile place for people to thrive. But I worry that we’re losing our fertility. The external inputs that seemed so hopeful when they were first introduced--the consumer products, the commercial entertainment, the advertising--are killing off the vitality of our soil. For a while it seemed like more inputs led to increased well-being, but as the doses got heavier, the rate of increase in quality of life slowed down, and now, despite continued, ever more feverish expansion of external inputs, our well-being is steadily declining.

The loss of good soil is a serious problem; it’s hard to even get one’s mind around the world-wide implications for feeding our planet in the face of such degradation. But I find reason for hope in my compost pile. It’s not impossible to create good soil. It’s not impossible to nurture the conditions that allow those microorganisms to find each other and start working their magic together again.

Similarly, I think we need to take ourselves very seriously as the microorganisms of society. We don’t have to accept our communities becoming an ever-more sterile medium into which ever-increasing doses of mass culture are necessary to prop up ever-more uniform lives. We can build up our resistance to those outside inputs which are poisoning the soil of our communities. We can put our energies to interacting with each other and creating richness from that interaction. The process remains a mysterious one. We may not know exactly how it happens, but it seems to be true that we, working together, with each other, are the only hope for a renewed fertility of our degraded culture.

DARING TO THINK--
A new economy is possible!

Do people need to eat? A recent economic study asserted that, since agriculture accounts for only 3% of some key indicator, losing that sector would not have much impact on the overall system. This scenario--an economy whose numbers stays healthy without agriculture, while its people try to manage without food--is a mind-bender.

We bend our minds, struggling to make sense of these things, when the answer is right in front of our faces, too simple to see: they don’t make any sense. This way of thinking about economics cannot solve our problems. We’ll have to wade in among the experts, brush past the thick curtains of numbers, and demand that our economic system be based squarely on the needs of its constituent human beings.

Some things that have made me hopeful recently:

The continued success of the Occupy movement in bringing economic justice into the public conversation.

The response of the citizens of Iceland to the collapse of their privatized banking system: refusing to take on the debt, launching penal investigations into those responsible, and rewriting their constitution--with popular input--to free the country from the power of international finance. (google "Why Iceland should be in the news")

Elderly Catholic nuns who are well-informed and sharp about international finance, global trade, and liberation theology.

The Philadelphia Orchard Project, that gathers folks in poor neighborhoods of the city to plant little orchards--beautifying their blocks and enriching their diets at the same time.

Check out: www.ourchildrenourselves.org, a home for all the parenting
writing I've done over the past 20 years.

Also: www.startguide.org. START: a way to study and work together with
others to create a better world.

For earlier columns, go to www.pamelascolumn.blogspot.com.
(If the background is too dark to read, I hope you can get a computer whiz
to help--and let me know what you figured out! When I go there on my Mac
via Safari, it's fine.)

If you're in Philadelphia and want to move your money out of a big bank, go
to www.moveyourmoneyphilly.org.

#106 Moving our money

2011-10-25T22:19:00.000-04:00

Dear all,
Well, I've gotten pretty excited about the space that the Occupy movement has opened up to talk about wealth and injustice. I've been providing some hosting at the Friends Center, from whose kitchen 1500 meals a day are going to feed Occupy Philly (and whose single shower is in great demand!). And a group of us from my neighborhood are promoting the "Move Your Money" campaign (http://moveyourmoneyproject.org, or www.moveyourmoneyphilly.org), with a first event on Bank Transfer Day, November 5th. So my post today is in support of that movement.
Love,
Pamela

Moving our money

I remember when the local branch of a big Philadelphia bank moved out of our neighborhood because they just couldn’t make enough profit there to be worth the trouble; a church took over that large imposing space. And I remember when the local credit union finally opened--after long and hard effort by an idealistic group of activists and community members. Inertia kept us with our same checking account so I had to fit bank visits into farther flung trips, but we put our savings into the new credit union.

I remember Linda, one of the original credit union staff people who lived in the neighborhood and knew our growing boys. She always asked about them when I came in, and I remember getting help from her sorting out money transfers when our oldest ventured off to Nicaragua. I remember switching an organizational account from the bank to the credit union when the bank fees for that little “business” account got to be a significant portion of our expenses. There were no fees at the credit union.

And so I straddled the credit union/big bank world uneasily for years. The biggest reason for sticking with the bank, besides inertia, was that there was a convenient branch at my new job downtown, and when I had to deposit cash I knew that the lines at the credit union could be long.

I hadn’t been aware of the banking deregulation that happened so quietly in the 1980’s and 90’s, opening up a world of new ways for banks to make money. But I didn’t like what I saw. I noticed how fees kept creeping up--to the point where they charge you if you come in and use up a teller’s time “too often”. I observed the continuing buyouts of big banks by ever-bigger ones. I thought of all the money they had at hand to pour into their advertising campaigns in an attempt to buy good will, to convince us that they were good neighbors.

Finally, the dissonance got to be too much. I took all our money out of the big bank and put it in the credit union--and immediately wondered why I had waited so long.

I’m getting to know two of the women who have replaced Linda since she retired, and I ask for their help with questions about our sometimes complicated finances. I love being confident that their advice will not be tinged by lust for profit; after all, I’m one of their members. I’m getting the hang of what can be done on line. (My son, back from Nicaragua, has never had his money anywhere else--and has effortlessly mastered doing almost all his financial transactions on line and with his debit card.) I have decided that when I have to wait in line, it’s an acceptable cost of doing business in the neighborhood--I bring a book or visit with others who are waiting with me. I love knowing that my money is staying in the neighborhood as well, and not buying derivatives or credit swaps (whatever they are), or playing a role in nefarious mortgage bundling schemes whose main result seems to be putting people out of their homes, or flying off to pad some distant bank executive’s swollen pay check.

I think of our family’s Christmas tradition of baking an enormous batch of cookies to give to the businesses we are glad to have within walking distance--the corner deli, notary/insurance place, Korean dollar store, auto repair shop, independent gas station and drug store, Chinese take-out place, ethnic groceries. I doubt we would have included the branch of the big bank--but the credit union fits right in.

And that old branch bank, with its imposing façade, abandoned by the street corner church years ago? Well, it’s been bought up by the neighborhood food coop as part of a major upgrade of their services. Maybe the forces of sustainability and local economies--the forces of sanity--are actually starting to get some traction, providing a little hope for this troubled world.

Some things that have made me hopeful recently--

How some of the homeless folks who have been drawn to the food, shelter and safety of Occupy Philly are finding meaningful work in community there, and feeling blessed by that opportunity.

The labor union guy with his wife and three children who came down with a case of water on his shoulder to donate, hopeful about the possibility of transformation, and wanting a way to be involved (and how he stands for countless others).

How the European Union is leading the way in asking the big questions about our future viability as a species on Earth (and, as somebody recently pointed out, how they are working together after centuries of almost constant warfare).

A gathering in Guatemala of folks who lead alternatives to violence and trauma healing workshops all over the world, and how the Indonesian, East African and Latin American folks learned from and supported each other.

Check out: www.ourchildrenourselves.org, a home for all the parenting
writing I've done over the past 20 years.

Also: www.startguide.org. START: a way to study and work together with
others to create a better world.

For earlier columns, go to www.pamelascolumn.blogspot.com.
(If the background is too dark to read, I hope you can get a computer whiz
to help--and let me know what you figured out! When I go there on my Mac
via Safari, it's fine.)

If you're in Philadelphia and want to move your money out of a big bank, go to www.moveyourmoneyphilly.org.

#105 The blessing net

2011-09-30T21:23:00.001-04:00

Dear all,
In a troubled world, I'm finding much to be thankful for--the opportunity to plant fruit trees in community space, ties of family and old friends, exciting sprouts of new relationships, so many people who want to do the right thing.
And I'm remembering that I've been passionate about popular education ever since I came of age; the form it's taking now is how to share what I know about economics in a way that's truly accessible. So I'm going to try something new--a very brief, hopefully thought-provoking, something about economics every month, along with whatever else has been able to squeeze its way into my busy mind--this month a poem about being present on the 64 bus.
Much love,
Pamela

The blessing net

I climb aboard the 64
could continue with my book
decide instead to pay attention,
offering a prayer of “bless and keep”
for everybody on the bus.

The woman in the wheel chair
taking up four seats,
The teens in their school uniforms,
The young mothers with small children,
(ethnicity changing with the neighborhoods,
Black, Spanish, Southeast Asian)
The old Chinese man who struggles with each step
The white man with a caved in face,
as if he’d received a bone-crushing punch,
The older woman who is late to work,
worrying that another wheel chair
will be maneuvered into the bus
slowing her down still more,
The young woman on the phone beside me
pregnant, supporting a man who doesn’t do his share
wondering what comes next.

On the way home,
old men with bags,
young women with scarves,
the crossing guard
with his bike on the front,
but mostly the small boy slumped in the seat
across from me
unhappy, maybe tired or sick,
with a father who watches but does not touch.
Bless and keep.

They are there with me
I welcome them, hold them
then look around and they are gone.
The net of blessing on a bus
is full of holes.
Nothing can be known for sure
about what good it does
except that I am better off for holding it.

DARING TO THINK--
A new economy is possible!

In the first half of the nineteenth century, most people believed that our nation's economy required slavery. It was seen as an unfortunate but necessary evil. Fast forward 150 years. What has taken the place of slavery? What do we see in the structure of today's economy that just as clearly cannot be changed--that is unfortunate, problematic, perhaps even evil, but is a necessary part of the scheme of things? Economic growth? Wall Street? Corporations hard-wired for profit? Could we imagine challenging their necessity, daring to live without them? Let's help each other cultivate the courage and imagination that will make a new economy possible.

Some things that have made me hopeful recently:

The Envision Peace Museum, www.envisionpeacemuseum.org.

A Greenpeace victory, getting Costco, the largest buyer of seafood in North America, to agree to no longer sell several endangered seafood species, pursue better aquaculture practices, and take a greater leadership role in the effort to develop a more sustainable tuna industry.

The growing number of bike trailers in West Philadelphia.

The Inside-Out Prison Exchange Program where college students join with prisoners to take courses together, which now includes more than 120 colleges in 35 states, and has moved thousands of traditional college students to rethink the nation’s approach to criminal justice.

Check out: www.ourchildrenourselves.org, a home for all the parenting
writing I've done over the past 20 years.

Also: www.startguide.org. START: a way to study and work together with
others to create a better world.

For earlier columns, go to www.pamelascolumn.blogspot.com.
(If the background is too dark to read, I hope you can get a computer whiz
to help--and let me know what you figured out! When I go there on my Mac
via Safari, it's fine.)

And I've joined Facebook! We'll see if I can use it as a communications
tool and not get sucked into all the rest...

#104 Protection and Safety

2011-08-30T18:51:00.001-04:00

In a buzz of public conversation not long ago about the danger of contact sports and the long-term health impact of concussions, one comment leapt out at me: football players would be safer from concussion if they didn’t wear so much protective head gear. Back in the early days of the game, with thin leather helmets and everyone’s face exposed, people took more care about how they treated each other. All the padding and grills make players fair game for anything.

I was reminded of how obsessed our culture is with protection. I have a friend who talks about the “protection racket”—and I have to ask, how much of the energy that we put into protection, both physical and emotional, actually ends up making us less safe?

I think of the parents who hover over their children, trying to shield them from all danger--and the children who grow up never having developed their ability to judge risk or respond to danger. Or there are the rules in early childhood program, set up to keep children safe: bleach the toys, sanitize the table tops, eliminate exposure to dirt. Well it turns out that bleach and sanitizers bring their own safety hazards, and without access to dirt, children can’t build up critical antibodies.

Or we wall ourselves into gated communities and become targets, losing access to the connections and relationships that might actually increase our safety in the long run. Or we drill into our children’s psyches the danger of trusting any stranger even a little bit. Their capacity to trust is damaged forever, and many of them end up getting abused anyway by some someone they know--a far more common scenario.

Some of us fear danger and do everything we can to avoid it. Others put all our attention to developing foolproof protections so we can court danger without negative consequences. Both are problematic.

Fear of danger actually increases it. Yellow jackets and dogs, for example, can smell fear and go straight toward it. More generally, when we’re afraid, we’re not likely to be thinking at our best, which makes us more vulnerable. And the quest to develop “foolproof” protections leads us to the irrationalities of fancy headgear and increased concussions, guns in the home and increased gun-shot accidents, an out-of-control arms race and increased global insecurity.

Our urge to protect ourselves and our loved ones is natural, and there are real dangers, but somehow we need to find a third way. I think it will have to be grounded in judgment, engagement and connection. This third way would provide opportunities to take all kinds of (small-sized) risks, where we can build our judgment and confidence. It would include lots of practice in how to defang danger by moving toward it with curiosity and respect. The ultimate goal of any endeavor would be not safety but connection and meaning (with safety taken into consideration along the way). In this third way, good relationships would be recognized as the bedrock of our common security.

If the rules were adjusted so that football could be played again without helmets, my guess is that it would be safer, and just as interesting to play and watch--maybe even more so, since some of the lost blunt force would have to be made up for by added flexibility, intelligence and skill. It seems like a good trade-off in general: fewer fear-based rules and protections, less blunt force, more flexibility and connection, and more real safety.

Burden

Weighed down
with excess from my pantry
on my back

(Word had gone out
the food bank in a local church
was out of staples for the month)

Find the neighbor’s porch
and the big cardboard box

Unload
straighten, stretch
walk home
much lighter now.

Some things that have made me hopeful recently:

A Greenpeace boycott campaign which has succeeded in convincing the largest palm oil producer in Indonesia to announce a plan to protect forests and carbon-rich peat lands across all of its operations.

The enactment this year by Connecticut of the first state-wide law guaranteeing workers the right to earn paid sick days (SB 913).

Wiser Earth, the Social Network for Sustainability (www.wiserearth.org), which has created a database of over 2 million non-governmental organizations world wide working on the challenges we face (check out their short video at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NzMPUKAXM7U).

The on-going protest against social and economic injustice in Israel, with many tents in central places all over the country as focal points for gathering and discussion, and mass demonstrations--initiated and led by young adults and women, and including in one week 3% of Israel, or the equivalent of 9.2 million people in the US.

#103 Eco-vision

2011-08-01T21:20:00.001-04:00

The ecology movement has made remarkable progress over the last several decades in challenging the illusion, driven by the scientific and industrial revolutions, that we are separate from and masters over an external environment. We have not been so successful, however, in challenging the illusion that growing our economy is the solution to all our problems. Yet this economy is exploiting the natural world beyond its ability to sustain itself, while delivering prosperity to an ever-smaller percentage of the population.

By any religious, moral, or ethical standard, our economy should serve all our people, the children who come after us, and the commonwealth of life on which our existence depends. Surely it should not be just to give the wealthiest more wealth and power; to maximize profits by eliminating jobs that people need; to convince us we need things that we are better off without; to strip the earth of its resources, pollute it with our wastes, and make life untenable for the most vulnerable.

I can hardly stand it when people cede all these issues to the economists, and assume that we have no alternatives. It makes me crazy to see us lured to worship a heartless god of materialism when our religious traditions are so much richer. We are imprisoned in a false consciousness, in a framework of beliefs that has no future. More than anything, we need word that there is life outside these prison walls--that another economy is possible.

We need a way to be better informed, enlightened, invigorated and connected. We need to be armed not just with facts, but with an understanding of the flawed foundations of our present failed economic system and the essential building blocks of one with a future. It’s all out there. There’s incredibly exciting thinking and work going on. Most of us just don’t know.

After participating recently on a call of a group of interfaith ecology/economy activists, listening to people pondering what we are capable of pulling off, I had a vision. It’s a vision of an electronic resource/blog/conversation that could become a go-to place for people who have figured out that something is wrong, but don’t know how to take the next step. It would start with the religious community because they have some organization and a constituency that can be called to question false gods and debased values, and to have a heart for justice and God’s creation.

We call it something like ECO-VISION; An Interfaith Voice on Economy and Ecology. New material goes up every day in brief accessible form, focused on finding/creating a way forward. It is organized thematically by days of the week, i.e.
Monday: grounding/philosophy/concepts/ecology-economy links
Tuesday: alternative models that people are trying out
Wednesday: facts, breaking news
Thursday: the next generation; voices of youth and young adults
Friday: policy and action implications
Saturday: reflections/sermons
Sunday: Sabbath rest--no posts

People, or teams, who take responsibility for the content choose the threads they are most interested in (for me, it might be the alternative models), and only have to post once a week. Readers might be initially attracted to just one of the six threads, but then get drawn into others.

I’m excited about this idea--though the voice of my fears keeps insisting that it’s too pretentious or impossible or lame, and that others will just roll their eyes. But I’m trying to listen to my hopes and not my fears. One thing is obvious--that my old habitual mode of sticking to what I can pull off all by myself has to be abandoned right from the start. So I’m asking for your help.

Some questions that come to my mind:
What would improve/strengthen the concept?
Where would such a voice best be housed?
Who else might want to participate?
Who would need to be involved from the beginning to make it effective in reaching broadly?

If you have thoughts, please respond (just to me). I have enormous respect for the power of the stories we tell each other, and see an opportunity here for us to learn new stories and share them in bold hope for the future.

Heat wave

Saturday morning
in the garden
at the crack of dawn—
finesse the heat wave
(watch the sunrise)

Others come
to water, weed and harvest
bend and sweat
all sturdy urban gardeners
who know
you can’t avoid the weather
if you want the food
but you can be smart
about when you’re out.

We chat
just neighbors
tied close this morning
by the choices we have made
about the weather
and the earth.

Some things that have made me hopeful recently:

The decision by city leaders of Cleveland, faced with massive deindustrialization, skyrocketing unemployment and urban blight, to rebuild their local economy by focusing on “anchor industries” like hospitals and universities, and establishing local worker-owned businesses to supply these anchor industries.

A recent vote in Italy, where an overwhelming number of people (96 percent of the 57 percent of the population that voted) cast their ballots for a peaceful future based on shared ownership of water, overturning a law which would have encouraged private companies to buy up public water utilities and have guaranteed them a profit.

The response to tragedy in Norway, where leaders cried publicly and encouraged the enormous crowds who thronged to streets to be close and listen to each other with love and respect and where, rather than demanding revenge against the anti-Islamic offender, a collective agreement was reached to embrace the values that he wished to destroy, by creating an even more open, friendly and inclusive society.

The growing momentum all over the world to mark September 24 as a day to move beyond fossil fuels: www.moving-planet.org

Check out: www.ourchildrenourselves.org, a home for all the parenting
writing I've done over the past 20 years.

Also: www.startguide.org. START: a way to study and work together with
others to create a better world.

For earlier columns, go to www.pamelascolumn.blogspot.com.
(If the background is too dark to read, I hope you can get a computer whiz
to help--and let me know what you figured out! When I go there on my Mac
via Safari, it's fine.)

And I've joined Facebook! We'll see if I can use it as a communications
tool and not get sucked into all the rest...

Hope, fear and change

2011-06-26T08:45:00.000-04:00

Dear all,
After being too busy for months, my schedule seems to be easing a little and I'm basking in the possibilities. My most recent adventure has been exploring the delights of red and black currants, both of which have been ripening in our community garden. I wish you your own delights of summer.
Love,
Pamela

Hope, fear and change

We share a cabin with five other families up in the mountains of Pennsylvania, where deposits of natural gas in the underlying shale have recently become profitable to remove. A whole extractive industry has moved in, gas rights have been bought up, and sides have been taken. The gas industry, going for profit, is working hard to position itself as environmentally responsible. Individual landowners in this poor part of the state have benefited financially by selling gas rights, and unemployment in some places has dropped from 10% to 5%. On the other hand, the threat to the environment is real. Big ugly well pads replace forests and fields, the safety of the water supply is in serious questions, roads are being chewed up by big trucks, and more and more safety hazards, like dust and drill tailing disposal, are coming to light.

Local governments, increasingly recognizing the costs, are feeling caught in the middle. There is conflict both at the state level, where a new pro-business governor refuses to tax the gas industry while cutting funds for environmental protection, and at the national level, where this particular method of extraction--hydraulic fracturing--was explicitly exempted from federal clean air and water standards by the former administration.

Many outsiders who have cabins and hunting lodges in these beautiful mountains, and others who have left the city to get away from it all, have been caught up in the controversy. Our little group held off on selling gas rights for years, finally making the move only when it became clear that our land would be affected just the same by our neighbors’ decisions to sell. After long discussion, we decided to give a substantial portion of that money to environmental groups that could provide some leverage against the weight of the gas industry.

So our extended family’s time at the cabin over the long holiday weekend this spring was framed by the Marcellus shale. An enormous concrete well pad has been constructed in the big field that abuts our land--a jarring sight in this quiet place of fields, farmhouses and forests. Some of our weekend group overflowed into a near-by bed and breakfast, with hosts who are deeply involved in fighting the gas industry. And we started the trip with dinner in the next town with folks from a watershed group to whom we had given money.

I was struck by the difference in tone and strategy between the bed and breakfast folks and the people from the watershed group. The former are devastated. They had been deeply immersed in the project of building their little paradise--a lovely organic farm and hospitality center— far away from the evils of modern society, when the gas industry descended upon the area and threatened to destroy everything. He spends all his evenings researching the environmental problems and sending out warning information to everybody he knows. She bends the ears of her guests, worrying about the future. Both are passionately committed to building up enough local grassroots opposition to halt the gas companies, and have little trust in anybody else to help.

The leader of the watershed group was a county commissioner for many years, and knows this area well. An environmentalist to the core, he also understands the pressures on local officials, and the lure of a promise of jobs. His group’s strategy is to get people feeling more connected to the river, finding small grants for water access projects in struggling river towns, holding a “treasured places” photo contest, planning and improving river trails. As they help people notice and remember their love for this place, they are also putting out a measured position on the dangers of unrestricted drilling and the steps that need to be taken to preserve the value of what we have and love. They are ever more widely connected to a variety of groups throughout the 22-county watershed, and are using some of the money we gave them to establish a more formal membership base--with every member a potential advocate for responsible drilling.

The area encompassed by this watershed is the most deeply conservative part of the state, and activists in the more liberal big cities, working on a variety of progressive causes, have despaired for years over their inability to get any traction here to challenge the powers that be. Yet this modest low-key group is slowly and steadily building a network of engaged citizens who care about their communities, have a vision for the future based on what they love, and know that it’s possible to work together for change.
If I had to choose where to throw my lot, there would be no question. While I sympathize with the bed-and-breakfast folks, their tone of loneliness and desperation, their focus on danger and enemies, fear and loss, hold little appeal. I’d choose the ones who draw people in through connection and love. Not only are they more attractive, but I think they’re more likely to get the job done.

Hush

The back of the house behind us
rotting away for years
is being repaired.

Braced for noise
crude jokes, shouting
profanity in endless streams
instead I find a hush.

Four men in dreadlocks, overalls
work peacefully together
Help is asked and offered quietly
The elder one is sharing skills perhaps
the younger ones receiving
all in tones of deep respect.

Even the sound of power saws
and hammering
can’t drown out
this hum of reverence.

Some things that have made me hopeful recently:

The Nonviolent Peaceforce, which has been recently endorsed by the President of Finland, and received a $1 million grant from UNICEF for their peacekeeping work in the Sudan (www.nonviolentpeaceforce.org).

Leaders in the Kurdish region of Iraq who are building communities for people of different religious and ethnic backgrounds to live together peacefully — even as they contend with threats of violence.

The Philadelphia Water Department, whose master plan for keeping storm water from overwhelming the sewer system depends not on enormous new pipes and holding tanks, but hundreds of small rain-absorbing projects, and higher taxes on impermeable surfaces like parking lots.
(www.phillywatersheds.org/what_were_doing/green_infrastructure)

Dozens of urban farmers and gardeners--working in immigrant community gardens, urban orchards, backyard CSAs, new rec center greenhouses--who gathered recently in my neighborhood to share challenges, resources and a commitment to food sovereignty.

Check out: www.ourchildrenourselves.org, a home for all the parenting
writing I've done over the past 20 years.

Also: www.startguide.org. START: a way to study and work together with
others to create a better world.

#101 Home-made play

2011-05-31T17:03:00.000-04:00

I had offered to do child care for a group of mostly childless young adults,
and it turned out that there was just one five year old boy--and no toys.
So we went to the kitchen--to give the grown-ups as much space as possible
to do their business in peace and quiet--and looked for something to do. He
found the recycling bin under the kitchen table and began exploring its
contents: an egg carton, a yoghurt container, a tuna fish can, one of those
little plastic cups that sauces and dressings for fast food come in, its
lid, and the foil of a candy wrapper.

We settled in on the floor and started by building towers, trying different
arrangements with the containers, and noticing what was the same and what
was different. I discovered that if we opened the egg carton a little and
put it on end, we could make a tall building. He checked out the foil,
announcing that it had been milk chocolate. Though I had never considered
that you could smell the difference in chocolates, as I sniffed I had to
agree. Noticing the strength of the smell, he speculated that it had been
blueberry--one of his favorite foods.

He began making meteorites from the foil, and it was surprising to see how
they shook the tower, but didn’t knock it down. Then the meteorites
transformed into a lumpy monster, putting an (imaginary) passerby in danger.
But the monster bumped into the leg of the table, and we discovered that it
was because the light hurt his eyes and he had to close them when he walked.
He tried again, got bumped again, and died. This monster, whom I had grown
fond of as his vulnerabilities became apparent, transformed into another
monster, this time with a long saber and a distinct head that looked up and
down. Then it grew a tail and transformed into a dinosaur. A tiny bit of
foil that I had put in the little lid on the top of the building became a
dinosaur egg, and the lid became a nest. The dinosaur, which changed fluidly
from ankylosaurus to tyrannosaurus rex, showed an amazing ability to leap
over tall buildings. Several times our tower got knocked down, but luckily
I was able to rebuild it each time.

We had been happily engaged together for about an hour, and had by no means
exhausted the possibilities of this play, when his mom came to find us in
the kitchen and take him home to bed. So we disassembled the tower and put
all the recyclables back in the bin, except for the foil, which was turning
into another dinosaur in his busy hands--way too valuable a plaything to be
abandoned.

I found this short time together on the kitchen floor both totally enjoyable
and vastly reassuring. We had nothing that could remotely resemble a toy,
much less anything that required external power or involved a screen. Yet
what we had was enough. That a 21st century child from the United States
could create such rich and flexible play from these homely ingredients was
enormously hopeful. It was a sign: that the initiative and creativity of
the next generation have not been permanently stunted by our society’s
addiction to consumption, and that it’s possible to downsize without
sacrificing life’s essential pleasures.

Some things that have made me hopeful recently:

The growing network of connections between local farms and food-serving
institutions like schools and hospitals.

The widespread outcry over the cheering at the killing of Osama bin Laden.

Successes in the grassroots effort to integrate a marginal ethnic group in
Rwanda, the Twa, into the life of the larger society.

The increasing number of religious people and institutions that are raising
their voices in a religious/ethical critique of our economic model, and its
impact on people and the environment.

Check out: www.ourchildrenourselves.org, a home for all the parenting
writing I've done over the past 20 years.

Also: www.startguide.org. START: a way to study and work together with
others to create a better world.

For earlier columns, go to www.pamelascolumn.blogspot.com.
(If the background is too dark to read, I hope you can get a computer whiz
to help--and let me know what you figured out! When I go there on my Mac
via Safari, it's fine.)

And I've joined Facebook! We'll see if I can use it as a communications
tool and not get sucked into all the rest...

#99 Common Ground, Revisited

2011-03-31T20:40:00.000-04:00

I had the opportunity this month as part of my job to visit our state capitol and speak with a variety of legislators and policy people about priorities for state spending, and the needs of young children and families in particular. Our state now has a new conservative Republican governor and a majority of Republican legislators, and many people are worried about budget cuts and loss of public services.

In the visits with legislators, it was a surprisingly enjoyable exercise to search for and acknowledge common ground. It was good to see in the flesh people whom I’ve thought of in my mind as the “other” and find them to be warm and distinct human beings. It was interesting to join with them enough to feel comfortable seeing if there were places where I could nudge them a little in the direction of my point of view.

The meeting with the Republican education policy woman, however, was more than enjoyable and interesting--it was like a breath of fresh air! For the last eight years, the state early childhood community has been under the leadership of a brilliant and dedicated progressive civil servant who has built a coherent and comprehensive system, with procedures to shape every last detail and address every contingency. One could say that this is big government at its best--or at its worst. Folks in the field have appreciated the support for quality early education from the state, but chafe under the heavy hand of bureaucracy. So when this woman spoke of flexibility, and streamlining, and respecting people’s ability to do their work, I couldn’t have agreed with her more.

It reminded me of how strongly I identify with many values that are labeled conservative. Live within your means. Don’t waste. Value the virtues of hard work, responsibility, respect and civic engagement. Don’t automatically assume that newer is better. Believe in the ability of individuals to rise above adversity and shape their lives. I too am distrustful of big government, and believe that we do our best when given the space to innovate freely.

This isn’t to say that there aren’t powerful forces at work, way bigger than any human being, that are riding the current wave of energy from the right in order to amass more wealth and power. The small-government, pro-business slant of many individual Republicans is an ideal environment in which giant corporations and Wall Street firms, wired to maximize profits, can grow and consolidate their dominance of our political and economic institutions. Greed is the heart and driving force of our economic system--and this is not benign.

Yet it would be a mistake to lump these powerful and dangerous tendencies with all the good people in our country who honestly believe that we’re on the wrong track and something has to change. I may disagree with their targets. I may define the problem differently and come up with different solutions. I may worry about the forces that feed off their energy and their fears. But so long as I think of such people as “the other”, I can be sure that we will not find our way forward.

Cultivating confidence

I have taken on another infestation
at the point of the 45th St. flowerbed
A nasty weed has taken hold
and now it spreads.

The dirt is soft
I pull out plants
with great long runners
know there will be more
come back in two days
get the ones I missed
come back again to see new sprouts
from hidden roots—
dig out every root
prepare to dig again.

This is a strong resourceful foe
yet I rest in certain confidence
that I will win.
All it takes is patience
decision to take the time
knowing it will not happen
the first time or the tenth
Respecting this weed’s tenacity
and hold on life
but sure that if I hold out
for the flowers long enough
I will prevail

(though other weeds
will come of course—
the larger work is never done).

I like this stand.
Can I transplant it
lend this steady confidence
to other parts of life
where weeds are choking
things I love?
Learn to not succeed
the first ten times
and still go back?

Some things are worth doing
no matter what the odds,
at other points we can’t prevail,
and time is a factor, true—
but with a win on the horizon
it’s not so hard to find the time.

And to see that distant win
requires the confidence
I know the best
when gardening.

Some things that have made me hopeful recently:

A new movement called US Uncut, inspired by UK Uncut, in which tens of thousands of British citizens have targeted corporations that pay no or very low corporate income taxes--pointing out that the cuts would be unnecessary if only the corporations would pay up.

The friendship that has grown between US Senators Al Franken and Ron Paul despite their radically different political perspectives.

How perennial flowers keep spreading and, as they are shared and planted in barren places, how beauty can grow.

Our Journey to Smile, an Afghani youth movement for peace and reconciliation.

#98 Bringing what we have

2011-02-28T22:09:00.000-05:00

One thing about spending two weeks in a poor and oppressed part of a poor African country that has endured twenty years of brutal civil war is that you see a lot of hard things. And one thing about inviting people from such a community to build their skills in telling and listening to each others’ stories is that you hear a lot of hard stories.

It can be confusing to know where to stand. On the one hand, the opportunity to be together is precious, and clearly a gift for everyone involved. On the other hand, my husband and I had the luxury of going back home to comfortable lives in a rich country, and they are left to live with fierce scarcity and uncertain futures.

This is a common experience, repeated tens of thousands of times as westerners venture out to Asia, Latin America and Africa, meet new people, fall in love, come up against the realities of poverty and inequality--and then go home. We want to help. But I’ve become increasingly aware of the many traps that come with people who have more trying to help people who have less.

One way to get those traps more clearly into focus is to check my motivation, and ask myself: Who and what is at the center of my helping story? If I’m helping you in order to relieve my guilt, and I need your cooperation to succeed, then the heart of the story is about me. If I’m helping you in order to confirm my generosity, and you’re a necessary part of that picture, then again the story is about me. If I’m helping you in order to expand my influence and good works, and I can’t do it without you, then the story is still about me.

We may be able to accomplish things that are of use to other people with these as our underlying--and often unconscious--motivations. But there’s a distortion. My gift has strings attached; I need something back. I need your lives to improve so I can feel less guilty. I need your thanks so I can feel generous. I need the project to grow so I can feel influential. On the surface it may look like it’s all about your needs, but really it’s a whole lot about mine.

Over the years I’ve developed a sensitivity to these traps--and am more likely to fall into one all the way at the other end of the spectrum: Since what I have is so clearly inadequate in the face of what you need, I should do us both a favor and keep my distance.

Luckily, I’ve been trying on a new point of view for my life in general, and carried it with me on our trip. What I bring clearly isn’t enough. It won’t come near to solving your problems. But it’s all I have, and I want to be with you. I’d rather face what feels like complete inadequacy than give up on the possibility of being close. Somehow, this focus on choosing for connection and bringing what I have leads me to solid ground.

What we brought to Northern Uganda fell far short of the need we encountered there. We didn’t bring enough money to begin to make a difference. We didn’t have enough understanding of the local situation to be able to suggest viable income generating activities. We hadn’t done enough advance work to line up meetings between local players who might be resourceful to each other. We weren’t there long enough to follow through on opportunities that came up. How could this be enough?

Yet we brought what we had. We did some income sharing with our friend. We brought our understanding of peer listening, and shared everything we knew that could help people heal from war and build resilience for the challenges ahead. We took time at the end of five full days of this sharing to be with those who were most ready to lead, and did what we could to prepare them to take over the work. We listened for more ways we could be of use in the future. Mostly, we paid attention, weaving and strengthening this growing web of connections and support. We were present to people, and their stories and families and gifts. We loved, and took in the love that was all around us. It was way less than what anybody deserved but it was all we had, and I have to believe that it was enough.

A few things that have made me hopeful recently (though you may not need them so much this month, with all the big news from North Africa and Wisconsin of people standing up together to make change):

A program at Swarthmore College that pairs students and blue collar staff for regular paired mutual learning possibilities.

www.ecotippingpoints.org, a website of over 100 environmental success stories from around the world, where "the right 'levers' transform vicious cycles into 'virtuous cycles' that contribute to restoration with as much force as the vicious cycles drove decline".

Check out: www.ourchildrenourselves.org, a home for all the parenting
writing I've done over the past 20 years.

Also: www.startguide.org. START: a way to study and work together with
others to create a better world.

For earlier columns, go to www.pamelascolumn.blogspot.com.
(If the background is too dark to read, I hope you can get a computer whiz
to help--and let me know what you figured out! When I go there on my Mac
via Safari, it's fine.)

And I've joined Facebook! We'll see if I can use it as a communications tool and not get sucked into all the rest...

#97 Weaving a new reality

2011-01-17T18:36:00.000-05:00

Three years ago our family spend three weeks in northern Uganda, visiting with our dear friend Abitimo, supporting her school and her work with AIDS and war orphans, and teaching peer listening skills to a big group of young people who had lived all their lives in the midst of a brutal civil war. It felt like a miracle to have this opportunity, to get to know these young people, to be of use. They, in turn, were thrilled with the healing power of the basic listening skills we offered, and were eager for more.

Then we came home. Through a series of hard and sad circumstances it became impossible to continue relating to the young man who brought the group together, who knew everyone and still held tight to leadership. I had e-mail addresses for only a handful of the people we had been meeting with, and about half of them bounced back.

These folks seemed glad to be in touch, but would usually write about three lines of very generic greetings. In response to my pleading for more news, they would promise to get back when they had more time. While I had first-hand experience of the challenges of using the few internet cafes that were available to them, I hadn’t fully taken in how hard it was to share freely in a second language.

So here I was, thousands of miles away from a group of young people whom I had known for a few short weeks, in thin, infrequent communication with just four young men, who would often disappear for months at a time, out in a village for the summer, or up in the Sudan and away from any computer. It felt like everything that had been real and wonderful and full of life and possibility was slipping away through my fingers, evaporating like the mist. My grand plans for partnering these young people with like-minded folks at home foundered on this lack of contact. I couldn’t get enough news from them to allow me to build on what they were doing. I felt discouraged and useless.

After more than a year--maybe two--it occurred to me that I could offer what I had, whether I knew it was what they needed, or even whether they were getting it. I began writing to everyone I had addresses for every three or four weeks, remembering our connection, sharing a thought about this process of peer listening, wishing them well. I got the occasional three generic lines from one or two of my four, and some of the messages always bounced back. I didn’t take anyone off the list; somehow, deleting a young person who had survived a civil war and had said they wanted to be in touch seemed too harsh, too final.

Though I had virtually no idea what was really going on at their end, I was acting from my end as if they were a group who were in touch with each other, in motion, using what they had learned, eager for more. It felt like trying to weave a reality out of the most insubstantial bits of memory and rare scraps of contact.

As we slowly realized that the time was coming to go back to visit Abitimo, the question of whether anything we had done with these young people had stuck was a painful one to contemplate. And so I wrote again, as if it were real, inviting them to come back together and build on the work we had done.

Simon Peter wrote back saying that he would try to get folks in the school where he taught together and tell others from the group that we were coming. Okello Richard said that his group in the village would like to meet us and learn more. Omona Richard said that his work in the Sudan has been greatly helped by his understanding of peer listening and could we do something there? Abitimo said that Okello Richard had met with her and she was excited about the potential of his group. Omona Richard said that he could come down from the Sudan when we were there. Omony Geoffrey just said how happy he would be to see us again.

We go in a few days. I’m seeing the decision point more clearly. The obstacles to maintaining connection over all that distance and all those years were overwhelming, and I could have bowed to that reality and let it go. But I decided to keep weaving. I used the strongest and best thread I had, others kept throwing me all the threads they could manage, and together we wove something of substance. As I consider this story, I have to believe that when we keep acting as if what we hope for is real, we change reality.

A few things that have made me hopeful recently:

How non-violent training has diffused potentially deadly cattle disputes in Sudan,

The passage by Congress of the Cobell trust fund case, clearing the way for half a million Native Americans to receive the money that the federal government has owed them for many years for the use of their land,

A young man from a poor farming family in Malawi who got books out of the library, scrounged trash heaps and made a windmill (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=crjU5hu2fag&feature=related),

Thousands of Egyptian Muslims who showed up at Coptic Christmas eve mass services in churches around the country and at candle light vigils held outside, to protect them from the threat of Islamic militants and support religious tolerance in their country.

#96 What rings true

2010-12-24T08:48:00.000-05:00

Every now and then I find myself engaged with life in a way that seems just right. I have a human interaction that is clear and connected, and deeply satisfying. I pause when I walk under a tree, taking in the colors and light and shadow that the sun and leaves create. I extend the life of something old and functional with a careful mend. I do a piece of work that matters, and clearly has my name on it. I take the hard next step, that’s waiting to be taken, in a friendship. I transplant a flower to give away, using my good compost. Something about what I’m doing rings true.

What rings true? I’m thinking that this is a powerfully illuminating question to bring to all parts of our lives. We could start anywhere. Take, for example, what we eat. Can I think of an experience with food when I sensed something deeply right? What were the ingredients that made it that way? Or take gift-giving. When has a moment in that emotionally-charged mine-field rung true? What made it right? When has my mind been clear? When have I had an interaction, no matter how simple, that I’d be happy to live over and over again? What made that possible?

A bell can’t ring true when it is covered or padded or stuffed. It can help to get down to the bare bones of the matter. What clutters our minds? What messages have we taken in (from our childhoods, from advertising, from society at large) that muffle the truth? What has accreted to our social institutions that keeps us from discerning their true vocations? What layers of history and privilege and inequality obscure the possibility of respectful and mutual friendship in any situation?

I’m an enormous fan of a colonial Quaker, John Woolman, who advises us to “Dig deep... Carefully cast forth the loose matter and get down to the rock, the sure foundation, and there hearken to the Divine Voice which gives a clear and certain sound.”

What if the central principle for organizing our lives was moving ever closer to what rings true? It can be discouraging to notice how much of our time is spent elsewhere. We know what we’re doing doesn’t ring true, but it’s hard to see an alternative. Or we try to get some relief from that tinny sound with activities that are supposed to be pleasurable or comforting, but then those activities--often some form of addictive behavior--don’t quite ring true either. The relief doesn’t really satisfy, and it’s hard to know where to turn.

Just identifying this as something we want, however, and being able to recognize the moments when we’ve had it, is a big step forward. I smile as I imagine us counting up the minutes that ring true in our lives--just two minutes this day, maybe seven the next--and then reaching for more.

I think of a wise friend who is gifted with parents and children. The times that are truly golden, she says, come when you’ve played with a child in enough different ways that you can find a spot where they laugh openly and freely--then you stay at that spot, and they laugh and laugh. We don’t have to just wait for a miracle to hear the ring of truth more often in our lives. We can remember those moments, and value them. We can look for where they most reliably happen. We can talk with our friends, and get help working to reproduce the conditions that encourage them. We can dig away at the stuff that muffles them. There may be no work that’s harder--or more worth doing. And maybe, as we keep trying, it will get less hard--and we’ll hear that ring of truth in our lives more and more.

Some things that have made me hopeful recently:

President Obama's refusal to give up on the START Treaty, and the Senate's ultimate passage of the treaty, reducing tension between US and Russia.

The revocation of a multi-million dollar casino license in Philadelphia--perhaps the first in the country--after five years of struggle, started by a tiny community-based anti-casino group.

The growing availability of not only vegetables but local eggs and honey right in my urban neighborhood.

An American nun who helps support a group of Rwandan woodcarvers by selling their work--and thousands more like her.

#95 Come

2010-11-30T21:08:00.000-05:00

This stretch of road
calls out in many languages:

Be here for the exercise
Smooth roadside surface
flat and humble countryside
of woods and fields
invite a walk.

Be here for the beauty
subtle in its plainness
colors of late autumn now,
soft and sun filled, hard to name.

Today the call is new,
compelling: Come
Be here for community.

Come be with the Pines
whose sharp needles in blunt narrow fans
create an airy solid whole,

Be with the Big-leafed Trees
as their leaves take off into the wind
to meet the earth,

Be with the Birds
a hidden rustle in the brush
till eye picks out the moving brown and white,

Come bring your species in
your Mammal skin
awareness that is yours alone.
Turn that awareness not away
but toward your place
in this community of life.

Come.

Some things that have made me hopeful recently:
--How Thanksgiving continues to resist the forces of commercialism that have taken over so many other US holidays.
--Clerks who are kind even when the lines are long and people are impatient.
--All the Macedonians who came out one day this month to plant seven million trees.
--A Honduran minister who moved from a suburban church to one of the poorest neighborhoods in Philadelphia and is living out the core message of Christianity among his parishioners.

Check out: www.ourchildrenourselves.org, a home for all the parenting
writing I've done over the past 20 years.

Also: www.startguide.org. START: a way to study and work together with
others to create a better world.

For earlier columns, go to www.pamelascolumn.blogspot.com.
(If the background is too dark to read, I hope you can get a computer whiz
to help--and let me know what you figured out! When I go there on my Mac
via Safari, it's fine.)

#94 My Indonesia Story

2010-11-04T14:38:00.000-04:00

I’ve never been to Indonesia. I’ve never met anybody who lives there. But, with a friend who was there for years and has been back many times, I do have my own story to tell.

Nadine and I met through a leap of faith. I offered her and her eleven-year-old daughter a place to live in our home, sight unseen, she accepted, and we discovered that we were sisters of the heart. As we grew deeper into each others’ lives, even after she moved hundreds of miles away, I took in more and more of her story.

I’ve heard the joys and struggles of her work in Indonesia and with her family and community at home, stood by as she faced forks in her road, joined in wrestling over knotty issues of power, inequality and conscience, listened out greater clarity and gathered others to listen, added from my experiences, offered suggestions of ways to move forward, written and shared what I’ve heard and come to know, been an anchor at home as she’s traveled.

Most simply, my story is one of friendship. My community now includes people I’ve never met, because they are connected to Nadine and she is connected to me. There is Dahlan, who has built a structure beside his little fish farm to house people who come to Alternatives to Violence workshops that he helps lead in his community. There is Ririn, an early childhood teacher, who is doggedly pursuing her degree with the goal of starting a trauma healing center. There is Pak Darmo, who heads a refugee camp and is helping his community learn to farm without destroying the rain forest where they are located. There are the women in the refugee camp who now staff their new preschool as volunteers. There are the poor neighbors who brought food and water to shipwrecked refugees who were even more in need. There is Yuyun, who was taken off the street to clean for a human rights group--and is now using his artistic abilities to illustrate children’s books for pre-schoolers. I am richer for having all these people--and so many more--in my life.

This is also a story of opening up to new ways of knowing myself and seeing the world. Nadine’s insistence that I write my own statement of conscience clarified my conscientious objection to our deeply flawed and damaging economic system. I’m more actively engaged with questions about rich people interacting with poor people: When does foreign aid that outstrips local capacity do more harm than good? When is it patronizing to give money when people can earn it themselves? What kind of work should always be volunteer, regardless of one’s ability to access resources? When the goal is to help build a community’s strength, is it ever wise to accept money that demands particular project outcomes? When does a big investment in one person damage their relationships with their peers?

My mind is busy with Nadine’s big “new idea”: through the three-legged stool of practicing conscience, nonviolence/trauma healing, and developmental play, people become clear and strong enough to pursue healthy lives and choices that make peace with the earth as well as each other. I continue to be challenged by her demand that whatever she does or asks of others in Indonesia, she does and asks of herself and others at home.

So I find myself part of a growing web of relationships and initiatives, that offer group training in non-violence and trauma healing, support developmentally appropriate pre-schools, work on the production of ceramic water filters, help refugees establish land claims, provide technical and marketing assistance to wooden block makers, bring Christians and Muslims, Acehnese and Sumatrans together, help in healing from civil war, make story books for little children, and call all of us to lives of integrity.

This is a story I’m happy to tell. It is a story of friendship. It is a story of hope, when hope seems in critically short supply. It is a story of possibility--of what can happen when people follow friendship, follow conscience, and believe in our capacity to transform our lives and the communities of life around us.

For more information: www.consciencestudio.com/index.php?q=indonesia

Viewing options

A moralizing mama
from a children’s book
firmly bans the TV and
invites her brood
to sit outside
and watch the stars come out.
What red-blooded American child
would stoop to such a trade?

Our friend shows me her vegetables.
A terrace at the garden’s edge
has four chairs facing to the hills.
Unusual.

The dad goes out for dinner lettuce,
calls "Come here
there’s something you have got to see.

We all rush out,
find a spot
on chair or ledge behind.

Six red-blooded American teenagers
and four parents
hang out
among the vegetables
in deep content,
watching the sun
as it sets in all its glory
behind the distant hills.

Some things that I've found hopeful recently:

Roberto and Alfredo, two young men who grew up on the streets of Nicaragua and were helped by my son and others to come of age, proudly telling of how they're giving back by helping children in their neighborhoods to be on a team and learn a trade.

How the Transition Town movement, a response to peak oil, is demonstrating potential for building community and helping people gain skills in resilient living in towns all over England and the US.

A retired county planner in north central Pennsylvania who is responding to the economic and environmental challenges of gas drilling in his region with deep wisdom, compassion, resourcefulness, and creativity.

Jon Stewart and the power of laughter.

Check out: www.ourchildrenourselves.org, a home for all the parenting
writing I've done over the past 20 years.

Also: www.startguide.org. START: a way to study and work together with
others to create a better world.

For earlier columns, go to www.pamelascolumn.blogspot.com.
(If the background is too dark to read, I hope you can get a computer whiz
to help--and let me know what you figured out! When I go there on my Mac
via Safari, it's fine.)

#93 Imagining a New Thing

2010-09-27T22:12:00.000-04:00

"It is easier to imagine the end of life on earth than a new economic
system; this is a lethal failure of the imagination, and an indication of
how much the system has us in thrall."

I am still stunned by the truth, and horror, of that first phrase. Our
growth-driven economic system is leading us toward environmental
destruction, yet we’ll go along with this nightmare, simply for lack of
imagination. It gives me a new perspective on the people who believe in
rapture and the end days. If you are a good person trying to do the right
thing, yet everything around you seems to be falling apart, it may be easier
to imagine the end than change here on earth. And if you are around
passionate people with vivid imaginations who paint a compelling picture of
how the rapture will play out, it becomes that much easier to believe.

Yet people have been prophesying imminent apocalypse in vain for well over
2000 years, and I’m much more interested in life here on earth. So I’d
rather imagine a new economic system instead, and paint a different picture
that’s equally passionate and compelling.

Luckily it’s not that hard. There are lots of people all over the
world--including economists--who are busily engaged in imagining a new
thing, and there is a growing consensus about many of its elements: a
reorientation from a focus on producing money to a focus on producing goods
that people need; measuring our economic health not by the sum of all
economic activity, good, bad or indifferent, but by how well people are
doing; moving from growth in consumption and scale to growth in knowledge,
technical ability and flexible intelligence; production methods that move
beyond waste, so that by-products of one process become valued inputs
somewhere else; a regulatory and tax system that works toward equity; an
emphasis on the value of community and caring, and local ability to produce
wealth and meet human needs.

Yes, yes, you may say, that all sounds very good, but it will never happen.
I would quote, in return, the wise person who said that despair is an insult
to the future. And, anyhow, where does despair get us besides what our
current society has to offer--endless consumption and entertainment, or
individualized pursuit of a private good life, or embracing the rapture? At
least the work of imagining, both what could be and how it might come to
pass, provides some meaning.

It isn’t work that’s easy. The institutions and powers that seem to have
society in thrall, moving us inevitably toward destruction, are immense.
Wall Street blatantly protects its power and greed. Politics is
increasingly devoid of civility or cooperation. The solutions the system
creates for the problems it has produced just seem to breed bigger
problems--all at the expense of the environment. If this is all we focus on
when we look out, the end days could easily be right over the horizon.

I’m helped here by a concept I came across from theologian Walter Wink, that
every human institution has a divine vocation. They may have strayed from
that vocation, but it is still there to be found. Politics has a vocation
of providing a structure that allows people to live together. Economics has
a vocation of creating a way for people to meet their needs. It is our job
to call our institutions back to their divine vocation. If we can choose
this role, of imagining what our institutions are really there to do, and
calling them home, we will find ourselves in a new place of power and
authority.

The times call out for us to imagine the future as if our life, as if life
on earth, depended on it. But we can choose a different, even more
compelling, motivation. We can engage in this work because imagining a new
thing is at the very heart of what it means to be human.

Stranger

In the corner of the compost
is a stranger.
Home from travels away
I find the exotic waiting
in my tiny yard.

The compost has never
been strange before--
egg shells
vegetable waste
weeds and leaves
the occasional sprouting potato
all common,
familiar as my hand.

Yet this tall foreigner
has boldly taken residence
Long pointed leaves
dark and shiny
the new ones translucent
almost red--
of royal blood perhaps?
I’m not sure how to behave
in its presence.

I get a pot
prepare it to receive the visitor
and carefully
begin to dig.

As I work through layers of waste
I find the seed
key to this mystery--

I am hosting
a mango.

Some things that have made me hopeful recently:

The opening of four short films, done by community groups with the help of a
community media organization--focusing on a grocery store coop in a poor
city without a supermarket, a vibrant neighborhood self-help group, women
working together to get their children out of foster care, and teens working
to keep juveniles out of adult prisons--followed by heartfelt and
mutually-appreciative discussion among the filmmakers and audience.

A federal grant to create a big research hub focused on sustainable
building, energy use and rehabbing technology at a long-unused naval
shipyard--the ultimate conversion from military to peaceful production.

Indigenous environmental wins, gathering allies across the world through
electronic communication--including a tribal group in India protecting their
land from a bauxite mine.

The recognition by 300 international scientists that efforts to protect the
ozone layer have been a success, with a significant decrease in the ozone
layer depletion in the past years.

#92 City Harvest

2010-08-31T22:28:00.000-04:00

City Harvest

Graterford Prison
heart of urban despair
old greenhouse brought back to life
Large hands
unused perhaps to nurturing
put seeds in tiny pots
tend sprouts and fresh new growth

Then say goodbye to healthy seedlings
with regret, perhaps
and send them out into the world
where neighbors work in city garden plots
to plant them in good earth
weed, water, watch them grow.

Our garden is among the hosts.
The man who works our City Harvest plot
is finding unexpected joy
in growing food to give away
(I tend the flowerbed in front).

Early on a Saturday
I find him there at work
hoping for an extra hand
and gladly drop my private task to help in harvesting
kale, collards, broccoli.

They’ve grown so big and beautiful
and when I put them in the tub
and gently push the great leaves down
until the water covers them
they shimmer with silver lights
in beauty that astonishes.
It is a mystery, a sacramental task.

I add a batch of flowers for the alter
and off they go to the little storefront church
where good food will be greeted with delight
and given out to those in need.

A sacrament, in truth, at every step
from their first start as seeds
in gentle hands at Graterford.

Good Air

A woman with a damaged mind
sits in the front seat of the 34
Silent for the most part, when alone
Loud, insistent, inappropriate one-on-one.

Regulars, for the most part
know to steer clear
Giving up the chance to sit
for peace of mind.

An unwitting traveler at times
is lured by the empty seat and trapped
Victim to a barrage
of loud demands.

But there are times of unexpected grace
when someone takes that seat
and knowing or unknowing what’s in wait
is kind.

The flood of words, slurred and hard to understand
meet patient warm respect.
Demands are courteously turned aside.

The world shifts.
A sweet fresh breeze
wafts from that troubled seat.
Tensions ease all round
and everyone drinks deep
of that good air.

Some things that have made me hopeful recently:

A great barren area of China transformed to green by systematic tree-planting and terracing to capture the rain water (see "Hope in a Changing Climate").

A new city-wide system of weekly curbside single stream recycling, including all plastics (even if your town already has it, for Philadelphia, this is huge).

A 150,000 member food coop in South Korea where mutual understanding has grown to the extent that farmers argue for charging less and consumers argue for paying more.

A successful legal challenge to the flood of mortgage foreclosures, based on the argument that the electronic holding entity, which financial speculators used for convenience in bundling and betting on their value, couldn't prove legal ownership of individual deeds.

#91 Mastery

2010-07-20T20:56:00.000-04:00

Dear all,
I missed being in touch in late June, but we had computer problems, and then life intervened... But here I am with a thought about mastery and a poem about food and sacrament and four things that make me genuinely hopeful--even though there's lots that I could be discouraged about. I hope you're making a point to tell others what's making you hopeful as well.
Love,
Pamela

Mastery

Master seems to be something we as human beings take to naturally. As children we are deeply and innately engaged in mastery--first of our internal functions, then of mobility and speech, and then of whatever else we have access to. In our school years we have the opportunity to master more skills and information. Our entire childhood is one great exercise in self-mastery.

We can see mastery in the history of our species as well. When we learned to plant crops, there came the opportunity to settle down and store a little extra, freeing up some members of the community to engage in activity separate from survival. More and more inquiring minds gathered more and more information about the world, leading to the explosion of knowledge of the scientific revolution, and our current belief that we are infinitely capable of mastering all aspects of life on this planet.

It’s not surprising that a little mastery gives us a taste for more, nor that such a desire can be abused. We see this directly when one person or group exercises mastery over another--in child or spousal abuse, in enslavement, colonization, and dictatorship. We see it more subtly in how advertisers master our emotions to sell us their products, or how spin doctors master the presentation of information to suit their ends. What is natural and benign in an infant’s exploration of self becomes problematic when this power is exercised over another.

Perhaps even more problematic for the future of our species is the idea that we can be masters over the earth itself. As we’ve come close to making our planet uninhabitable in this endless lust for mastery over, we may finally be realizing that stronger forces are at work here, that the earth needs our species less than we need the earth. As we reach that limit of mastery over, we may be in a teachable moment, with the opportunity to learn self-mastery in a whole new way.

An understanding is growing among us that our species is inextricably intertwined with innumerable others that, together with the earth, make up the web of life that supports us all. It that way, we are one body. And like a child that has just been born, advanced western civilization is new to this body. We don’t have much experience with how it works as a single system--and we have much less control than we would wish. It’s hard to figure out all the different parts, how they are connected, and how to make them work together in a way that supports life in the long term.

Now here is a situation crying out for self-mastery--and the good news is that the untapped potential is enormous. So long as we can remember that we’re one body, the likelihood of abuse drops, while endless vistas of opportunities for self-mastery--more than the most adventurous infant could hope for--open up before us.

City Harvest

Graterford Prison
heart of urban despair
old greenhouse brought back to life
Large hands
unused perhaps to nurturing
put seeds in tiny pots
tend sprouts and fresh new growth

Then say goodbye to healthy seedlings
with regret, perhaps
and send them out into the world
where neighbors work in city garden plots
to plant them in good earth
weed, water, watch them grow.

Our garden is among the hosts.
The man who works our City Harvest plot
is finding unexpected joy
in growing food to give away
(I tend the flowerbed in front).

Early on a Saturday
I find him there at work
hoping for an extra hand
and gladly drop my private task to help in harvesting
kale, collards, broccoli.

They’ve grown so big and beautiful
and when I put them in the tub
and gently push the great leaves down
until the water covers them
they shimmer with silvery lights
in beauty that astonishes.
It is a mystery, a sacramental task.

I add a batch of flowers for the alter
and off they go to the little storefront church
where good food will be greeted with delight
and given out to those in need.

A sacrament, in truth, at every step
from their first start as seeds
in gentle hands at Graterford.

Some things that have made me hopeful recently:
--The proven potential of early childhood initiatives to play a role in peace-building in the larger community, in places as diverse as Albania, Indonesia, Chad, Columbia, and Bosnia-Herzogovina.
--An older farmer in Ohio who has switched his dairy cattle and chickens to grass feed, and is discovering the joys of improving the soil, increasing water absorption, hearing the birds, and seeing a future for his farm and farm family.
--Libraries, serving people in so many ways and places throughout the world, especially (in my consciousness this week) those in Bogota, Columbia and Philadelphia.
--A growing system of Riverkeepers, community groups who have banded together to clean and protect their watersheds.

NEWLY AVAILABLE: A resource packet on Faith and Economics, which I
developed for my denomination:
http://www.pym.org/pym_wgs/comments.php?id=5918_0_296_0_C.

Check out: www.ourchildrenourselves.org, a home for all the parenting
writing I've done over the past 20 years.

Also: www.startguide.org. START: a way to study and work together with
others to create a better world.

For earlier columns, go to www.pamelascolumn.blogspot.com.
(If the background is too dark to read, I hope you can get a computer whiz
to help--and let me know what you figured out! When I go there on my Mac
via Safari, it's fine.)

#90 Gifts from Grammy

2010-06-01T22:05:00.000-04:00

Every morning at breakfast she prayed
a serious intention, to reflect
the love she had from God
in everyone she met.

Where others might have judged, she loved.
Three grown grandsons
coming through the doorway
of her well-appointed home—
bleached spikes
curls down the back
full beard--evoked delight.
How handsome my grandsons are!

Conservative to the core--
hold fast to that which rings of truth
save that which can be used--
she stayed open to the new.
Boundless curiosity
kept her young and deeply loved.
How did this new card game go?
What was the music that he most enjoyed
and why?

If she could add to the sum
of love and beauty in this world,
she would--
in house and family, garden
visits to shut-ins while she still could walk.
If not, she shared her wonder,
at the vastness of the sky
the mysteries of this gift of life.

When all else had been stripped away
she still could melt hearts with her smile.

So I pray that I might grow
in loving intention
curiosity and wonder,
and be a blessing in this world
like Grammy, in her place forever
deep within my heart.

Some things that have made me hopeful recently:

A new law in Maryland creating a type of corporation whose directors can have legal protection when making decisions to consider not only shareholders' interests but employees, the community, and the environment.

An interfaith peace walk where Jews, Muslims, Christians and others walked to three different places of worship, meeting each other on the walk, and being exposed to the best of each other's traditions.

The converging of the scientific and religious communities as groups that share an understanding of the need to value the environment as the context for life on earth.

Simple acts of kindness--the man on the trolley who gave his seat to the mother with two small children.

#89 Enjoying Enough

2010-04-27T20:48:00.000-04:00

When we have easy access to more than we need, how can we enjoy what we have, and how can we tell when it’s enough? Few of us believe that a fabulously wealthy person needs one more excess to tip him from dissatisfaction to happiness, yet we haven’t worked out that equation for our own more modest lives. And the work of recognizing “enough” may be more important than we know, as we come up against the limits of our planet’s resources.

I’ve been noticing recently how this plays out for me with food. When I stepped on a scale recently, I was dismayed to see a number I hadn’t seen since pregnancy. Usually I set aside a quiet week or ten days in the summer for very disciplined eating to lose the weight that has accumulated over the year. But I didn’t get around to it last summer and I definitely indulged over the winter, so I started my eating discipline earlier than usual, with a bigger goal.

Part of me wants to be rigid and put absolutely no carbs or sugars into my body, and get that that weight down fast. Yet I find myself experimenting. Somebody bought some tasty-looking crackers and left them invitingly on the kitchen counter. So I filled a tall glass of water, took one little cracker, went to the office, and proceeded to eat it, very slowly. It was tasty--every single tiny little bite. I felt like I’d given myself the full cracker experience, without sacrificing my goal. The same has been true for chocolate chips, my main sugar indulgence at home; a single one can provide a powerful long-lasting chocolate taste. Four chocolate chips in a day, enough to fully satisfy my craving for indulgence if experienced fully, won’t set me off track.

Even though the quantities are much smaller, I am getting the same amount of enjoyment out of things that I love--or maybe even more--simply by putting more attention to enjoying them--and I’m losing weight! I have to wonder: could this be true for other people and in other parts of our lives? Of course it’s easier to see our excess weight as a problem that we’re motivated to do something about than our excess shoes, for example, or excess stuff, or excess hours of being entertained. But I think the principle is the same.

If we can’t pay attention to enjoying what we already have, then going for more is probably a waste of resources--because we’ll keep seeking fulfillment through the getting rather than the enjoying, and it will never feel like enough. This is bad for our own well-being and, multiplied by millions of fulfillment seekers, bad for the future of our spaceship earth.

Some people in this world don’t have enough to lead decent healthy lives, and they really do need more. But for most of us, the path to feeling like we have enough lies more in our attitude and where our attention goes than in greater consumption. Maybe we’d actually be helped by more scarcity--if there’s only a little bit, then our only path to happiness is to enjoy it a lot!

Garden help

I met her at an urban green skills workshop in the dead of winter
She wanted to start a garden
involve the children of the neighborhood
but had no space.
I introduced her to some people in the know
got her number, said I’d love to help...

A young woman I met through my son
lives in a blighted part of town
next to an empty lot,
was doing what she could to make a garden grow.
Vacant lots call out to me.
I dreamed of taking time off work,
digging, getting compost,
bringing life into a barren place.
I said I’d love to help...

I did free up a morning
found her blighted neighborhood and lot--
and deep rich soil.
No need for compost here, or elbow grease
Someone else had done the heavy work.
I settled in to help her weed.

A friend of hers came by
she’s making gardens, raising food
in neighbors’ yards
giving them a share and marketing the rest
I took her card, and said I’d love to help...

I call the green skills woman--learn she has her lot!
She’s also flown out to Wisconsin
learned at the feet of a master urban gardener
met a man who wants to fund her dream
greenhouse and all. She’s done the work.
All I can give is pleasure at her news.
We say we’ll stay in touch.

I go the website of the backyard farmer
looking for a match that fits my life.
They want perennials--flowers to go with food.
I have plenty to share, write a note
wonder if she’ll get it, or respond.

The days go by. I dig and weed and plant familiar ground
long past the days of rubble and abandonment.

She writes back, thanks me for my warmth
says they’d love my extra plants!
I gather pots and compost, dig out the black-eyed susans
that have multiplied so happily and overrun their space.

Those black-eyed susan plants,
a little weeding in good soil,
some warm words and encouragement—
what a paltry set of offerings
compared to my great dreams
of helping nurture life in barren ground.

I could despair, am tempted to, and yet
there’s goodness all around
and seeds of help are mysteries.
I cannot know how long they take to sprout
how much they spread, what kind of fruit they bear.
It’s mine to cultivate the longer view,
to sow and water, and to wait
trusting good seeds in good soil to grow.

Some things that have made me hopeful recently:

That neighborhood woman who is farming in people's backyards and vacant lots in a blighted part of the city, giving them some of the harvest and making the rest available in the community.

Jimmy Carter severing a six-decade religious affiliation over their unequal treatment of women.

Maryland Governor O'Malley's recent announcement of the launch of the Genuine Progress Indicator (GPI), an alternative economic indicator to the GNP that will allow the state to keep track of which activities actually contribute to quality of life--and which detract from it.

A woman who is passionate about respecting and helping teen mothers--and millions of others like her.

Good intentions

2010-03-28T21:53:00.001-04:00

At an unfamiliar church service recently, while not feeling at home with the rituals or theology, I found myself noticing all the ways it encouraged good intentions. The words of the prayers and hymns directed us toward lives of committed love and service, the sermon invited us to open and rededicate ourselves. Even the architecture and stained glass called us to connection with centuries of gatherings of the faithful. I was glad to be called in this direction--and wondered, as I have often before, how well such intention gets translated into action.

I was reminded of a new sister-in-law who has been explicit about valuing intention. I had agreed to do something important with her once, then wasn’t sure I could stay awake. She encouraged me to sleep, saying that she still felt joined and supported by my intention. I found this comforting, but also puzzling. Can an intention be equal to an action?

I’ve certainly known people who seem to feel that way. They will proudly announce a virtuous plan of action, and I can tell how virtuous they feel in the telling of it. I also know, from being around them afterwards, how, with the plan having assumed a reality of its own, the actual doing of the deed often gets lost along the way. I try not to judge. They may be better off than those whose struggle with follow-through (as in so many New Year’s resolutions) so demoralizes them that they stop trying, and give up on intention altogether.

I certainly struggle. I buy a book that I hope will help with an intention I have, and it lies at my bedside, unread. Or I succeed with an intention, putting a penny in the sharing jar on the bathroom windowsill every time I flush, to remind myself of the gift of running water--till I discover with dismay that the penny is going into the jar without a thought, and my an intention toward thankfulness is becoming just a habit.

Yet without intention, we have nothing. We drift. We react. We take the path of least resistance or greatest comfort. We are led by those whose intention for us is more compelling--for better or for worse. Our best intentions are an indication of our best selves, a trusted source to which we can return again and again. We can take them seriously, and welcome anything that nudges us in their direction. When we fail or forget, we can pass up the seductive invitation to immobilizing guilt--and act.

I intend to back my sister-in-law; if I slept through one opportunity, I will find another. I intend, some day, somehow, to remember what I want in my mind as I go through my day; I can choose to pick up that book--or just see it there--with fresh hope rather than self-abuse. I still want to be thankful, and the penny jar was a good idea; maybe I can find a way to see it with fresh eyes (and just writing this has helped). I can take those Sunday morning messages of faithfulness and committed service and, rather than indulge in cynical speculation about how often their impact lasts beyond Sunday afternoon, open myself to the nudge and be ready to try again.

Equinox

Winter’s end
a tree stands lone and bare
arms outstretched
aglow in slanting sunlight
expectant
ready to receive
new life.

Some things that have made me hopeful recently:
--The Philadelphia Water Department that is thinking pro-actively and creatively about water conservation and greening.
--The Happy Earthworm Ecological Center in a poor neighborhood in Lima, Peru, where a community initiative collects garbage, sorts, recycles and composts, wards off cholera, and pays the wages of two workers from its profits.
--The attention to instant run-off voting, which allows each voter to rank their preferences, that came from using this voting method at the Oscars.
--A little-noted provision in the health-care bill that takes the student loan business away from for-profit banks.

#87 Swimming in the Same Sea

2010-02-28T15:25:00.000-05:00

When I was growing up, there was a pond nearby, and everyone came to the pond to swim. I can remember later, being in an airplane and seeing housing developments spread out below, almost every one with its little dot or squiggle of blue in back--the swimming pool. What we used to do in public, in common water, we now did separately, through our own resources, on our own property. Swimming was becoming more and more individualized and privatized.

When Haiti was struck by a devastating earthquake this winter, I felt that I ought to be grieving more deeply for so much terrible loss than I found myself able to do. I looked for excuses, and they were there to be found: our family was still reeling from a beloved grandmother’s debilitating stroke; a treasured mentor--a giant of a man--had just died; a cherished hope that a loved one would come home had to be laid to rest. I was filled up with my own sorrows. There just wasn’t space for any more

While there was weight and truth to all of this, it didn’t satisfy. It left me too much on my own, too separated from the folks in Haiti, too disconnected from the larger world. As I was reaching for an understanding that I could live with, the image of a great common sea came to mind. What if I didn’t have to think of all these troubles as my own private little pool of grief. What if I could leave my backyard and come out to the sea with everyone else who was grieving all the loss of the world? Then those impossible questions, “Why me?” and “Why them instead of me?” would lose their sting in the recognition that it’s all ours.

It’s not that we want any of it. It would seem that a person could save a lot of heartache by choosing to just stay out of the water altogether, passing up both private pool and common sea. Many of us put considerable effort into creating lives that skirt the edges of heartache. We decide not to look, not to take things in. We close our eyes when it seems like too much. But the price of hardening our hearts is high, and ultimately we don’t have control. A loved one is snatched away and we find ourselves drowning. Or the image of a single desolate child in the news slips through our defenses and into our unprepared hearts. Somehow I think that if we come to terms with the reality that we are going to be swimming in these waters whether we choose to or not, then we can learn to swim well. And if we come to the common sea, if my tears can flow in with the tears of those who lost so much in Haiti, then we can be bound together in our loss.

Maybe it’s really all the same grief. Maybe that string of personal losses just loosened my share of the tears of the world. Maybe those tears flowing down my cheeks are mine to feel, but not mine to possess or control, not mine to ascribe to this particular loss or that one.

The same would have to hold true for love. It’s easy to think of our loves as private affairs. But what if there’s a great sea of love that we all get to swim in? Any loving that I do, then, is part of the great loving of the world. I’m left thinking that who we can grieve for and who we can love is less important than whether we are willing to step into that common sea, and do the big loving and grieving that our world needs.

Red light

Hurry past the food truck
rich aroma wafting.
miss the light
am drawn back
to that tantalizing smell,
Inhale its goodness
savor every big deep breath
of ethnic fast food,
meditate
on what costs money and
what satisfies.

The vendor wonders what I want
I have to say I’ve taken it—
without pay.

Then hear my name
a long-time neighbor
known since he was small
now moved away
buying from the truck.
asks how I am
sends regards to the block.
We smile, remember
all those years.

The light has changed.
I cross through biting wind
savor all the life lived well
in that brief red.

Some things that have made me hopeful recently:

The diversity--and passion--of people who gather together in the urban gardening and greening movement.

The Food Trust, a model for bringing fresh food to poor urban neighborhoods, and one of their members, Jeff Brown, a grocer who just wants satisfied customers.

The opening ceremony of the Olympics, when all the countries march in, and all are respected and welcomed equally.

Moveyourmoney.info, a fast-growing movement to get people and institutions to move their money from Wall Street to independent, community-minded banks and credit unions. (This is a really simple thing that everyone can take action on, and spread the word for others to act.)

NEWLY AVAILABLE: A resource packet on Faith and Economics, which I
developed for my denomination:
http://www.pym.org/pym_wgs/comments.php?id=5918_0_296_0_C.

Check out: www.ourchildrenourselves.org, a home for all the parenting
writing I've done over the past 20 years.

Also: www.startguide.org. START: a way to study and work together with
others to create a better world.

For earlier columns, go to www.pamelascolumn.blogspot.com.
(If the background is too dark to read, I hope you can get a computer whiz
to help--and let me know what you figured out! When I go there on my Mac
via Safari, it's fine.)

#87 Cold and kindness

2010-01-30T16:41:00.000-05:00

Cold and Kindness I

Slip out from under covers
leave that cozy nest
for broken-furnace winter.

Outside is colder, with a biting wind.
Pass up the car’s warm ease for trolley
with its promise for the years to come.

Walk then wait. Our numbers grow
in turned up collars, quiet deepening chill
broken by a new arrival
middle aged and black
shabby, rounded, warm with laughter
greeting a white man
crisp in uniform, measured and erect.
My mind puts them in roles,
opposing sides, and yet
they chat with ease and mutual respect.
The white man says he still can’t go to malls
the black man has no job, needs trauma help
they must be vets
the bond of war too great to break
on class or race or other circumstance.
A place inside me loosens in their warmth.

The trolley comes.
A couple shuffle in and take their seats
one carrying his oxygen,
their bickering cannot obscure
how they rely on one other or their care.

Late for Sunday service but already filled
with kindness in the midst of winter cold.
Home, to find the furnace man has come,
and we have heat.

Cold and Kindness II

It’s an old Nissan truck, she says
parked by the nursing home.
As I walk out
this bitter winter night
all the white trucks
look big and fat and prosperous.
I turn the last corner
find the nursing home and then the truck
old, steamed up with life inside.
I tap the window
two cocooned forms stir
becoming Moussa and Maria.

On Christmas Eve we got the call
from a young immigrant
we welcomed to the country
years ago:
A couple from Mali
are sleeping in a car
outside my house.
What should I do?

She did a lot
called shelters
navigated the maze
of social services,
came up empty.

We offered what we could—
names, food, money for gas
(their heat)
then left
to be with a dying mother
and grieving family
for Christmas,
while they slept in the cold.

Back, and picking up the threads
of life at home
we make a plan to meet them,
knowing we have space.

He lost his good place at a print shop
then, when winter came
the car wash job
then everything else
except the truck.

It’s easy to give food
money for a PO box
where food stamps can be mailed
warm wool sweater
hat, gloves and socks,
easier, perhaps, than all the thanks
that they must give, and give again.

And we are warm
and when they leave
I do not want to take them in.

We reach out to others who might help
to shield them from the arctic weather
coming in.
I think to offer showers
(to more thanks)
and still our empty space at home
looms large and questioning.

A friend calls back
to say they’ll take them in
for these ten days
and I go looking for the truck
to bring the news.

Her willingness is balm
to a troubled soul.
She speaks as I would wish to feel--
grateful for the miracle
of being asked to share her space
with a Maria far from home
looking for shelter with her husband
in the cold mid-winter.

I see how grief
has set our life off-balance.
We’ve lost that sacred centered place
of spacious generosity.
And yet I rest in knowing it still lives
in fullness in another
and will be ours again.

Cold and Kindness, III

Black smoke sends me rushing
floor to floor
house burned to the ground
inside my head before I find
there are no open flames.
Shut off the furnace, start to breathe again
last hidden flame snuffed out
inferno vision laid to rest
in growing cold.

Yet safe heat proves elusive
as a century of chimney wear
awaits its due.

I do not count a chimney sweep
among my friends—
did not before this week.
A blind search called him out.

Courteous and kind
he labors for our heat
day after day
as we add layers,
grow sluggish in the chill,
ask ourselves how long we can hold on.

I can’t do much to help him out.
All I can give is courtesy
and kindness in return.
Warmth takes root
and grows here in the cold.
When he is done
clasping hands to say goodbye,
we know this is no flighty thing.

Even if his careful chimney job
lasts another century
we’ll find a way to meet
and I will see his face again
and smile.

Some things that have made me hopeful recently:

A Lebanese man who joins his fellow Semite Jews in their ritual observances at times as an act of ethnic solidarity.

The enormous shift our economy and society made to address the demands of WWII, and what that indicates about our ability to reorder big priorities in short time frames when there is a will.

The Boggs Education Center in Detroit which tells its children: Since we are all counting on you for our very existence, we need you to be your best self--to be healthy and kind and connected. And you can do it. We are here to support you. We love you.

The rivers of the South Wales coalfield that once ran black with coal and now host salmon again--the ultimate test of a clean river system.

NEWLY AVAILABLE: A resource packet on Faith and Economics, which I
developed for my denomination:
http://www.pym.org/pym_wgs/comments.php?id=5918_0_296_0_C.

Check out: www.ourchildrenourselves.org, a home for all the parenting
writing I've done over the past 20 years.

Also: www.startguide.org. START: a way to study and work together with
others to create a better world.

#86 Containers

2009-12-28T17:34:00.000-05:00

I put my lunch into a plastic bag, I wonder what we will do when they are gone. They are so convenient--though I heard somewhere that their average useful lifetime is twenty minutes. How did people use to carry things anyway? My mind goes to my wonderful mother-in-law, wiry and active at 93, taking her basket to market. Now that’s a different kind of container.

And there are others. I think of Evelyn. For the last year or so, a group that my husband and I gathered together as a little non-profit to support the school of a dear friend in Northern Uganda has been meeting over dinner at the home of one of our members. While everyone brings food, she always cooks a main dish, makes sure there are drinks, thinks where we’ll be most comfortable to eat. She recently wondered if she was pulling her weight as a board member. None of the rest of us had a doubt. She was seeing to the container, reminding us that we are family--each one welcomed, each one valued, each one deserving of attention.

For years I was chair of the board of a community organization that faces a constant struggle to survive. Our meetings were full of bad news. So I always started with sharing good news from our lives and the world around us. We got to know each other better, celebrating each others’ milestones and successes, strengthening the container that was our board, so it could hold all those challenges without cracking.

Our bodies are containers for our days on earth. Our neighborhoods are containers for community. Our natural environment is the container that holds us all. What are we saying when we make our containers disposable, when we throw them away heedlessly, when all our attention goes to what they hold?

Some of the things that go into those plastic bags and styrofoam trays and cardboard boxes support life, I’m sure. Some of the work done at all those meetings where only the task is valued must benefit humanity. But there is a distortion, a tendency toward short-term thinking, a disregard for what matters and what lasts, that does not bode well.

My mind goes to Evelyn, warmly welcoming each one of us into her home, and to the beautiful and sturdy baskets that have hung on the nail in my mother-in-law’s basement stairwell for as long as I can remember. You think about what you put in those kinds of containers--and it’s not likely to be crap.

It will take some adjusting when I no longer have an endless supply of throw-away bags at my disposal. I don’t quite know how I’ll manage. But I’m pretty sure it will be good for my soul.

Snowed in

Walk to the farmers market at the park
in freshly-falling snow
Bring home potatoes and parsnips
in the pack
make fruitcakes & potato filling,
Set off for the Messiah sing
in dark and ever-deepening snow
picking through drifts
raising voices that each count
when most are caught at home.

Snow falling all night
car buried in unplowed street
shovel the walk a third time, then
potato filling balanced in a basket on the arm
set out through knee-deep snow
hoping for the trolley
walking, looking back
then climb gratefully aboard
enjoy the service, the singing, the holiday meal
with those who ventured out
and found their way.

Snow day—--stay late in bed
walk to the used bookstore
choosing the route most shoveled,
gather for evening class
with those who can walk.

Visit an elderly neighbor, then
bake a great batch of cookies
fill sixteen little bags
tie with bright ribbon
walk the neighborhood
to storefronts where we’ve shopped
throughout the year,
in snow and winter sunset
offering blessings, getting back as much
or more.

As life returns to normal--
cars, work, rush--
give thanks
for these four days.

Some things that have made me hopeful recently:

Three towns in Maine that have passed ordinances stripping corporations of the rights of "personhood", in order to stop the extraction and sale of local water by giant for-profits like Nestles.

Ex-US president Jimmy Carter's continued work on mediation and peace-building around the world.

Innovations in Polish education, that move away from test taking for assessment and toward project-based learning.

Ecuador's new constitution that includes a section giving Nature the right to maintain and regenerate its vital cycles, and charging the State with protection of nature.

NEWLY AVAILABLE: A resource packet on Faith and Economics, which I developed for my denomination: http://www.pym.org/pym_wgs/comments.php?id=5918_0_296_0_C.

Check out: www.ourchildrenourselves.org, a home for all the parenting
writing I've done over the past 20 years.

Also: www.startguide.org. START: a way to study and work together with
others to create a better world.

For earlier columns, go to www.pamelascolumn.blogspot.com.
(If the background is too dark to read, I hope you can get a computer whiz
to help--and let me know what you figured out! When I go there on my Mac
via Safari, it's fine.)

Claiming the history beneath our feet

2009-11-24T21:00:00.000-05:00

I recently had the opportunity to learn a little more about the people who lived in this part of our country before colonization. Their short name means “the people”. Their longer name means “the true people”. Their society was based on matrilineal clans, with land held in common by the clan. They raised maize, or corn, hunted in the forests, and fished in the rivers of this watershed where I now live. With the arrival of the Europeans, there was a period of relatively peaceful interaction with colonists of relative integrity, followed by the ugly trajectory of history that we know so well: death by infectious disease and conflict, broken treaties, ultimate transportation to a reservation far away. Those few who remained went underground, hiding their identity to avoid persecution, and blending in so successfully that they and their story were easy to forget.

Just before learning all this, I was in a new city, and found a walking history brochure on the immediate neighborhood. It described change on different blocks over the last 150 years: poor housing giving way to rich; institutions changing hands and missions; different groups of people excluded, drawn in, pushed out; blocks demolished by fire, reduced to rubble by riots, rebuilt in new configurations. What was visible to my eye reflected hardly anything that had been there just 150 years ago, much less 300 or 1000. There had been layer upon layer of tragedy and opportunity, hard work, injustice, vision, changing populations and changing fortunes. These few blocks, I realized, were a microcosm of similar forces of change over time in lands the world over.

What are we to do with this history beneath our feet? How many of us are living on land that at one time was taken from others by force? How much are we benefiting from events that brought unspeakable loss to others? It is important to be aware of the history of our people and of our place. If there are themes of injustice or discrimination--or genocide--we need to take those in, and consider whether there is work to be done in the present to make something that has been broken whole. In a very real way, we ourselves cannot be whole until this happens.

In another real way, however, we occupy this place in time and space by chance. Each of us came into this world without choice, and without sin. It is not ours to take onto our shoulders all the wrongs of history and, much as we might wish to, we cannot change the past.

To find our way through this paradox, perhaps we can learn from those who came before. I think of the stories I’ve heard about our native people, how when they killed a deer to eat, they would give thanks for the life of that deer. It was a promise to honor the spirit of that which was sacrificed to give them life. Is there a similar way that we can honor the lives that were lost and damaged, upon which our lives in the present have been built?

I think of the tiny plot of land in the community garden where I now grow vegetables--and consider the layers. On top is the good rich soil that I have built up over the years. Underneath is the rubble of a burnt-out warehouse, the end of a business on a city street that was once a turnpike between towns. It was likely a field before then. And before then, there was forest--sustaining the lives of native peoples, and before then animals, and before then...

Perhaps the best I can do is to remember all of these things, and know that there is no way I can have any real ownership of this bit of our planet. What I can do is contribute to the integrity and beauty of this layer in this time, hold it with great respect, open myself to the possibility of sharing it with someone whose claim is as good--or who may need it more--and give thanks for the gifts it brings to my life.

November surprise

Romaine lettuce
in tall stately heads
planted in abundance
at summer’s end
with seed gathered last year
and nothing to lose.
Not a surprise this November
but doubly welcome,
still standing fresh and crisp
after the threat of frost.

The surprise
is the peas.
Some of spring’s pods
had been left unpicked
for next year’s seed,
but they stood untended
dried and opened
dropped their treasure,
finally noticed
almost too late.
A hurried scrabble in the earth
to pick them out,
each one a promise
for the year to come.

But some were missed
sprouted and grew
before their time.
Out of season
they could never fruit
before the freeze
of winter.

But purple flowers came
then slivers of tiny pods
that lengthened and started to fill,
gathered in handfuls
this cool November--
a fresh sweet taste to savor,
an unexpected gift
to gladden the heart.

Some things that have made me hopeful recently:

The amazing capacity of mushrooms to break down nasty pollutants and render them harmless,

The thoughtful committed vision of senior early childhood leaders in the Obama administration,

The proven potential of instant run-off voting to produce more civil and less expensive election campaigns, as demonstrated in towns in New England,

The decades-old network of industrial cooperatives in the Basque Country in Spain that employ more than 100,000 worker-owners.

Trolley Talk

2009-10-30T15:47:00.000-04:00

It started with my lunch bag
and, perhaps, a smile.
How did I know that store--and how did he?
Then on to other things.
He teaches high school
is feeling tired
If only they could start the day with prayer
they could focus
be less out of control
It may not be enough these days
We used to value family
And the culture is so hard on them—
there’s so much greed.

Ahead of us more talk
had taken root
between seat and aisle.
The man was joking
looking for a wife.
Said he worked hard every day
would love some good home cooking.
The woman said you need a maid.
To find her man
she’d rather look in church.
This one wouldn’t be there—
He worshipped chicken
Deep dish macaroni.

This easy banter
Flowed back to reach our quiet earnestness
And we all smiled.

Autumn gold

The gingko leaves fell today
soft as satin
they cover the sidewalk
line the street
in quiet gold.

Tenderly
gather armfuls
smooth, caressing
fresh and new as fallen snow
to tuck in around
kale and carrots
snug for the winter now
in gently glowing warmth.

Some things that make me hopeful recently:
--A feisty US Representative, at the height of the foreclosure crisis, urging everybody who was facing foreclosure to STAY IN THEIR HOMES.
--Our local university, which has engaged a food service to provide local food.
--Elderly neighbors who take a genuine interest in the children and are kind down to their bones.
--On the ground healing and reconciliation work in war-torn areas of the Congo.

Introducing: www.ourchildrenourselves.org, a home for all the parenting
writing I've done over the past 20 years.

For earlier columns, go to www.pamelascolumn.blogspot.com.
(If the background is too dark to read, I hope you can get a computer whiz
to help--and let me know what you figured out! When I go there on my Mac
via Safari, it's fine.)

Check out www.startguide.org. START: a way to study and work together with
others to create a better world.

#83 Farm Share

2009-09-29T22:03:00.001-04:00

Our farmer is sick.

Community Supported Agriculture provides the relationship. You buy a share of a particular farm’s harvest at the start of the season. They get the cash to do the upfront work, and you get a weekly supply of vegetables fresh from the farm--more or less, depending on what’s growing well that season.

We tried one several years ago but it wasn't a perfect fit, since I can supply a lot of our vegetable needs from my little community garden plot. But then I heard of another one that offered a winter farm share--winter vegetables, eggs, meat, cheese, and granola. Now this wouldn’t compete with my summer harvest--and we were delighted to start picking up our box every Saturday at the local farmer’s market and eating more good local food. When spring rolled around, we took advantage of their flexibility to order just a half summer share, with extra eggs. This complemented my garden well and kept the meat, cheese and granola coming. Though sometimes we had more eggs than we knew what to do with, it was a problem I was happy to have.

Then one week we got a message that there would be no delivery that Saturday. Remembering the time in the winter when they’d missed a week because the husband had pneumonia, I went to their website, and learned that impetus for starting their CSA had been his serious illness. The family could no longer manage the relentless daily demands of a dairy farm. Switching to vegetables would allow a little more flexibility and a chance to save the family farm. I wondered if this missed Saturday delivery had anything to do with his health.

Sadly, I was right. We got an apologetic note from the wife (an equal in the business), saying they’d had a medical emergency, but would be back the next week. Late in August, as I was struggling to find someone to pick up our farm share when we would be away, I decided to check the website before looking farther afield. I found a one-line note at the bottom of the page saying there would be no pick-up that Saturday. While this solved my little problem, it didn’t make me happy. I was sure things were not well for this family. I kept checking the website. No pick up the next Saturday. Or the next. Then came a delivery, along with a note. The husband had had a bad reaction to medication, had been seizing and gone onto life support. The wife had been with him in the hospital for three weeks. Thankfully he was no longer in immediate danger. Unfortunately there was no granola because the grandmother had been in the fields. They would extend the season three weeks and apologized again for the inconvenience.

Inconvenience? How could I claim any inconvenience compared to what her family was going through? This, I reflected, is the real meaning of being part of Community Supported Agriculture. Food has a context. It’s grown by real people in real places, under real conditions. When winter storms close the roads, they can’t get to market. If late blight had struck, as was feared, we wouldn’t have gotten any tomatoes. When a farm family has serious illness, their work is disrupted.

In a way, I don’t think she should be extending the season. After all, we signed up for better or for worse--knowing that some years are better than others. This was a hard year. I would be willing to go without that box of fresh farm food for three weeks if that would help this family pull through. It seems a small price to pay to support the real live people who are providing for our sustenance--to be a vital and aware part of such a vital community.

I could go on and on about how important it is to know where our food comes from, to buy locally, to appreciate fruit and vegetables in season, to avoid excessive processing and packaging, to challenge agribusiness and toxic pesticides. But mostly, my heart just goes out to this farm family, and I hope for the best for them in these hard times.

#82 Grass 8/09

2009-09-02T17:49:00.002-04:00

The boys are little, and the letter on Sesame Street is G. “What is green
and grows in front of your house?” Any little suburban child would know the
answer. I am incensed. On our narrow city block there is no grass in front
of anybody’s house. I had taken a sledge-hammer to the bit of cement by my
steps when we moved in, and planted flowers. We hauled in old brick to
transform our shady backyard weed lot into a little patio. Our children
walked to the park to get their grass. I was defiant of the suburbs, proud
of our choice.

Since then, I’ve learned more about what goes into lovely lawns--the
broad-band pesticides that kill off weeds and micro-organisms
indiscriminately, the fertilizer that leaches into our streams and rivers,
the heavy fuel use, noise and air pollution of power mowers, the high demand
for watering. I have seen luxurious lawns in the southwest and at the
shore--places where grass it totally out of place, wholly dependent on
fertilizers and imported water. I have mourned the energy and resources
that go into those beautifully manicured showcase lawns, and the high bar
they set for homeowners across the country.

You could say that I am anti-lawn. Yet here I find myself, day after day,
tending a strip of grass beside the spot where the street trolleys head
underground for center city.

It started by accident. On a walk that was purely for exercise, I came
across three big flowerbeds planted in this strip, woefully neglected and
overgrown. It didn’t seem right that something which had once been
beautiful should be so unloved. I stopped to pull out some particularly
nasty-looking thistles. One thing led to another and it became a regular
stop on my walk. Over the years I conquered the thistles, pulled vines out
of trees, uprooted saplings, cleared away the remnants of a homeless man’s
nest. Then I went on to expose the rock borders of the beds, which meant
paying attention to the low weeds--and the grass.

Now, while I don’t like what goes into expensive lawns, I hate to see them
unkempt. Particularly in the city, where public green space is usually more
weed than grass, I always wish for better. I know where my high standards
come from. My mother was an indifferent housekeeper, but she didn’t like
weeds in her lawn--and her solution was labor intensive. On summer mornings
as children we would set out a loop of rope three or four feet in diameter
in the grass, and pull every weed inside our circle. I learned that it is
possible, and that it makes a difference.

So here I am weeding the grass. I weed around the rocks that border the
flower beds to keep that line sharp. I weed along the sidewalk--the edge
that is most visible. I weed out the coarse, wide-leafed plants and those
that grow quickly above the grass. I weed out the fat crabgrass that
spreads sideways and is always ready to take over. I weed out the plants
with runners that climb over the rocks and into the beds. I choose the
places that most offend the eye. It’s a job that will never be done.

Why bother? Why not let it be coarse and ugly like the rest of the city
grass? Yet it is in the struggling neighborhoods of a big city that we need
beauty the most. The people who walk by here need a place to rest the eye,
a sign that somebody cares. This is not a hardship. It’s something I can
do. I get to take my walk, have a quiet time with myself, and leave a
little more beauty and order behind. It’s a way to share my love of the
earth, away of saying that we all matter and that everybody deserves the
best.

Crows

Do you have crows here?

Crows--big and loud
with no music or beauty
low on my list of favorite birds.

No I say
striving for a neutral tone.
She is Native American
from a reservation in Maine
gracing our kitchen by chance.
I don’t know her position on crows.

I miss seeing them, she says.

Oh, I say.
We have more pigeons here.

We chat about birds
and I know
my encounters with crows
will never be the same.

#81 The Gratitude Trap 7/09

2009-09-02T17:49:00.001-04:00

A story based in the South during slavery that I came across recently was
particularly effective in creating believable owners. They were convinced
that they were doing those who were enslaved a favor by taking care of
them--and when gratitude was not forthcoming, they felt hurt, misunderstood,
and ill-used.

This may be an extreme example, but the expectation of gratitude continues
to trap us. Parents who give their children everything can’t understand why
they aren’t more grateful. Superpowers that send money to poor countries
are surprised to find themselves disliked. Philanthropists and missionaries
who labor to save bodies and souls wonder why the recipients of their good
intentions are not always thankful.

What’s the problem with knowing how to help people, having the means to do
so, and then getting to bask in the glow of righteousness? The keys are in
the “knowing” and “having the means”. As a species, we seem to have a low
tolerance for people who know what’s best for us--and one party having the
means implies that the other does not. The power is unequal, and those who
have less would often prefer to address that power imbalance than to help
those who have more to feel confirmed in their benevolence.

Now this isn’t to say that there’s no place for gratitude in the world. I
believe that our lives go better whenever we can notice what we’re grateful
for. I would encourage everybody to fill up their moments with gratitude,
open their hearts and souls and minds to everything, little and small, for
which they can give thanks.

But whenever we hear a voice saying that “they should be grateful for all
that we’ve done”--inside our heads, or in the world around us--something is
not right. It’s the “should” that is the trap. Gratitude is not an
obligation. It is a feeling that grows from inside us, freely felt and
freely shared. We can be grateful for the opportunity to be connected, to
learn about other people’s lives, to share, to be of use; we can be grateful
for loving friends and thoughtful gifts. But if we try to extort gratitude
from someone else, what we get, if we get it at all, is a cheap and ugly
substitute. Everyone would be better off if we went for the real thing.

Safe place

Close your eyes
imagine your safe place
she tells the group
in that dreamy voice
of a guided meditation.
It could be any time, any place
real, or just alive in your mind.
Think of how it looks, feels, smells
this safe place of yours.

Now open your eyes
and draw.

I am surprised
but the image is clear.
I draw the street and cars
the red brick of the portal
where the trolleys
go underground
the strip of grass, trees, flowers
in between…
my safe place.

Why this spot
street’s edge
trolleys rumbling
the chaos of weeds and trash
always encroaching?

I have claimed this piece of earth
slowly brought order
from a tangled wilderness.
I know its look, its feel
have watched and weeded through the seasons
dug deeply in the earth
loved, brought forth living beauty.
I am grounded here.

Grounded and connected
(alone is safe--but separate
and separate has been my enemy).
When those who pass by share a word
it’s always one of blessing.
They bring no burden of need
no disappointments to ward off.
Centered, in myself, yet not alone
I rest.

Here I can do only good.
Any weed I pull
adds to the beauty of this street.
As I feed myself
I get the greatest gift of all—
to be of use.

These are times to treasure, when
sprung from inside
from work and obligations
I grab the shovel at the door
breathe deeply of the out-of-doors
take in the sky
and step out lightly
toward my place at the portal.

#80 Demolition Derby 5/09

2009-09-02T17:48:00.000-04:00

I love the diversity of my urban neighborhood. I love rubbing shoulders
with my African American neighbors, with immigrants from Southeast Asia and
West Africa, with other white folks who value this kind of community. I
made a point for many years of working with Italian and Irish Catholic moms
across the river, and building relationships in those close-knit ethnic
neighborhoods. It makes me feel safer to not be so separated from people
who are different from me. I can get to know human beings, and have some
protection from the trap of believing that those differences are too great
to be bridged.

Yet here, at the fairgrounds, in a rural county hours away from any big
city, I realize how separated I still remain. It is the day of the
Demolition Derby, an event that many locals look forward to all year. The
road along the fairground is lined with cars and trucks, and the simple
stands dug into the side of the hill are filled. Below us, eight old cars,
windowless and battered beyond belief, are crashing into each other in a
small enclosed space, vying to be the last one running.

I remember my first Demolition Derby, years ago when the boys were young, at
a county fair near where my in-laws live. It was the thrill of illicit
activity that drew me there. My parents—-middle class academic types with
progressive values—-would never have dreamed of lending their support to
such an uncouth spectacle; their disapproval would have been unconditional.
Yet, a theme of my adult life had been engaging with that disapproval,
throwing out any part of it that seemed rooted in fear or ignorance, testing
whether I wanted to claim any of it as my own.

So I came to face down my childhood; I stayed for the excitement. This was
a big, loud, outrageous world I had never even known existed. Just the fact
that people were intentionally ramming into each other took my breath away.
Then cars that looked like they could never move again, wheels askew or off
entirely, back ends demolished, found a way to keep going, roaring in for
another crash. At the end of the mayhem ordinary people stepped through what
used to be the windshields of their mangled machines to accept the applause.
We gasped and cheered. It was a totally memorable family outing. This
time, with some idea of what to expect, and the illicit thrill factor less
prominent, more of my attention was on the crowd.

We share a cabin in this county with six other families and have been coming
up since before the boys were born. We know a lot about the land—-our part
of it in particular. We look forward to reading the county weekly. With
the chatty local columns on who has visited whom, 4H Club news, police
blotter announcements of the occasional broken window or car accident,
photos of proud hunters with their prize turkey or bear, we feel light years
away from the big city.

Reading their news aloud to each other in the comfort of our cabin, however,
is different from joining much of the county in person in their
entertainment of choice. Surrounded by buzz cuts, cigarettes, tattoos,
flags, and cars smashing into each other, I was definitely out of my
element. My parents’ disapproval hovered. Why waste so much energy on such
needless destruction? What was the point? Surely people could find
something more civilized, something quieter to watch.

But if I were taken to a popular local spectacle overseas, I would go with
an attitude of respectful engagement—-and that was the attitude I was
interested in. These were my people, people I didn’t have a chance to rub
shoulders with on a daily basis, but people I needed to know and value if I
would claim them as fellow Americans. These were people who worked in our
forests, farms and factories, loved their children, did their best. I could
get to know them, learn about their lives, their strengths, their dreams,
the things that they--like my parents, like myself--feared and judged. Some
of them I would surely love.

Some might even enjoy other kinds of entertainment as well. But this was
where we were together right now. So I gave thanks for the opportunity to
be among neighbors I don’t always remember I have, and entered into the
spirit of demolition. A high point was watching a little green car in a
heat of compacts. Not much to start with, it got smashed in more and more
till it was unrecognizable as a vehicle. Yet every time we thought it was
done for good, it reached deep and found wholly improbably new life, to not
only move again, but go after other vehicles that still looked a little like
cars. At the end, one of the last three still running, out the windshield
opening came an unassuming young man, and we all gave a great cheer. It was
good to be a witness to such skill, tenacity and enormous will to life, good
to celebrate those qualities with my neighbors.

#79 Teaching, learning, knowing 4/09

2009-09-02T17:46:00.000-04:00

I love learning. It’s exciting to go places and learn everything about a new
environment—-the culture, the history, the land. I love languages--the
process of decoding an unfamiliar alphabet is a thrill. I can’t imagine any
craft that I wouldn’t feel privileged to master more thoroughly. I’m
passionate about understanding how social, natural and economic systems
work—-and how they could work better under different conditions. What makes
people tick is endlessly fascinating, and the more I learn about how to play
a useful role with other human beings, the happier I am.

Yet if there’s one thing I can’t stand, it’s being taught. Having to listen
while somebody expounds on something in my direction is torture. I’ve never
attended a training that hasn’t made me impatient. Being confined to a desk
with an authority in the front of the room is a sure recipe for irritation.
Of course there are explanations—-bad school experiences from the past
rearing their ugly heads, poorly designed lessons, expounders who don’t
really know that much. But being taught is not always the best way to
learn.

I’ve been struggling with questions of learning and knowledge as the group
of people I work with—-early childhood educators-–are being required to go
back to school in order for their programs to be rated of adequate quality
to receive state subsidies. Many of these women are gifted in their work
with children, yet that gift has no easy way of being acknowledged, so it is
without value in this developing system. I rail against the injustice of
it, against the incredible burdens of extra time and work that are being
placed on skilled, hard-working and already-overstretched women. Why can’t
their competence just be recognized?

Yet some of these women speak of the value of the experience, the sense of
accomplishment and pride that they feel, their excitement about taking new
ideas back to their programs. Am I wrong?

I go to a conference on prior learning assessment, higher education’s
attempt to attract older workers with skills and experience by giving credit
for some of the things they have learned on the job. It’s a good step, but
I’m still mad. What about the core of this job that makes all the difference
yet cannot be taught in even the most advanced early childhood course—-a
loving heart?

As I make my way through this conference, however, stories from all over
begin to form a pattern. Over and over again I hear that it is not easy for
many people who have had no higher education experience to articulate what
they have learned in life, to tease out what they know and how they apply
that knowledge. Many struggle to think in terms outside of what it takes to
get the job done. But when they understand that they possess complex bodies
of knowledge that can be applied in a variety of settings, a new world opens
up. They see themselves differently; they stand a little straighter; they
can imagine that more is possible.

Ah. Self knowledge. Reflection on one’s role in the world. Now those are
things I would want for everybody—-even if it means some sacrifice. I’m
still opposed to a belief that more classroom hours logged measures greater
mastery of a skill. And I’m still passionate about having a system that
recognizes and appreciates those who are gifted, skilled, and
knowledgeable—-regardless of how they got that way. But I’m ready to support
efforts that help anyone reflect on what they know, widen their horizons,
identify what they want to learn, and get access to opportunities to learn
it.

Reach

Married for seventy years
she stood by her man
grieved his loss.

Afterward
eating with her son
she poured coffee
looked across the table
wondered aloud
what would it taste like with sugar?

And she reached.

#78 Poems: Mine & Shopping 3/09

2009-09-02T17:45:00.000-04:00

Mine

It is early March.
The dwarf iris in their deep purple
and touch of gold
surprise with delight
call out to me.

Tiny, striking, ablaze with color
they grace the new beds at the parish house
around the corner,
unexpected riches
in the midst of winter’s brown.
I am captivated
want them for my own.

And I realize
with eyes to see
and strength to walk around the corner
they are already mine.

Shopping

I like to shop at times
finding treasures at a thrift store
mingling with neighbors at a farmers’ market
fingering crafts from worlds away

But mostly I don’t.
In my mouth it easily has the taste of failure--
Failure of imagination
that I cannot come up with something
to meet the need myself,
Failure of skill
that I could not keep the old one working,
Failure of strength
that I cannot be content with what I have,
Failure of integrity
knowing I already take more than my share.

When the world is turned upside down
all the advertising and excess shaken out
when we deal in real needs and real wealth
value all who do the work on this green earth
maybe then this bitter taste
will wash from my mouth
and I will be happy
to shop.

#77 Growth Dilemmas 2/09

2009-09-02T17:44:00.000-04:00

It’s hard not to have a love-hate relationship with growth. On the one
hand, everybody wants things to grow. We nurture little children, coax
seedlings into healthy plants, incubate new businesses, invest in emerging
talents with the hopes that they will make it big time.

Yet growth can be a problem. It’s not always true that if something is
good, more of it must be better. My six-foot five son is relieved that he
has finally stopped getting taller. Enormous impersonal consolidated high
schools are now being broken up into smaller units more conducive to human
interaction and learning. And we would do anything to stop those cancer
cells from growing.

How do we balance these two truths about growth? It’s easiest with children
and other living things, where we don’t have a whole lot of control. They
will grow, for the most part, until they are at their mature size, and then
they’ll stop. Some mysterious internal mechanism knows when they are big
enough, when more growth would actually hinder their long-term ability to
survive.

But with our human-made institutions, we have no such internal regulator,
and our deeply culturally-embedded belief that bigger must be better is
getting us into more and more trouble. Nowhere is this more true than in
the economy, where growth has become enshrined as a central, unquestionable,
quasi-religious, belief. Our well-being, we are told, is dependent on an
ever-growing economy: more markets, more consumption, more loans, more
debt, more hedge funds on Wall Street.

Yet this economic system is looking less and less like a little child that
needs to grow, and more and more like a seven foot person who’s having
trouble fitting into ordinary spaces and showing no signs of slowing
down—-more and more like a cancer growing out of control.

The idea of continuous growth inevitably runs into the limits of the system
that contains it. Our growth economy is running through the stored wealth of
a finite planet, paying dividends in the present by running up debts against
the future, while becoming ever less effective in meeting people’s real
needs. We find ourselves in the surreal situation of being strong-armed
into spending ever more money on things we don't really need in order to
keep a system afloat that has become unmoored from reality and common sense.

Luckily there are other ways to think about growth. It doesn’t just have to
be about being bigger. After all, we have confidence that our children can
continue to grow after they reach their full height. We look forward to
them becoming smarter, more able, more mature, even wiser. It’s harder with
the economy. We’ve accepted growth in this area as a good thing for so long
that it seems like a law of nature. But nature is crying out against it, and
what we have made, we can change. (Though our economic high priests could
use some help from ordinary folks here—-like the child who pointed out that
the emperor had no clothes). We can trade in this outmoded model centered on
bigger for one centered on smarter, cut out the cancerous growth, and start
learning all the joys as well as the challenges of finding our place within
the constraints of a finite planet.

Overcoat

Cleaning this room requires disposing of the old men’s overcoat
Picked up from a discard pile somewhere
To warm a girlfriend unprepared for cold one day
It’s big and warm.

One button’s missing, easy enough to fix from my accumulated store
Whoever gets it need not be ashamed.
I do it right, with little button sewed behind
To make it strong.

I see the other buttons loose, one dangling
No work at all to make them tight
Then sew the lining where the seam has come undone
It’s looking good.

One final check, and now I see the button holes
Raw edges crying out for neat repair
This is a bigger job, but now I’ve come so far,
I cannot stop.

I learned to button hole in childhood, do it well.
The coat is ready now to give away, will serve somebody well
Though why I spent this time
Is hard to know.

My son comes home from warmer climes and finds the coat
Shrugs himself into it, checks it out
The battered elegance suits his style, looks good on him.
My loving care intended for a stranger finds its mark
More close to home.

#76 Going All Out 12/08

2009-09-02T17:43:00.001-04:00

I had agreed to sit beside a woman with profound hearing loss and type what
the presenter said so she could read the screen. She had hearing aides and
an amplification system, but still lost words and meanings, and wanted to
take the information in as fully as possible.

I wanted to help, but was a little nervous about how well I would do. I am
a fast typist, but quite an inaccurate one. I don't like making mistakes,
am proud of my work, and always carefully edit and clean up any copy before
letting anyone see it. Now this would not be an option; everything I did
would be immediately visible. Nor would I be able to capture every word, or
even every thought, given this speaker’s fluent continuous style.

So I launched in—-and started making mistakes before the end of the first
sentence. It was like being on a roller coaster. Once started, there was
no stopping. Mangled words just got worse by lingering on them, and there
was no time to linger. I couldn’t look back to correct. I couldn’t type
fast enough to capture everything that was said; what was lost was gone
forever. And I certainly couldn’t put any time or attention into worrying
about either one. I just had to keep on going and doing my deeply imperfect
best.

When my turn was over I was a little breathless, and doubly surprised.
First of all, this mistake-ridden incomplete best was good enough! Our goal
had been that she understand more fully as a result of my efforts—-and that
goal was achieved beyond a shadow of a doubt. Typos were irrelevant and,
despite all the gaps, the part I was able to do was the thing that mattered.
Even more surprising, it was an exhilarating ride! I found myself laughing
at the mangled words as I continued to type furiously away—-and the more
mangled, the funnier. It was easy to start a new line and a new thought
when I got too far behind on an old one. All-out effort was what was
required, that’s what I was giving, and it was a thrill to try so hard.

Of course there are times when it is useful to revisit mistakes for what can
be learned—-and there are certainly situations where thoroughness is more
important than speed. Nor is that kind of intense effort sustainable
indefinitely. But there was gold here. I look forward to internalizing the
lessons of this experience and finding ways to replicate them in the future:
blithely consigning mistakes to the past, being fully in the present,
focusing on what I accomplish rather than what goes by undone, laughing at
my imperfection as I try all out for the benefit of my world.

Celebration, squared

Excitement is thick in the air
Abandon work and school
Take to the streets!
Young and old in costumes
sprinkled through the crowds
stickers, fliers and confetti everywhere
The jostle in crowded trolleys
full of good will
heady anticipation
good things to come.

What new holiday is this?
The stars are aligned:
Baseball championship parade
Halloween
Obama victory eve
all rolled in one great festival.

#75 Cleaning, decorating, gift-giving 12/08

2009-09-02T17:42:00.000-04:00

I love the December evening when we gather at a friend’s house, pack into
every space in the living and dining rooms, and pour ourselves into bringing
Handel’s Messiah to life. I’m filled up with beautiful music, and it’s one
of those gifts that keeps on giving; the music makes its home inside my head
and I keep hearing it for days. As I reflected on what a good choice this
had been about what I wanted in my head, I started to consider how else I
can pay attention to that space.

I already think about the movies, books, and TV I consume with an eye toward
what will remain in my head. What scenes and words, what kinds of
assumptions about human nature and the world we live in, will linger?

I remember wise things that I’ve heard about this: “There is both a wolf and
a dove inside each of us. Which will grow? The one that is fed.” “Hanging
on to resentment is like giving yourself poison and hoping the other person
will die.” It’s been a thrill to discover that when I start down a path of
resentment inside my head these days, I can often notice it happening,
remember that I don’t want to go there, and get back on a path of my own
choosing. My inside space is so much cleaner as a result.

Then there’s the question of other things I might want to add to that space,
to make it an even more inviting place to live. In a children’s book I came
across recently, a child says: “Dad believes that the things of nature are
a gift. And that in return, we must give something back. We must give
thanks.” I like being thankful for the sky and the earth as I walk down the
street. My commute goes better when I remember to offer a brief bless and
keep prayer for each person who gets on or off the trolley.

When I focus my attention more on what inclines me toward hope, and less on
what tips me toward despair, it’s easier to think well about what to do.
It’s like there’s less stuff lying around inside to trip me up. (And while I
may need to look straight at despair at times, I always know where to find
it.)

This way of thinking puts housekeeping and interior decorating in a whole
new light. I’ve never been big on pouring resources into making my external
house beautiful, but I realize that I care deeply about the space inside my
head. I would choose to clean out everything that hinders me from acting
with love and power in the present. I would choose to create lots of space
and light. And I can’t imagine a better gift than one that enhances that
love, power, space and light.

#74 Thanksgiving poems 11/08

2009-09-02T17:40:00.001-04:00

Bounce

Bank screw-up
checks bounced
my good name on the line
no choice
jam a trip
into a busy day
fight bureaucracy
to make up
lost ground.

Too much is wrong

life is burdened, gray
and grim.

No car
I choose to walk
am startled by beauty
blue sky
strong breeze
fall leaves
meet an old man
down on his knees
in earth and color
a fellow gardener
who knows
my face.

The woman at the bank
is friendly, kind
sorts out the mess
waives fees.

Outside again
the air is fresh
and all is well
I breathe it in
give thanks.

Cultivating confidence

I have taken on another infestation
at the point of the 45th St. flowerbed
A nasty weed has taken hold
and now it spreads.

The dirt is soft
I pull out plants
with great long runners
under ground
know there will be more
come back in two days
get the ones I missed
come back again to see new sprouts
from hidden roots—
dig out every root
prepare to dig again.

This is a strong resourceful foe
yet I rest in certain confidence
that I will win.
All it takes is patience
decision to take the time
knowing it will not happen
the first time or the tenth
Respecting this weed’s tenacity
and hold on life
but sure that if I hold out
for the flowers long enough
I will prevail

(though other weeds
will come of course—
the larger work is never done).

I like this stand.
Can I transplant it
lend this steady confidence
to other parts of life
where weeds are choking
things I love?
Learn to not succeed
the first ten times
and still go back?

Some things are worth doing
no matter what the odds,
at other points we can’t prevail,
and time is a factor, true—
but with a win on the horizon
it’s not so hard to find the time,

And to see that distant win
requires the confidence
I know the best
when gardening.

#73 The Visit to Gitega Prison 11/08

2009-09-02T17:31:00.000-04:00

The context: In August 2005, a group of people who participated in a
Healing and Rebuilding our Communities (HROC) workshop, wanting to put their
desire for reconciliation into practice, decided to visit the prison where
people accused of participating in the violence in their community were
being held. This is Marius' story of their visit and its aftermath.

The visit to Gitega prison

What we got from the HROC workshop has really made a big impact in our
hearts. Before it, I would never think of going to visit the people who
were in prison in Gitega, because one of them had killed my brother. But I
did it because I have been changed.

For me, when we did the visit, it was like putting down a heavy load I had
been carrying. If you are traumatized and you see the one who caused your
trauma, it continues to re-traumatize you, or might cause you to just run
away because it is too much. But choosing to reach out was a way of digging
out—-you know this root, the root of war, the root of killing—-it is deep in
our hearts. And we need to uproot it, and in order to uproot it we need to
start by forgiving those who are close, who are in our communities.

For example, if I have purchased something on store credit, but then I
delayed to pay back my debt, I would always feel ashamed, and if I came upon
the shop owner I would want to change my path because I feel he is accusing
me. The same way, when someone has done something wrong to you, especially
these killings, he or she will come to avoid you, whatever he or she did,
but it’s up to us to start because we are the victims, to start letting them
approach us, because we have loved each other, and we need them to see the
love we are carrying for them and draw them to us. So that’s what we did.

We say in Kirundi, “The medicine of bad actions is not more bad actions.” I
learned this to be true—-now our relationship is like brothers. The man who
killed my brother now comes to help me cultivate my plot and I go help him
to cultivate his. This makes other people in village question themselves,
saying, “Hmmm, Marius is a Tutsi and the other man in a Hutu, how is it that
they are helping each other when they know what happened between their
families?”

So the visit to Gitega was very, very fruitful. Fortunately, after the
visit some of the prisoners were released and now they are back in the
community. And now we are sharing. When we meet at the bar, we share the
same beer, whereas that was never possible before. So it has really
strengthened our relationship and it has created a sense of forgiveness in
our community. That’s why I am asking you to do more HROC workshops for
everybody living in our community.

Marius Nzeyimana
www.aglionline.org

Choice

Choosing this stop
to get to work
requires a longer walk
but gives a stretch of loveliness—
a park, with grass, trees, flowers, peace.
I soak it in
do not regret the extra block of gray
where office towers soar.

Once past the park my eyes
no longer see.
This block is just
a means unto an end
the price I choose to pay,
invisible.

And then one day
my clouded vision clears.
I notice what is there
and I see—-trees.

Slender oak and birch,
ambassadors from living earth
to this alien place,
reach up the narrow canyon
fresh green amidst the gray
unpretentious
brave
resilient
full of grace.

My choice was good--
to take in beauty that I knew was there,
but better still
to look beyond the known
beyond the easy focus point
to train my heart and eye
to see the rest.

#72 The American Dream 10/08

2009-09-02T17:29:00.001-04:00

I had started an on-line opinion poll and discovered after all the
preliminaries that it was about the American Dream. Did I believe that I
had reached that dream or that I still could? Did I believe my children
would have more chance of attaining it than I had? Did I believe everybody
in the country could get there?

I found myself at a loss. How could I answer these questions if I wasn’t
even sure what the American Dream was? The way I hear it talked about, it
has everything to do with materialism--a house in the suburbs with a lawn
and a white picket fence; a new car every two years; rising success at a
white collar job; luxury cruises and five-star-hotel vacations.

I’ve never had any of these things, don’t want them, and wouldn’t wish them
on anybody I love. The house in the suburbs seems too isolated from
community. The series of new cars is planned obsolescence at its worst, and
a recipe for global disaster. The career focus obscures the question of
what gives life meaning. The pampered vacation, which those who do the
pampering could never afford, highlights the ugly inequalities of our
system. If this is the American Dream, I would be happier if we all woke
up.

But the survey doesn’t give me the option of saying this, or asking
clarifying questions. It has, however, piqued my curiosity, so I do little
research. One source calls the American Dream a “belief in the freedom that
allows all citizens and residents of the United States to achieve their
goals in life through hard work.” The idea is that, without the rigid
European class structure, anybody can get ahead if they want to.

I see two flaws here. One is that it’s hard to set goals outside of one’s
cultural context, and if material wealth and winning out over others are
relentlessly rammed home as the ultimate in achievement, then any other goal
falls short. The second is that, like it or not, we still have a class
structure. Just look at how legally-sanctioned discriminatory lending
policies made it almost impossible for hard-working Black Americans to build
wealth till well after World War II, and how economic disparities are
greater now in our country than ever before.

I could stop here, but I would rather be a believer than a cynic, so I
investigate further. I find that the term was first used by James Truslow
Adams in 1931. He says that the American Dream is "that dream of a land in
which life should be better and richer and fuller for everyone, with
opportunity for each according to ability or achievement. It is a difficult
dream for the European upper classes to interpret adequately, and too many
of us ourselves have grown weary and mistrustful of it. It is not a dream of
motor cars and high wages merely, but a dream of social order in which each
man and each woman shall be able to attain to the fullest stature of which
they are innately capable, and be recognized by others for what they are,
regardless of the fortuitous circumstances of birth or position."

Well now. I’ve been in a cranky and contentious mode, but do I want to
argue with this? Divested of all the trappings of materialism, I would have
to say that this is a worthy dream, and one that I do believe in. But I
couldn’t cast it so narrowly. I would want it not only for myself, my
family and my fellow Americans, but for all humanity. Now, THAT would be a
Dream worth working for.

Baseball

The Sox, down in the series,
come back to force game seven.
Our visitors,
a Pole and two Scots,
are clueless.

I remember a season
picking apples
on crisp October days
long ago,
resting over lunch
and hearing a radio
far far away.
It was too far
to make out words,
yet the rhythm, the cadence
called forth knowledge
deep in my bones—
unmistakably a ball game.

Baseball
throws out its lure
over the years
across the land,
an old song that is always new,
leisure and tension entwined
in the taut expectancy of each pitch.

Not caring,
I am still drawn in
every time.

Is the purpose of the game
to round the bases
score a run
make an out?
(all words
almost too familiar to explain--
the translation is halting,
clumsy--
like telling an alien
how to breathe)

Or is it a context
for being alive
with others
on a long summer evening
or a crisp October day?

#71 Holding Open the Space

2008-09-01T15:08:00.001-04:00

The outcome was pre-ordained. On one side was the Governor, the legislature, the court system, the newly-established state gaming control board and the big casino companies. On the other were a few little row-house neighborhood groups who weren’t too happy with the prospect of 5000-slot-machine casinos next door on the riverfront.

The situation had been carefully set up to side-step public input. The legislation was pushed through in the middle of the night, and the selection of the sites and companies was put in the hands of a state-appointed board. The strategy was clear: create an impregnable united front, move quickly and forcefully, and steamroll anything in the way before it had a chance to grow. Ordinary folks would realize that they didn’t have a hope in hell of standing up to a force like that, and would just add it to the list of things in this world that were beyond their control and learn to adjust. Why get bloodied and battered over what was clearly a done deal?

But some people didn’t get it. It was a scrappy group of neighbors who were mad as hell—and they were lucky enough to get some brilliant strategists on their side to fight back. They went to the casino board headquarters with magnifying glasses to search for the plans the public had never seen. They attended City Council meetings and wrote letters and collected thousands of signatures for a ballot question. When the question was knocked off the ballot, just days before the election, they held their own independent referendum. They kept harping on the idea that, since we live in a democracy, people in the city ought to have some say in a decision that so clearly affected them.

And they kept on not winning. The casino executives first ignored them, then swatted at them like pesky flies, then brought out their big guns to fight back. The newspaper made a few half-hearted comments about imperfect process but declared it a done deal. The governor stood firm. The mayor had nothing to say. The courts knocked them down time and time again.

And still they didn’t give up. Months passed. A city councilman picked up on an obscure law they found that would hinder the sale of property over the water. Archeologists discovered old Revolutionary War era artifacts. Groundbreaking was delayed. A new mayor was elected, and he expressed concern about the siting. A city planning group reported that great windowless casinos with big parking lots weren’t ideal for a downtown waterfront. The mayor started to sound a little bolder. Newspaper editorials got a little more critical. Conversations about alternative sites began to spring up. Support for the casinos within the city became increasingly hard to find.

Finally the governor, who had been an unswerving casino ally, reluctantly agreed to host a meeting at which re-siting would be on the agenda. Local politicians grew more bold. The newspaper decided that the whole process had been flawed from beginning to end. Later, at the end of the meeting, one of the casinos announced that it was open to looking at a different site.

Casino opponents still haven’t won, but the terms of the struggle have been transformed, and the tide may finally have turned. By managing to hold the space open long enough, they bought time for more and more people to consider that perhaps it wasn’t a done deal after all. They bought time for the researchers to find the obscure laws and evidence of artifacts. They bought time for a larger and larger anti-casino voice to emerge, giving city politicians the courage to take a stand. They foiled the grand strategy of using overwhelming and intimidating force to make the casinos an immutable fact of life, crushing from the start any hope of being able to fight back.

It’s a grand tale of David vs. Goliath. But it’s also a reminder that we need the people who aren’t willing to accept defeat even when there’s “no chance”, people who will stand in the path of overwhelming and intimidating force—and buy time for others to find reason and courage to hope.

(For more information, go to www.CasinoFreePhila.org)

#70 Drilling for Truth

2008-07-15T16:36:00.000-04:00

There are at least three quite different ways of seeing the issue of race and racism—-all of them true. There is the lens of our personal experience: the messages we got as children, the people we have known, the experiences we’ve had, the things that have stretched and moved us, the things that have been hard.

Then there is the lens of history and society: the impact on African Americans of slavery followed by over a century of government-sanctioned discrimination, the current reality of segregation and inequality, the growing barriers to immigration, and attitudes about race that range from passively unaware to actively hostile in much of the population.

Then there is the third lens of the Spirit: the understanding that ultimately we are all children of God, that in the most profound sense race is an artificial construct that serves to divide people who belong together.

If we think of these as three layers, one on top of the other, most of us tend to relate to one of them more than the others. With the top layer, we see race personally, our own experience is our primary reality, everything else seems too far away, too abstract. With the middle layer, we are acutely conscious of the enormous damage of institutional racism and feel that the main job has to be exposing that reality. With the bottom layer, we cling to, and hope to rest in, the knowledge that we are all one, and can’t imagine anything more fundamental.

I think much of our difficulty in addressing issues of race and racism comes from trying to communicate with the folks who relate to a different layer than the one that so clearly reflects reality to us. We get so frustrated. Those other folks seem so insular and blindered, or so grim and guilt mongering, or so simplistic and other-worldly. I think there’s a solution though: it lies in moving from the horizontal to the vertical, inviting everybody to get together on top of the whole thing and start drilling.

Drill into that layer of personal experience. Remember what we were told when we were little, who we had access to and who we didn’t, who we loved, what was hard. Tell our stories to each other. Drill a little deeper in that first layer. Reflect on how our experience has shaped our attitudes toward race. Dare to celebrate our loves and our deep connections. Dare to imagine how naïve unawareness can be experienced as hurtful and seen as racist. Nobody is bad here—-it’s just a rich opportunity to uncover more and more truth. It’s an important layer where we could spend a lot of time, but there’s more below.

Drill into that hard layer of institutional racism. Learn about slavery, about the tragic long-term impact of a corrupted and aborted Reconstruction, about how discriminatory lending policies made it almost impossible for Black Americans to build wealth through home equity till well after World War II, about how structural racism continues to segregate and bar equal access to education, jobs and health care. Share what we learn. Be willing to grieve. There’s way more here than any of us want to know. But until we get through this layer, until we interact with this truth, we don’t have full access to what’s below. We can imagine the good clean water down there. We can talk about it. But we can’t drink it.

Only when we’ve done the hard work of drilling, through the cloudy water of personal experience, through the bitter water of institutional racism, only then will we be able to drink the life-giving water of oneness in the Spirit, the deepest truth of all.

Margins

There is something about margins.
Weeding the garden
I like to start at the edges
claiming everything they enclose.

Most of the show is at the center
rich and beautiful--
It calls out to be tended.
But if you tolerate weeds at the margin
they grow in.

Starting at the margin
is a decision
to have everything.

Some things that have made me hopeful recently:

Members of a historic peace church in Kenya who have found renewed life in taking leadership in the resettlement of refugees after the ethnically-charged violence of the winter.

A modest little man who created a wetland out of waterlogged and abandoned cornfields in western Pennsylvania, offering a home to hundreds of species of birds, insects, amphibians and fish.

A group of ten-year-olds who were thrilled to spend a week without electronic entertainment, using their own imagination, simple found and recycled materials and hand tools to create--and create, and create.

In the absence of leadership on the federal level, the governors of US states who are taking the lead in thinking about the well-being of their constituents and developing innovative social welfare and environmental policy.

Compost

2008-07-15T16:34:00.001-04:00

Compost

When we first moved onto our block in the late 70’s, there were no street
trees and all the little front yards were paved with concrete. That first
spring I took a sledgehammer to our front and pulled out the concrete,
leaving an ugly hole and barren subsoil. The next time I visited my mother,
I filled the trunk of the car with as much compost from her big bin as would
fit and used it to create my front garden.

I remember coming home from vacation later that summer and being shocked
with delight at all the flowers that had burst into bloom—-marigolds,
geraniums, Black-eyed Susans. It was a vision of loveliness. Much has
changed over the years. More and more neighbors broke up their concrete to
create little front gardens. We started planting trees. Our children grew
and climbed in the trees, and our front got more and more shady. Now it
reminds me of a woodland floor—-equally lovely in its own way.

With the loss of our neighbor’s big old trees in the back, that’s now our
sunny spot and I’ve scrambled to fill a space where nothing but ivy would
grow into a bright spot of color. Through all those years, my little
compost pile in the side yard has steadily absorbed the kitchen waste and
weeds and provided all the fertilizer I needed and the dirt for all the
potted plants.

The boys are now grown and have moved to a little row house five blocks
away. It came with a tiny front yard, not concrete, but poor barren soil
overgrown with weeds, just like that of the abandoned house next door. The
other day they came to me for help, just as I had gone to my mother so many
years ago. I gave them plants that had spread and multiplied beyond the
capacity of my little space, a bag of leaves I’d scrounged in the fall, and
a great container of compost from my pile. In the cool of the evening, I
biked over to their house to see what they had done. They were as proud as
new parents, and the two little front yards looked hopeful and full of
promise. What we couldn’t see, but all were thinking of, was the
compost—-two generous scoops dug into the holes where each plant was taking
root.

Fair trade

She sits on a bench
pigeons gathered round
and throws breadcrumbs
while she talks--
family troubles, maybe
or things on her mind.

The pigeons stay close,
a willing audience--
it seems a fair exchange.

5.08

Some things that have made me hopeful:
All the countries in Africa that turned back the Chinese ship carrying arms
to Zimbabwe in the spring.
Apologies from Australia and Canada for the mistreatment of native people,
and the truth and reconciliation processes that will allow for continued
conversation over the coming years.

#68 Three Gifts

2008-07-15T16:31:00.001-04:00

There have been some unyielding challenges in my volunteer/work life
recently that have left me feeling more discouraged than usual, trying my
hardest but battered by circumstances beyond my control. So I’ve been
hungry for more hopeful and sustaining perspectives. One, I note with some
surprise, comes from a column I wrote many years ago. My point of view is a
little different now, but it’s been on my mind enough that I want to share
parts of it again. And I’ve received three wonderful and totally unexpected
gifts in the past week that remind me of what is tangibly and immediately
hopeful about this world.

SHARING A TATTERED WORLD

Her world is in tatters. Her loved ones are threatened. By some
miracle she finds herself relatively whole. So she has this day to work and
love and knit together the fabric of her world as best she can.

I had in my heart a particular grandmother who lived not far from me and
had been in the news. Some of her children had been lost to drugs. One had
been killed, another accused in a killing. In a neighborhood ravaged by
crime, she was now raising a granddaughter, trying against all odds to keep
her safe. She seemed the only whole person in the picture. How could she
keep going amidst such violence and despair? And how could she and I ever
have anything in common?

I’ve had difficulty knowing how to deal with the ease of my life. How
can it be that I’ve been spared so many difficulties that others face day in
and day out? I did not choose that ease. I would not choose war, poverty
or injustice either, but I grieve for those who carry such a heavy burden,
and know how untested my strength and courage have been.

It came to me in sudden clarity that, despite all this, we were just the
same. That grandmother’s world was in tatters. My world was in tatters.
Not my immediate life, my family and neighborhood, but my larger life. My
city was poor, my schools struggling. My country that I loved promoted
grave injustice. Brothers and sisters in other countries lived in terrible
need. Some of them did unspeakable things to each other. Our common
environment unraveled.

By some miracle, amidst the wreckage of her world this grandmother is
still standing, still able to think and work and love. It is the same with
me. I have done nothing to deserve it, yet I too find myself standing,
relatively whole.

In the details, my daily tasks and challenges might be very different
from those of that grandmother, or of any other survivor. Nor can I pretend
that a history of racial and economic injustice doesn’t weigh heavily on us
all and hinder our ability to find our way to each other. But in the larger
sense, we are just the same. Our world is in tatters. Our loved ones are
threatened. By some miracle we find ourselves standing. So we have this day
to work and love and knit together the fabric of our world as best we can.

THREE GIFTS

1. I was walking to my vegetable plot in the community garden a few blocks
away, intent on a quick errand, when I paused at a little barbeque grill set
out on someone’s front step (surprising, since people usually barbeque in
back). The woman tending it asked if I wanted a hot dog. Hungry, I
stopped, reaching into my pocket to see if there was any money. “No”, she
said. “They’re free.” Really?! She insisted that they were a gift, and
delighted, I chose to accept. Who would turn down an angel, or cheapen her
offering with money? I told her that the big flower bed in front of the
community garden was my gift to the neighbors, and went on my way, eating
the hot dog. When I finished my errand, I took a few minutes to pick some
flowers from the garden—-a lovely little spiky collection of pink, purple
and blue. I was excited to offer her something in return, and she showed the
same shock of surprise and delight that I had felt receiving her gift. I
went home warmed from the inside out, reminded of what a blessing it is to
give and to receive.

2. I’d been up early, worrying when I should have been sleeping, and was
hurrying to fit in this one last errand to the post office after a long day
at work. There was a package to collect. As I gave the little slip to the
woman at the counter and reached for my drivers license to show her my ID,
she said, “You don’t need to do that. I know your face.” Really?! I’ve
been to this post office many times over the years, and have often been
treated well, but the lines are usually long and it’s not my favorite place,
and I have to say (with considerable embarrassment at this point) that I
don’t know the people who work there. But this woman knows me. I’m part of
her community even though I have been inattentive. It’s another unexpected
gift. I feel seen, and deeply reassured.

3. I download my e-mail—-always with mixed feelings because of the deluge
of messages that will be released—-and start the work of dealing with it.
Then a name jumps out. Castine. One of the young men in northern
Uganda—-the one with the sweetest face and the hardest questions. It has
been two months since I’d written him, throwing a line of love across the
ocean. And things have not been going well there. I open it up, eager but
braced for disappointment. There is none. He had been in the countryside
with his grandmother, light years from a computer. He is glad to be in
touch, thankful for the skills we offered that he is now using to help
others, struggling economically as always, but looking toward the future
with hope. I smile, resting in his goodness and in this simple human
connection—-the heart of what makes life worth living.

#67 In a Strange Land

2008-04-22T21:28:00.000-04:00

There are adventures to be had,
sights and sounds I’m eager to take in—
our first trip into Gulu town
the market at Soroti
country clan life in the east—
I know nothing, soak up all I can.

Routines to master—
When a woman holds a pitcher, offers soap
pours water on my hands into a bowl,
learning to be thorough without waste
of her time or the water
(toward the end, and less an honored guest,
being the one to pour),
Riding the motorcycle taxi sideways on the back
finding where to put my hand to brace
against the bumps and turns.

Parts beyond my reach on this brief trip—
the language (though I dabble at the edge),
the grease the system needs to make things work.

Then things that catch me unawares—
The wind whose rustle through the leaves
I know so well is wrong somehow,
it clatters in the palms,
and tall trees that should be cool and green
surprise with flowering flaming red.

It’s the parts I think I know, but don’t
that seem most strange.

#67 Telling Our Stories

2008-04-22T21:26:00.001-04:00

We arrive in the only transport available-an ancient pick-up truck, the interior worn down to the metal, door handles to stubs, too many cracks in the windshield to count. Waiting to greet us in the late afternoon shade, is a group of young men and women.

We've traveled two nights in planes and all day on the worst road I've ever been on in my life to get to this town in Northern Uganda. We've never been here, don't know any of these young people. Yet they know our friend and are eager to learn what we have to share about peer counseling. In less than an hour we are scattered around the yard in groups of three, sharing life stories.

The idea of taking turns listening to each other is pretty simple. I've done it tons of times. I listen to what's on your mind and you listen to what's on mine, without interruption, without criticism, without advice. If we get good attention, just the telling helps. If we have a chance to vent some of the feelings it helps even more. We get more space in our brains and in our hearts. I've listened to all kinds of stories-about hard days as work, love-life angst, fears about the future, hard times with children, hard times with parents, physical injuries, embarrassing moments. I've told my share as well.

But I've never done it in a dirt poor country in a region where civilians have borne the brunt of a horrible civil war for over twenty years. The process is just the same, but the stories are a little different. There is the young man who was abducted at age nine to serve in the rebel army and escaped at twelve, orphaned and stigmatized; another whose three little cousins were taken, the youngest one killed, the others returned years later, badly damaged; another trying to help a young woman from his village who was abducted and robbed of her childhood and is now raising an unwanted child of rape.

I don't know which is harder-providing a container for these stories, or taking my turn, with problems that feel inconsequential to the point of non-existence in comparison. I have to remind myself that it doesn't matter. They don't want my story to be as hard as theirs. They're pleased that we came from so far to visit, happy to get a little attention. They find the idea that they've been traumatized very helpful; it puts their personal experience into a larger context. The idea that healing can come from listening well to each other's stories and to the feelings that lie beneath is a powerful one. It gives them a new way of helping friends and loved ones. They are both challenged and intrigued by the idea of letting people find their own solutions. Mostly they are eager to be part of the healing process.

For two weeks we meet with these young people daily. We find games to play that let us laugh together. They love giving and getting hugs. Individual personalities, strengths and passions begin to emerge. Stories of giving loving attention to others come back to us within days. This process of taking turns listening and showing our caring, which has come to seem so ordinary in my life at home, here in northern Uganda has become something very special and precious indeed. I'm challenged to treasure it in all its stunning simplicity. I want to learn from my peers in Northern Uganda to cut through the layers of daily worry and irritation that are often the substance of my stories, down to what really matters, to the essentials of life that are so close to the surface here. I want my story to be one of accessing the deep well of love in my heart and putting it to the service of my world.

#65 The Commute

2008-03-18T21:58:00.000-04:00

Missing

Hurry down the block
miss the trolley
head on, then stop
remembering
trot back home
retrieve the missing wallet
miss the trolley yet again

Catch the third one
come across
a long lost friend—-
no longer missing.

Humanity

Early evening
and the trolley is crowded.

A mother and little girl
given a seat
A very tall man in the back
head almost touching the roof
holding a small baby
relaxed, content
The arm of a man around a woman
the woman’s around a baby
in close circles of caring

Love is present in this house.
Peace prevails.

#66 To the Bone

2008-03-18T21:57:00.000-04:00

Bone weary after two night flights
we step off the plane in equatorial Africa
refresh ourselves in the cool of a colonial hotel
(I fret, impatient for reality)
then set off in our ragged little bus piled high with baggage
for the north.

Twenty years of civil war, unspeakable atrocities on both sides
have cut the north from normalcy.
The trip had seemed too risky till last year.
A shaky peace now holds.

Shake off fatigue, the war--here all is new.
Past the city center open air shops line the street
beds and chairs made and sold, car repair, food stalls
bikes piled high and wide, a multitude of taxi vans
then countryside—palms, big cactus trees
women walking, balancing their loads.

The road gets worse,
what used to be a three hour trip now stretched to five.
We slalom around potholes
veer off to the shoulder, try the other lane.
Relief at signs of road repair short lived--
stretches of graded earth and smooth new surface
have endless little piles of sand to slow us down.
Come almost to a stop, ease over one
then pick up speed in time to slow down for the next.
One section is like lace,
deep rounded potholes in a filigree of macadam.
Both lanes have been abandoned,
drivers opting for the rutted shoulder
as the quicker way.
Is there a plan to make this journey so bone jarring
so achingly slow
because it’s headed north?

Five hours pass.
My hopes pin on the Nile, the border of the north
they say it’s not far after that.
On and on and on till finally
we pass a town of refugees
safe below the river
hundreds of walkers line the road
first visible signs of war. I wonder how they live.

We crest a hill, catch sight of water.
Not my image of the Nile
cutting a wide green line through Egypt’s sand.
This is a raging torrent, crashing round bends and over rocks
full of wild and dangerous beauty.
We slow for a picture, are stopped at once by soldiers.
Holding this bridge has kept the rebels pinned above.
The peace is not yet strong
and all our friends within are from the north.
Some of the soldiers strut and ogle, others talk
our friends respond, and helplessly we wait.
Money is passed up front, more talk
more money, and we’re free to leave.
The young Americans who choose the Nile for kayaking
seem very innocent and far away.

We bump and jar into the night and the unknown--
and suddenly there’s fire.
My mind is filled with war atrocities and burning huts
but no one screams or runs.
The fire burns peacefully
my fears a faint echo of those bone chilling times.

Gulu has become for me a town of dreams,
one to drive toward for eternity and never reach.
Then, abruptly, from one moment to the next
it takes shape, we’re in its midst.
Nine hours, weary and wrenched to the bone
I step from the bus
see our friend’s dear smiling face
look up to old Orion in the sky
and know I’m home.

3/08

#65 Consigning Discouragement to the Past

2008-03-18T21:56:00.001-04:00

Here's a new way to think about discouragement. What if the most potent part of it is already past? When we face hard things now, the feelings of discouragement that overwhelm us are from our childhood-when we really were little and our best efforts often failed-and they really don't belong in the present at all. It's a hard concept to wrap the mind around: there's a way it makes sense, but surely there are discouraging things in our world in the present. Indeed, isn't most of our world pretty discouraging? Isn't that one of the things that takes the shine off our enjoyment of life?

I decided to investigate. When I tried conjuring up the discouraging messages from my childhood, I heard a plaintive little voice saying, "This is way too big, and there's nothing I can do to change it." Then I tried to think about the most discouraging thing that I'm facing in my current life; what came to mind was the possible financial failure of an organization to which I'm deeply committed. When I listen for the sound of my discouragement about it, it's that same plaintive message I hear inside my head: "This is way too big, and there's nothing I can do to change it."

But when I reflect on it, I see that this message really doesn't fit the current situation. The problem is big, for sure, and there's no guarantee of success. My efforts, and the efforts of others, may ultimately prove to be inadequate. On the other hand, I'm big now too. And I'm smart. And I'm surrounded by other smart grown-ups who want the same thing and have a chance of making it happen. When I erase the old message, when I drain out the old discouragement, the whole tone is different. What I'm left with is basically just a challenge. And who would want to live a life without challenges? Of course this is more easily said than done, but there's something about the shift in perspective that I find very hopeful.

In a way, we have it backwards. We say, for example, that the environmental crisis makes us feel discouraged. But, if we're really honest, we've felt discouraged for a long time (way before we knew about global warming) and the crisis gives us something to attach those feelings of discouragement to in the present. If we consigned them to the past, if we drained away their old potency, we'd just be left with a situation. And we'd be in a much stronger position to size up the situation, gather others around, and think about what we want to do.

#66 Night Watch in Gulu

2008-03-18T21:54:00.000-04:00

I can't sleep. The first two nights the fan kept us cool enough, but the electricity has gone out, and I lie here sweating. I've known hotter nights at home, but there I have a big breezy corner room and a fan, and if it's really bad, I can always find relief in a cold shower. Here, wedged in against the wall, to go anywhere I'd have to feel my way over my husband, under the mosquito net, then over my son who's taking up the rest of the space on the floor of this tiny room. In this strange house in total darkness, the bathroom seems an impossible goal.

I'm happy to be out of the hotel, happy to be crammed into Abitimo's house as part of her extended family. What a privilege it has been these last two days to meet with a group of young people who are eager to learn peer counseling, eager to play a role in healing their region from over twenty years of devastating civil war. What an incredible set of circumstances that has me, on my second day in this African country far from home, sitting in the late afternoon shade among ten or twelve groups of three, each listening intently as the others tell their life stories. One young man in my group touches my heart as he speaks shyly of past troubles. I find out later that many of these young people are orphans, most have lost loved ones to the war, and some had been abducted to be child soldiers.

It's so still. I can hear the sound of distant drumming. I wonder if there's been drumming on other nights, drowned out by the fan. I think of how the fan serves as a buffer to other noise, just as our distance and affluence buffers us from the lives of so many others. It's good to be able to hear. I wonder if this is just somebody's music, or if these drums are sending a message that is being received and understood.

There are atrocity stories here, but I don't have any to tell. Those are all other people's stories-stories of those who suffered and survived, of those who have to live with the unspeakable things they have done. There is an urgency about the trade of these stories. I understand the urge to tell them-to try to shatter complacency, shock people out of lethargy, spark outrage, make something happen. There is also the urge to hear-a fascination with horror, a compulsion to confirm our despair, or stoke the fires of inner guilt. But knowing the worst doesn't make anything better. We need to have our own stories.

The sound of a vehicle startles me. There is hardly ever a vehicle on this road, and it's the middle of the night. It stops very close to our compound. A series of scary possibilities race through my mind. But nothing happens. Again I'm alone in the night. I try to relax, discover that if I press up all the way against the wall I can feel a little coolness from the concrete.

My own story is a story of friendship with Abitimo, of loving her goodness and courage and vision, of following that thread of friendship, of one thing leading to another. I also have a story of meeting eager and open-faced young people, so ready to do their part to heal their beloved Acholi land, which has been caught for so long between a brutal rebel force and a national army eager to crush a troublesome ethnic group. They carry so much responsibility on their shoulders, so much love in their hearts. I get to tell a story full of hope.

A cell phone rings in the bedroom next door. Abitimo's son Patrick and his three children have traveled here with us from Philadelphia; his wife was held up at the airport with passport troubles and missed the flight. Days later she's finally close to boarding, panicked that something still might go wrong, heedless of the hour in Uganda. His voice is steady, reassuring. It's not been easy for him either, not having her here. His shoulders are broad-they've had to bear a lot. I'm grateful for his presence. Abitimo was the beacon for us, but he provided the bridge that made this trip seem possible.

I'm still awake. I don't know why. I wonder if I will sleep at all tonight. I think of all that the people here have endured, and one sleepless night on my part doesn't begin to compare. As I think about it, it's a ridiculously small price to pay for the access I've been given to the heart of this community, for the opportunity to stand with this people, for the chance to be of use.

I hear Abitimo coughing, then the sound of drowsy contented talk-the two grandchildren who sleep in her bed. The murmers die down, and all is still again. A cock crows. And finally I sleep.

The Old Gods & The Winter Coat

2008-01-22T22:26:00.001-05:00

The old gods

The old gods
the gods of fire and flood
of wind and thunder
are loose in the world again.

For ages they slept
our loyalty transferred
to a new God
and to our prideful selves.
Mining the earth for riches
controlling flood and fire
heady and smug with mastery
we felt no need
for their good will.

But we poked at where they slumbered
pierced deep through their crust
messed with their air
thickened and fouled their watery home.
Heedless and unafraid
we tickled their toes.

Slowly, slowly
they stirred, grew restive, roused
smelled the intrusion
started to growl
then roar
with howling wind and raging flood
searing heat and fire

Their fury unleashed
by the devastation wrought
through our idolatrous belief
that we have mastery
of earth.

It’s time to heed the ancient ways again
bow down to fire and wind
in all their power
give thanks for tree and water
seek for gifts and lives acceptable
to these old gods.

The Winter Coat

No private fitting rooms here
just a big mirror on the wall between
used ladies coats and sweaters.
I’ve been lured by the half-price sale,
my long-loved winter coat
now near its end.

An older woman in a red coat
asks the woman closest
how it looks.
I assume they are together
keep my counsel.
Another woman comes up to the mirror
A pair of shiny pants pulled over her own,
They chat and I realize we’re all a part of this.
When she comes back in another pair
I comment on how great they look.
She says she thought the black coat
I’d tried on was mine
it fit so well.
But even at half price
it’s more than I had planned to pay.

I look in the mirror again.
The woman in the red coat
inspects me critically
points out a spot on the collar
and some wear around the cuffs.
Not hard to fix she assures me
and I could adjust the buttons if I want.
I go back to the green coat
roomier and more practical in many ways
at half the price.
But she says no
It isn’t me.
It makes me look old.

How could she be so sure?
We’ve only just met.
Yet secretly
I was thinking the same.
Her certainty
is what I need.

Back in my old coat
(it will last a while yet)
I thank her for the chance to shop together
and go out warmed from the inside
by sociability
and a stranger
who assumed her welcome.

Attention Deficit

2007-12-28T19:22:00.000-05:00

We've been so conditioned to think of attention deficit as an internal disability experienced by certain people-mostly little boys-that I was startled to hear the phrase used to describe an external scarcity of resource-a deficit of attention in that's child's environment. It made sense. How many difficulties that children experience would e eased if they were recipients of more warm steady attention? How many of the rest of us-and our communities-could benefit from some good attention?

Paying attention seems like such a simple thing. You just notice what's going on and take it in. Why is there such a deficit in this world?

Sometimes we would choose to pay attention but can't figure out how. I remember when I had two small children and felt that my attention was being pulled in so many different directions that nobody and nothing was getting what was needed. It was a breakthrough to realize that I didn't have to split my attention-which can be as hard a job as splitting atoms. Rather, I could give shorter moments fully to one child, one thing. Our family could still have used more attention, but this was much better than that sense of splintered despair. At least what was there was whole.

It doesn't have to take long to smile at a child, notice the shape of a leaf, acknowledge someone's struggle. If we could realize that even just a moment of full undivided attention makes a difference, the sum of all those moments would be significant.

Then there are the times when we'd rather not pay attention. It can be hard to take in the things that we wish weren't there. The pull to look the other way, to will ourselves to not notice, to protect ourselves from all that grief and fear, can be overwhelming. Yet the alternative is so much worse. The blinders and the numbness that are required for not-noticing actually put us in more danger. Determined not to look, not to notice, not to feel, we can no longer take in what is going on all around us, and we miss signs that might lead to greater safety. The not-noticing strategy also prevents us from taking in things around us that are healthy and right and capable of providing nourishment.

Sometimes we don't want to pay attention because we don't want to feel responsible. If we can avoid engaging-if we can manage to not notice-then maybe nothing will be required of us. Paying attention, however, is not the same as fixing or saving. Ultimately we're really the only ones we can change, and most other people don't actually want to be fixed-they just want to be seen and heard and backed. Rather than fixing, paying attention means showing up, and being present to things that are hard as well as things that are wonderful.

It's basically a matter of choosing to be tuned in to life rather than tuned out. This does require opening ourselves to grief and fear, but the rewards are enormous. Wherever we pay attention, we gain connection. I remember a preschool student teaching job where the teacher discouraged responding to one little boy's repeated requests because he was "just looking for attention." We all missed out on a relationship, and I wonder how long it was before that little boy was labeled with an attention deficit disorder. We all have power to address this deficit, in our children, in our communities, in our world: We can all pay attention.

#62 Participating in Creation

2007-12-11T13:36:00.002-05:00

There is something mystical and magical and deeply satisfying about participating in the process of creation. Where before there had been nothing--maybe just a vision of possibility--through our own efforts now there is something real.

Just recently my husband and I realized that we were present to both a desire in our community for child-friendly service work and some very concrete needs of a struggling extended family. After checking with the family and finding a date, I made a proposal to the community-and there has been enough enthusiastic response that the idea has become a reality. Something exists where nothing had been before. I'm still kind of amazed. I feel like a magician who has waved a wand and successfully produced a rabbit out of thin air.

We are dying to be creators. The eight to eleven year olds I spend the mornings with at a summer conference are wild to make stuff. They will happily spend hours with the simplest of materials, making things that have never been made before-just for the sheer joy of exercising their creativity. The girls at our neighborhood Catholic school, where a friend and I have started a homemade "Simple Gifts" club, want to learn everything-to sew and knit and crochet and embroider and make dolls and doll clothes. (If we had the capacity, I'm sure they would love to learn to saw and drill and hammer and make wooden knick-knacks and toys as well.)

It can be an enormous pleasure to shop for beautiful fabric, or richly colored and textured yarn, or the best cooking ingredients, or fine quality paints to create with. But buying too much of the process can sabotage our creativity. Gluing little foam or metallic shapes or pretty papers to precut forms, or cutting slices off a cookie dough roll to put in the oven, just isn't as satisfying-somebody else has already done too much of the work. I prefer the presto-change-o something-from-nothing projects: making patchwork quilts from fabric scraps, paper beads and butterflies from old calendars and magazine pictures, cushion covers from discarded neckties, candy from orange and grapefruit peels, flexible little people from colored telephone wire, snuggly bunnies from odd socks, bouncy balls from found rubber bands.

I wonder sometimes about all the people I know who identify as artists and would love to spend more time doing art. I don't think it's because we're more creative than we used to be. I think it's because we have fewer outlets. Where we used to create, we are now expected to consume. Games that my family played with pencils, paper and imagination are now sold in boxes. We buy ready-made clothes and dinners and toys and furniture and art work and birthday parties and entertainment-all of which used to provide opportunities for creativity.

Our initiative and power are sapped. Somehow we have to believe more fully in our ability-in our right-to create. Every time we choose to act on that ability and that right, we choose against passivity and for participating in the creation of our future.

#61 Measurement

2007-12-11T13:23:00.000-05:00

Measurement

It's useful to be able to measure things. While I'm happy to make a soup or a stew with a pinch of this and a dollop of that and whatever vegetables we have on hand, I value the security of a recipe in baking. I measure my teaspoons and my cups and can be confident of the outcome. Measurement helps in sewing-in making clothes that fit and quilt squares that line up. It's important in carpentry; you wouldn't want to build a bookcase or a house by guess, hoping that the pieces will fit together one way or another. There is an important place for the precision that measurement can provide.

There is something reassuring about things that can be measured. Three teaspoons will always equal a tablespoon, the biscuit recipe will always produce biscuits, and twelve inches will always match a foot, no matter what medium you are using. You know what you are working with, and if you're careful, you can be pretty sure of how it will turn out.

The problem comes when we start trying to measure things that aren't quite as tidy as flour, fabric and 2x4s. Economics, for example, prides itself on being a science based on fact, on measurable data than can be relied upon for accuracy. So we measure interest rates and return on investments and median income and ups and downs in consumer spending and stock market activity and profit margins. We measure the gross domestic product and the gross national product. They are all hard numbers, like inches and tablespoons. When the numbers are good, we must be doing well.

The flaw in this system is so fundamental that it's hard to detect. In order to have a science of economics, in order to measure reliably, we have to leave out of the system everything that cannot be measured. Joy, satisfaction, human connection, sense of purpose, security-since there's no satisfactory measure for any of these, they have no place in the picture. They are irrelevant to the scientific determination of how well-off we are. Neither clean air nor quiet nor open space nor free time have any measurable economic value, while polluting industries, leaf blowers, urban sprawl and long work hours are all part of our nation's wealth.

There are similar issues in philanthropy. Foundations want to be responsible stewards of the money they hand out, so more and more they are requiring measurable outcomes. It's not enough to tell stories of growth and change. Stories can't be measured. So, to prove that they've spent this year's dollars well, social programs scramble to produce numbers about degrees and grades and jobs and income and immunizations. They can't talk about what is often the heart of their work-growing love, or courage, or hope for the future, or lives of meaning, or bright spirits-because none of these things can be translated into tidy numerical outcomes at the end of a year.

Measurements can play a role in economics and grant reporting. The number of people who have indoor plumbing or high school degrees or jobs at a livable wage or health insurance is likely to be indicative of overall well-being. But is the sum of all these things the measure of a good life? Does that sum plus a million dollars add up to happiness?
Let's keep things like inches and tablespoons and dollars for what they're really good at-like making biscuits and book cases and change at the store. But let's not settle so easily when we're talking about ourselves, our community, our well-being, and our future. When we're dealing with human beings we need a little more humility, and a little more understanding of the importance of that which cannot be measured.

#60 The Penny Jar

2007-12-11T13:22:00.000-05:00

When I first came back from Nicaragua, I was appalled by the in-your-face wealth in this country. The transition from a society gasping for survival to one gagging on excess left me shell-shocked. I needed some way to hold on to the reality of what I had experienced, to not go back to taking this affluence for granted. But I didn't see any advantage in flagellating myself with guilt, or ranting to everyone I met about how terrible our society was.

How to remember? Maybe I could be more thankful for things I have that I would truly want for everybody in this world There's plenty of plenty that I don't feel thankful for, that I don't actually want at all, for me or anybody else: mind-boggling choices in junk food, three car garages, living rooms so cavernous nobody likes to spend time in them, the opportunity to buy a whole new wardrobe every season, limitless ways to "improve" our looks. I chose running water.

What a miracle to turn on a faucet and get good clean water whenever you want it. And, though it's probably not the best use of this precious resource, what an incredible luxury to be able to send off human waste with the touch of a handle. This is not something to take for granted. How to remember? I made a little jar with a slot in the lid and put it on the windowsill beside the toilet. Every time I flushed, I put a penny in the jar. It was a time to give thanks for running water, and to remember my connection to all those people in this world who don't have it. Gradually I collected pennies into rolls, took rolls to the bank and sent off checks to an organization whose mission is to address the joint evils of overabundance and poverty through funding development work in poor countries.

The amount of money is insignificant, but the opportunity to feel connected is priceless. (One thing that has happened as a result is that I've gone back to picking up pennies on the street. Most people leave them these days as not being worth the effort of stooping. But if in stooping, I remember, then they have real value. And I can add them to the jar on my windowsill.)

How could I share this simple little discipline with others, and invite them to a greater sense of thankfulness and connection? Leading a weeklong morning program for eight to eleven year olds at a summer religious gathering over the years, I've offered a theme of playing and creating with materials that might be available to children anywhere in the world-and put out my little penny jar as a possible stop on the way back from the bathroom. I remember how thrilled I was one year when a thoughtful sixth grader said she wanted to have one in her bathroom at home. The idea might even have stuck, though I'll probably never know.

So the penny jar sits on my windowsill. The habit has grown so strong that a flush without a penny seems somehow incomplete. Indeed I have not forgotten. My commitment to taking every opportunity I can to act on this connection, to throw my weight toward right sharing of the world's wealth, has not wavered. But I've felt lonely at times-me and my little penny habit.

Late this summer, I answered the doorbell to find a family I knew on a walk, with the twelve year old in immediate need of a bathroom. She had been in one of my groups two or three years past. I sat on the stoop visiting with the others, and when she came down she had something to tell me that warmed my heart. "Pamela, when I flushed, I found a penny in my pocket and I put it in the jar."

#59 Language learning

2007-12-11T13:20:00.000-05:00

People talk about the value of growing up in a bi-lingual family, but this was something else. As the story goes, Maximilian Berlitz (of language school fame) had an extended family with a rich mixture of ethnicities, and many different languages were spoken around him. When he was very little he thought that everybody spoke their own individual language, and if you wanted to communicate with them, you had to learn it. So he did. The way I heard the story, he was not overwhelmed or upset by this situation; it was just a fact of life.

I was recently with a group of people discussing the challenge of communicating across religious language barriers. If you and I don't have a religious language in common, it's hard to communicate. I think this is true of political and values language as well. And it's particularly confusing when we think we're speaking the same language, using the same words but mean different things by them.

Perhaps that little boy has something to teach us. Maybe before I start making easy assumptions about what you are saying, I need to consider that I don't know your language. Maybe I need to stop and do a lot of listening (as I'm sure he did), and asking questions so I can hear your words in many different contexts, and sort out what a comparable word in my language might be.

Maybe I need to ask the question, "What will allow me to understand you?" It's hard to be around language we don't understand, hard to feel drawn toward others whose words we can't make sense of. Yet, rather than seizing on the signs that the chasms are too deep to ever be crossed, maybe we can stay in learning/translating mode, waiting and doing the work that will allow us to move toward the other person. Wouldn't it be wonderful to have the confidence of little Maximilian Berlitz-that we can learn any language, decipher any human being?

#58 The Big Addiction

2007-08-20T11:39:00.000-04:00

Imagine the old temperance fighters, denouncing drink in the strongest
language they could find: There is a great evil abroad in our land. It
coarsens the spirit, deadens the soul. It threatens the health and
stability of the family and leads our youth astray. As surely as night
follows day, it will destroy the lives of all who give over their will and
succumb to its lures.

There is indeed a great evil abroad in our land. More dangerous by far than
alcohol, it is the evil of materialism. The meaning and power are being
sucked out of countless lives and replaced with stuff. Our loved ones are
being snatched away into some kind of a demonic cult, being brainwashed into
worshiping Mammon, blindly seeking salvation through the latest fashion or
newest model. Yet there are more people in this cult than outside of it.
Like the worst horror movie, our whole society is becoming possessed.

Consumption is running amok. Many of us identify as consumers because it’s
hard to find meaning in our role as producers. But an empty substitute is a
dangerous thing. Just as fascination with pornography is a passive,
addictive, and ultimately unfulfilling substitute for intimacy, so is
fascination with consumption a passive, addictive, and ultimately
unfulfilling substitute for being present to the challenges and
opportunities of the world around us. We’re stuffing ourselves, and keep
reaching for more, because we’re starving for the real thing.

It is true that alcohol and drugs do more immediate and visible damage.
They can destroy lives more quickly and completely. And the solution is
simpler: you just stop. This addiction to stuff is tricky, because some
amount of material goods, like some amount of food, and some amount of work,
actually make life better. We can’t go completely cold turkey, the way you
can with alcohol and drugs, and be hopeful that beyond the pain of
withdrawal a better world is waiting.

This is an addiction that gets into our blood without us even realizing. So
just starting to notice the signs is an important first step toward
regaining control.
--When that little rush of good feeling that comes with buying something
makes me want more, I am addicted.
--When shopping or consuming entertainment seem like the best solution to a
certain flatness in life, when nothing else seems interesting, I am duped
and deluded.
--When a clever advertisement has me reaching for my wallet, I am
manipulated.
--When being without a certain item makes me feel vulnerable, isolated, less
sure of myself, or left behind, I am imprisoned.
--When I feel compelled to acquire or consume, I am enslaved.

Let’s be honest with ourselves. This is not just a harmless habit or an
occasional lapse of judgment. It is certainly not rational and free choice.
We’re talking about our whole society being duped and deluded, manipulated,
drugged and addicted, imprisoned and enslaved—-and most of us don’t even
know it.

While not all purchases are a sign of addiction, we need to start thinking
of any place that sells things as a place of seduction. To armor yourself
against its siren call, before entering any supermarket, mall, home
improvement store, on-line shopping site, box office, or entertainment
center, take the time to remember:

I am completely beautiful in the eyes of God.

Nothing this place sells has the power to change who I am.

The soul cannot be fed by snacks, clothing or gadgets.

The comfort that comes from things is fleeting at best.

It’s possible to play and relax without professional help.

Precious moments cannot be bought or sold.

Enough is enough.

It’s time for a new Declaration of Independence—-independence from anything
that somebody makes a buck off of trying to sell us. It’s time to take back
control of our choices, time to assert that enough is better than more, time
to reclaim the value of activity outside the marketplace, time to decide for
ourselves what gives life meaning.

July, 2007

Some things that have given me hope recently:
Chinese citizens of a coastal city circumventing a media blackout by using
cell phones that generated a million text messages around the country, and
successfully forced the government to put plans for a polluting
petro-chemical plant on hold.
A group of inner city youth who have been turned on to energy conservation
and constructing solar panels.
300 people listening intently to one member with a severe speech
impediment--and a good point.
The sense of hope and unity, however fleeting, that came from Iraq's soccer
win in the Asia Cup.

#57 To John Woolman

2007-08-20T11:38:00.000-04:00

To John Woolman

Friend John,
pacing your apple orchard
a hundred years and more
before the Civil War,
pondering the evil
that grows from love of money,
the plight of the poor,
how they connect,
where we fit in

Opening your heart
to the oppressed—
field workers, beasts of burden—-
all who labor painfully
that others might indulge
in that which only separates
them from God

Traveling long hours on horseback
or on foot
to visit those who still hold slaves,
taking time to center first in love—-
love for all God’s creatures,
the least and the great,
the harmed and those who harm
(perhaps unknowingly)
then searching for the words
to open clouded hearts

I feel you near.
I read those quiet, careful words
and hear the great passion
that rings behind,
your keen mind revealed,
undaunted by truth
unflinching in the task
of bringing it to light.

Your mind’s alive in me—
the choice to look and think,
make sense of our economy,
who works, who gains, how money flows,
puzzle out connections, patterns,
probe for roots,
sure that life together here on earth
can somehow be made right.

Your single-minded quest
sounds the depths of courage
and of faith.
I glimpse
where you in hard-won steadfastness believe:
we cannot be at peace
until our lives are stripped
down to our share.

Your task is laid upon my heart.
If only you can find the words to say
how sweet it is
to live as we were meant,
while willing us to look, clear-eyed
at all the facets of
our unconsidered lives—
the excesses that weigh us down
the ease that rubs another raw—

If only you can stand before us one by one
invite us
through hard truth
and through great love
to lay those burdens down—-
then we will change.

Impossible
so it would seem--
or maybe not.

Some things that have given me hope recently:

A forklift owner who, when asked his price, asked the customer's hourly wage
then pegged his a few dollars higher.

The power of laying aside agendas and seeking together for the truth.

Wetlands being reestablished along the Mississippi River.

The first new synagogue since the Holocaust opening in Estonia's capital to
serve its Jewish community.

#56 Loving Our Mother

2007-08-20T11:37:00.000-04:00

A group of us were talking about what we love about this world we live in:
the soil and the magic of seeds growing, the way we feel when we’re in the
water, moonlight, the smells at the beach, spring peepers and fresh breezes.
There was a sense of eagerness and relief in getting to share this love so
fully and openly.

We don’t do it very much. There is so much to be afraid of about what’s
going on these days, so much to worry about. It feels hard to imagine that
any single person could make a difference in the face of the vastness of the
earth and all its natural systems. It’s terrifying to imagine that we might
be destroying the environment that is critical to our survival. Most of us
cope by trying to not think about it, by numbing off.

But what we don’t face, we can’t pay attention to. And where we don’t pay
attention, we can’t notice our connection. It’s a terrible irony. Many of
us don’t know how to face the environmental crisis because it matters to us.
And to the extent that we don’t face it, we can’t tell that we are
connected, that we care.

Connection is so important. A lot of the hurts that we carry from our
childhood have to do with loss of connection with people we were born to
love. It is similarly hurtful to lose connection with the environment, with
our mother earth. Being in touch with what we love will provide the best
leverage for moving the numbness, fears and feelings of hopelessness that
stand in our way and keep us from acting. Getting back to that birthright
of connection gets us to the solid ground we need to stand on if we really
are going to play a role in saving the planet.

As we love more openly, we may be more able to grieve. This can be about
the tiniest thing: a single tree that is cut down, a dolphin that dies, one
moment that’s hard for our children. We may be more in touch with our
rage. We may find cracks in a pervasive feeling of numbed terror, and be
able to start loosening our fears. Imagining the possibility that one tiny
little thing might change for the better can nourish our hope.

So our first job and most important job is doing whatever we can to open up
our access to those deep wells of love for this mother of ours. How can we
hope to make any bigger change if our own personal relationship with the
environment is distant or tentative or defended? In that group we talked
about what it would mean to just keep paying attention to what we love in
the natural world around us. It doesn’t have to be hard, or take a lot of
time. I thought about the ever-changing beauty of the sky—-a part of the
environment that is always available to me just by looking up. I thought
about the pleasure I get when my hands are in the soil, helping in its
incredible capacity to sustain us. As more of us remember to pay attention,
as we regain that sense of connection, our lives will be better for sure,
and more of our love and intelligence will be available to act on. This,
more than anything, is what our mother needs.

Pamela Haines
5/07

Things that give me hope:
--The little organization, Global Response, that mobilizes letter writers to
shine the light on and support environmental struggles of poor communities
around the world--and often wins.
--Women from Rwanda who have participated in conflict resolution and trauma
healing from their country's genocide, helping Burmese freedom fighters
learn the importance of peace building.
--Teenagers from an urban community center and an affluent private school
spending a weekend together, doing the hard work of reaching across lines of
class and race to find each other.
--A new campaign finance law in Philadelphia that effectively prevented
moneyed interests from controlling the outcome, so that the next mayor will
be beholden only to the voters.

#55 Turning the Soil

2007-08-20T11:36:00.000-04:00

Turning the Soil

This soil is hard and sour
no place for living things--
Yet living things would grow
despite all odds.
Stunted, spindly
starved for proper food
we reach and strive.

The soil has been degraded over time--
Fat promises run dry,
Earth’s patient bills come due.
Hatreds stirred by fears
yield searing flame and bitter ash,
A nightly dose of horror
blares out from our screens--
a culture drawn to shock
consumed by greed.
We do not thrive.

But things can change.
With patient work a soil can be renewed
rich life-supporting nutrients worked in--
tales of generosity, good news,
stories that renew our faith, give hope
allow cramped roots the space to move
reach out, take in good food
give strength to stem, leaf, flower.
With inner health restored,
in upright vigor, reaching toward the sun
the task is not so bleak--
To claim our common future,
do the work we get to do
when we’re alive.

#54 Kitchen Commons

2007-08-20T11:35:00.000-04:00

Where is the peeler?
Not where I always put it
Nor in the second or third most likely spot.
I understand why people
don’t want strangers
messing in the kitchen.

Yet I feel a great freedom
in sharing this room
that I designed
when we stripped it
down to the brick
and built it back up again
when all of us were young.

It is capacious
hospitable
well worn,
Has housed people from all over,
Filled up with flavors and conversations
I could never create,
Been midwife
to friendships I treasure.

Those who live, visit and cook with us
are generous in return,
Clean at time with gusto
Put vegetable peelers
who knows where--

A price
I am willing to pay.

#53 Weather Dance

2007-08-20T11:34:00.000-04:00

After a hard rain that wreaked havoc with a local fair, it was easy to wish
that we could mandate good weather. But I remembered a cautionary tale from
my childhood about a prince and his magic rain cloud. He could produce a
storm at any time, but there was always somebody who pleaded for sunshine,
he heeded their pleas, and the land got dryer and dryer (though of course
the story ended up with a good rainstorm). It's probably just as well that
the government doesn't manage the weather, but we do chafe at not having
more control.

I guess it's because we've figured out so much about controlling the
weather, at least indoors. We've mastered so much that we feel entitled to
mastery-so life can go on every day just as we've planned it. It's
shocking, somehow, not to be in control of the weather. Surely an advanced,
technological affluent county such as ours shouldn't still be subject to
something so primitive and elemental. It just doesn't seem right. So we
compensate, by proving how cold we can make it in the summer, how hot in the
winter. It would be more rational (and way more fuel-efficient) to find an
indoor temperature that everyone would agree on for all seasons. But I'd go
even farther. I'd advocate for some of the pleasures of difference that
we've lost in our drive for uniformity of comfort.

This would mean rebuilding our relationship with the weather. It would mean
rediscovering the cycles of the day and of the year: getting up earlier in
the heat to enjoy the cool mornings, slowing down in the afternoons,
drinking in hot summer evenings filled with crickets and fireflies, filling
up the house with cool night air. It would mean learning the art of
dressing in layers, looking forward to the joys of snow, warming chilled
hands in front of a fire (or a space heater), eating hearty soups, really
appreciating the heat in a cup of hot tea or cocoa. It would mean
tolerating some discomfort. There may be times to insulate ourselves in
climate-controlled cocoons, but if that becomes our world, we lose one
that's so much bigger.

It would mean rediscovering our niche in different regions. I think of the
"salt box" houses that developed in New England. The north-facing side had
a steeply sloping roof, no windows and plantings of coniferous trees to hold
insulating snow and keep out cold winds. The south side had space to
accommodate many windows, and deciduous trees to provide leafy shade in the
summer and let in lots of winter sun when their leaves were gone. Yet now,
houses of that shape are put up all over the country, facing every which
way, and trees are purely for show. We have strayed so far from our roots
that we don't even notice. Interchangeable styles have replaced the
elegance of function and relation to place-and it is a loss.

Of course, weather is not totally benign. There will be periods of
oppressive heat and cold, tragic weather disasters. But if we're in
opposition and vying for control, the effect of these occasions will likely
be bigger. We need to learn to be a partner, leading sometimes perhaps, but
many times just following-getting into the rhythm and learning the pleasures
of the dance.

Pamela Haines
Philadelphia, 2/07

Diagonal

Encountering a ramp so clogged
it warns of endless crawl,
I sheer off, heading for another route
north out of town.

Pursuing a diagonal
I find myself not lost
but where I’ve never been--
vacant lots, row houses past their prime,
worn-down survival up against the tracks.

I jog onto a narrow street,
am struck--by horses--
a tiny stable yard wedged into the row
an old man with his horse amid the cars
others chatting on their stoops--
a farm scene overlaid upon
this dense packed city street.

A glimpse and then it’s gone.
In seconds I am headed north
on roads I’ve known for years.
Yet that block stays with me--
a prize for traveling the unknown
a jewel on the diagonal.

#52 Criminal Youth Redeemed

2007-08-20T11:30:00.000-04:00

Ronnie and Elena could have been anybody’s children. But they happened to
have absent and abusive parents and grow up in drug- and gang-infested
families and communities. The arcs of their lives, and of so many others
like them, were hauntingly similar—-seeking protection and belonging with
those who appeared most strong, getting caught up in gangs, gradually
abusing and brutalizing as was done to them, and ending up in jail.

They pose a terrible question for society: what to do with damaged young
people who have become a threat to their communities? The easy answer these
days, signaling a deep failure of morality and faith, is to lock them up and
throw away the key. But Ronnie and Elena got a second chance. They ended
up at a Texas youth correction facility that not only believes in
rehabilitation, but succeeds at it. Their story is the heart of John
Hubner’s Last Chance in Texas; the Redemption of Criminal Youth.

This is a powerful book about what can be done to change the trajectory of
violent young lives. The Giddings State School is very tough--with lots of
structure and limits to keep people safe. But each year they select one
group of young men and one of young women who have already been there for
years and demonstrate some promise, to go through a process of deep
reflection together. Each person tells his or her life story, taking at
least six hours and often more, with probing questions from peers and
therapists to get them to look at the pain they have buried under anger and
not-caring. Then the key incidents in those life stories are acted out.
Later each crime story is told and acted out--both from the perspective of
the young person committing it, then from that of the victim. The goal is
self-reflection, empathy--and redemption.

The stakes are high for these young people because the alternative is
decades in the regular adult prison system. There are those who don't
succeed, who can't find the strength to look deeply within themselves and
feel the pain that allows for transformation--and that is the ultimate
tragedy of this book. But most of them do--and that is what offers such
hope. Recidivism is reported as just 10% in three years.

Last Chance moves seamlessly between the life stories of Ronnie, Elena and
others, as told in their group, vivid descriptions of the program they are
engaged in, stories of the people who are working with them at the school,
and a larger overview of juvenile crime and correctional policies. It is a
compelling read, a page-turner that invites us deep into the lives of
troubled youth and the gritty day-to-day work of transformation. Answering
that question about the fate of damaged young people, it offers a working
model that could be replicated all over the country, with enormous savings
in both dollars and human potential. While sobering, its central theme of
love and redemption leaves us with renewed hope for the human condition.

7/06

Quartet

4 old ladies two by two
4 different hats
(sensible on this brisk October morning)
4 bags on laps
hands folded on top
4 stories to tell.

Their faces are attentive, kind--
lively talk and laughter
flow between the pairs.

They have troubles
I’m sure--and flaws
and yet, and yet
this sturdy foursome
shouts out
(in their old sensible way)
all that is right
on this October morning.

10/06

#51 Blowing on Coals

2007-01-11T09:33:00.000-05:00

When I was a little girl, I loved reading stories about the old days in this country. They always made me appreciate basic things I took for granted-like heat and warmth and light. In a world without matches, keeping the fire going was so important. In more than one of these stories, a child in a family whose fire had gone out had the job of getting a shovelful of coals from the neighbors. I could feel the urgency of the mission, the sense of responsibility, as a child carefully guarded the glowing coals, on a trip through a snowy night, bringing warmth and light and energy back to a home grown cold and dark.
The stories of banking the fire at night are less dramatic, but in a way more compelling. To conserve on wood, they would cover the fire, reducing the flow of air, so that it would burn very slowly through the night. In the morning it might seem dead, but when some hardy early riser uncovered the coals and blew and blew, some of those coals would begin to glow. With enough blowing, they grew hot enough to set a bit of tinder alight-and the fire was once again alive, ready to provide heat and light.
This blowing on coals evokes mystery and magic. It is an act of faith and of power. We don't have the power to create life where there is none, yet we can uncover the heart of something that seemed cold and literally breathe it back into life. Sometimes it takes the littlest puff, sometimes just one good hard blow. Other times, ash blows in your eyes, you get red in the face, and you wonder if your lungs are going to burst. But what a glow of satisfaction when that first little flame jumps out!
There is something about coals that calls to me. They are so warm, so ready. I've been wondering if that's part of what we're in this world to do-to have an eye out for the places around us where no fire is visible, but the coals still have life-and to be willing to blow. We can help ease away the overlay of uncaring, the dead covering of fear and discouragement. We can breath out our hope, love and confidence in that person or that situation. We can get in close, breathe deep, and give it our all. What would happen in this world if all those banked fires-in hearts and programs and communities-could burst into open flame?
Of course there are times when the fire has gone all the way out, when we left it too long or something unexpected happened and there is no life left in the coals. That's the time to put on a warm coat, get out the shovel, and give thanks that we have neighbors.

12/06

#50 Inconvenience, thanks and connection

2007-01-11T09:30:00.000-05:00

After the driver's door on our old car got banged in an accident, it didn't always latch. There was a trick that involved moving a part with a screwdriver while holding the handle just so, but this time it wasn't working. It was freezing cold outside, with a strong wind. Fingers were getting numb in the struggle to unjam the part. We were two hours from home and worst case scenarios were running through my mind. I wondered who else might be caught with inadequate shelter out in that cold. When the door finally closed and latched, it was like a miracle. The warmth was like gold. For days afterward whenever any car door shut without difficulty I felt a rush of thankfulness.
I was reminded of our struggle with printers. The old one had gotten increasingly cranky, announcing that it was "out of paper" more and more often, till we finally gave it up in despair. Having made the decision to invest in a new printer, it was a rude shock to discover that nothing on the market would speak to our old system. After another round of research, and increasingly desperate phone calls , we finally located a compatible second-hand printer. A friend brought it over, it wheezed and clanked-and printed! We didn't mind the noise-at this point a printer that actually worked was almost too good to be true.
Well, it must have been on its best behavior that day. It continued to wheeze and clank, but it also ate up great mouthfuls of paper, started printing halfway down the page, and more often than not sent out crumpled sheets and great wavering lines of smudgy print.
Slowly we learned its tricks. If you fed it just one sheet at a time, if you reached in your hand and guided each one out gently so that it touched nothing on its way out, and if you were lucky-you got a clean page with crisp straight black lines of print, running from top to bottom. It was a miracle! Though not ideal, this was more convenient than buying printer service at a copy store, way better than typing, much more professional than handwriting, and infinitely easier than mastering movable type or chiseling a message out on stone.
Then there was the time the car wasn't available and my destination was off my well-traveled public transit paths. I was forced to take a strange bus on an unfamiliar route. Leaving extra early just in case, waiting outside in the nippy air, checking the schedule again and again, fretting over the timing of the return trip, locked into an unforgiving schedule-I wasn't used to any of this. I thought of all the people for whom this inconvenience was part of their daily reality, and came away with a sense of awe at how it's sometimes possible to simply get in a car when you want to and go to just where you want to go. It's like a miracle.
I think of the ingenuity of people over all the years who have found ways to hold things together and make them work because there were no other options. I think of people who don't have cars or computers. Whenever something doesn't work right, or isn't convenient, whenever I have to struggle, somewhere in that experience is a blessed opportunity for thankfulness and for connection.

11/06

#49 Mending the World

2007-01-11T09:29:00.000-05:00

Our world is torn and broken. Many parts of it are not working. There are great tears and gashes, holes and frayed edges. What it needs is mending. And in general that’s something we’re not very good at. Ours is not a culture of mending. Somewhere along the line we got confused and started believing that if something is broken or torn we should throw it out and get a new one. We are not helped in this by a system that is focused on consumption rather than quality—that produces things with an intentionally short life so that it can sell us more.

But we can’t throw out the world. It’s been around for quite a while, and it’s worth saving. Besides, it’s the only one we have. So—we have to learn to mend.

This is not a hardship. Not long ago, I had the privilege of helping a young woman mend a favorite dress. A small hole had made it unwearable. We found a place around a seam in the hem where we could cut out a tiny bit of fabric and sew it back up to leave no trace. Then, with the tiniest of stitches, she sewed that bit of fabric over the hole. It took quite a while, but when it was done her beloved dress was restored, and we’d had an evening together to cherish.

To mend something well, you have to understand how it’s put together. How do the seams work in a dress? What is the process of knitting that will allow me to repair a long unraveling? It can be hard when, in order to fix something, you have to take a first step that makes it worse. I don’t mind disassembling things; if I just pay attention I have a fair amount of confidence that I can get them back together. But with my wobbly dining room chairs I needed the support of a more experienced friend to know that, before they could be solidly reglued, I had to knock the joints completely apart. Once I had good access to all those pegs and holes, it was easy to know what to do.

I think we just need to practice, knowing that it’s time well spent—practice sewing buttons back on (and snipping them off the shirts that are beyond repair, so we’ll have some extras in time of need); practice taping torn books or maps; practice gluing broken parts together.

Sometimes there’s skill involved—putting new cloth underneath a frayed part to give it strength, then stitching to make them one; whittling a replacement part till it fits just right; creating a tidy woven patch in the heel of a sock. It can help to have the right tools. You need materials—bits of wood, cloth, yarn. But mostly it just requires patience. Mending takes time.

Then there is the relationship that get broken or torn or frayed around the edges. The impulse to just throw it out and get a new one can be strong. But we can practice mending here as well—acknowledging our part, listening from the heart, saying we’re sorry, not giving up on ourselves or the other person, putting in the time to be in contact.

What if we thought of mending as a critical activity in our quest for a truly livable world? Then every time we sewed a button, every time we apologized, or repaired something rather than throwing it out, we could remember that we are building the skills, muscles and attitudes that are needed make our world whole.

9/06

#48 Humans, Corporations and the Bottom Line

2006-09-22T21:47:00.000-04:00

It was a shocker when I discovered that private corporations are human beings with human rights. It’s legally true: in 1886 the Supreme Court ruled that the private corporation is a natural person under the US Constitution and entitled to the protection of the Bill of Rights.

Here’s what I found out: The corporate charter was originally a privilege extended by the state (i.e., the king) to a group of investors to serve a public purpose, as a way of limiting the individual investors’ liability for losses. Charters served at the public pleasure, each with a specific time-limited purpose (like voyaging to the East Indies for spices) and specific privileges and obligations.

Through the mid 1800’s corporate charters in this country were issued sparingly, and states zealously retained their powers to issue and withdraw. They didn’t want corporations getting the kind of monopolist and undemocratic powers enjoyed by the governors of those colonies that had been chartered by the king. After all, we had declared independence from that kind of power!

After the Civil War, however, with big profits to be made and a vacuum in political leadership, corporations were able to buy out whole legislatures and rewrite the laws governing their own creation. States began issuing charters in perpetuity, to do anything not explicitly prohibited by law. A conservative court system protected corporate interests more and more, culminating in that ruling of 1886 that brought them into the human family.

How ironic that this ruling was based on the 14th Amendment—the one that had been passed in 1868 to protect the civil rights and guarantee the citizenship of former slaves! Now, a little more than 100 years later we are in real danger of being enslaved by those very same corporations.

It’s hard to see them as human, hard-wired as they are to the bottom line. Even people who join corporations to do good cannot hold sway against the requirement that profits be maximized. It may be right that human or environmental needs be taken into consideration. It may be the only thing that will save the planet. But the rules aren’t set up for you to do what is right. That could cheat your investors, and make you vulnerable to other corporations that are paying closer attention to the bottom line of today.

One of the central things that makes us human is having aspirations that transcend the bottom line of economic profit and loss. Our bodies need nourishment, but so do our hearts and souls. The Supreme Court of 1886 created a heartless, soulless monster. The largest corporations are now bigger and more powerful than many nation states—and they are protected rather than controlled.

I’d like to go back to the concept of a corporation being chartered by the state to serve a public purpose—a non-human entity at the service of human beings. If we need fuel efficient cars, we charter a corporation to produce them. If we need alternative energy sources, we charter a corporation to develop them. If people want to get together and try to get rich producing things that we don’t need, they can do it on their own.

Alternatively, if we’re stuck with corporations as they are, we could follow Rabbi Michael Lerner’s advice and advocate for time-limited charters that would require them to demonstrate a track record of social responsibility before those charters can be renewed.

In any case, I think we need to take a stand that corporations are not people. Let’s keep human rights for real human beings.

Pamela Haines

#47 Curiosity and Respect

2006-09-03T20:21:00.000-04:00

I picked up the book, Respect, because it was written by a woman who was one of the revered “big girls” from my childhood. In it was an unexpected gift: Sarah Lawrence-Lightfoot’s suggestion that a critical element of respect is curiosity. Just the day after I put the book down, a colleague at work shared with me his experience of receiving admiring surprise at his ability to stand in for the boss at a radio interview. To this highly accomplished African American man, such surprised acclaim came across as subtle disrespect, part of the racism he deals with every day. When I mentioned Sarah’s idea of curiosity as an element of respect, we realized that a response of wondering how he had become so good at that kind of thing would have been better received.

So what keeps us from this respectful curiosity? Our capacity to wonder is enormously disrespected when we are children, first by parents and others who tire of our questions and tend to pronounce from above rather than explore together, then by an educational system which prescribes what we should ask questions about and what the right answers are. Many of us are left deeply damaged in our ability to wonder about the things we don’t know.

Some of us don’t inquire because we doubt our capacity to understand. It’s like asking a question in a barely-mastered foreign language–you often get an answer that’s way beyond your ability to comprehend. Or we don’t want to admit what we don’t know, since not revealing our curiosity can save us from humiliation. We may choose to not be curious about things that are painful. By not asking, we hope to shield ourselves from knowing, or shield others from feeling their pain. So not being curious becomes a protection, from showing ourselves too fully, or addressing things that are hard to face.

Wondering implies a desire for connection. It can be hard to be curious about things or people we feel no connection to. We don’t have enough information (or have too much misinformation) to know what we might be genuinely curious about. Unchallenged, the smallness of our world can stifle curiosity.

There are also ways of being curious that are not respectful. Sometimes our questioning is like scratching an itch. We want to know because we’ll feel better; we’re not thinking about the other person at all. Or our motivation is an avid interest in ferreting out information that can be used to pursue a goal, or to judge or categorize. If I want to know your opinion so I can choose whether to be friends or enemies, if I ask your credentials so I can decide whether you are worthy, then I’m not really interested in you, not curious about you as a person. The genuinely curious question would be the one that helps me understand how you tick.

There is a more subtle kind of limited curiosity. It may be fine, for example, for a white person to wonder how black people do their hair. But if I ask a specific person just because they’re handy, they become a means to an end. I’m not being fully present with them at that moment. I need to be genuinely curious about that particular person in that moment in order to convey respect.

Being curious is a wonderful way to get to know people. I love to listen to people talk about their work. If I ask enough questions I always hit pay dirt. I often get a glimpse into a world I never would have known, and I always discover a passion or a skill or a commonality that draws me closer to that person.

When you’re being curious you can’t be judgmental, because there are no right answers. The other person is the expert, the resourceful one. Genuine curiosity is open-ended, relational, rooted in the present moment. Sarah from my childhood was right. Generous, open-hearted deep curiosity inevitable conveys respect.

Pamela Haines
Philadelphia
3/06

#46 Sock Bunnies Save the World

2006-07-28T22:11:00.000-04:00

Sock Bunnies Save the World

They’re cute little guys, softly stuffed, with round bits tied off for feet
and tail at the toe end, button eyes and nose in heel end, and two long
cut-off floppy ears.

It was a week-long morning program for ten and eleven year olds where they
were encouraged to explore widely with trash and found materials and play
games without equipment, as children in any part of the world might do. We
had lots of odd socks in the environment, and on the second day one girl
discovered that our high school staffer had learned to make sock bunnies
from her mother. They spent 45 minutes together on the floor, stuffing an
old sock with the fuzzy stuff that a cattail turns into when it gets old
(I’d brought along a couple of dozen old cattail tops picked from the edge
of a pond), then tying off legs and tail with bits of string, carefully
selecting three old shirt buttons, and learning the simple skill of sewing
them on for a face.

At our closing circle, when everybody shared what they had made, she proudly
introduced her sock bunny to the group. The next day there was a cluster of
girls around Megan and the bunnies multiplied. By the following day they
had leapt the gender gap. One little boy who had been able to do nothing
but talk of Game Boy for days was now the proud papa of his own little
bunny. The girls had gone on to use rags and bits of wood to make bunny
beds, bunny clothes, bunny houses and bunny babies. The supply of cattail
fuzz had been decimated and every sock with a good heel was gone. Yet as we
were getting ready to close up for the week, we had to deal with the urgent
request from another boy to scrounge enough materials and find enough time
to make one last bunny.

They were so eager, so proud of what they could create with their own hands,
so tender with their babies, so ready to love. How could so much come from
so little? These were the simplest of cast-off materials. What if every
child in the world had access to an old sock, some loving attention, and the
lore of our mothers? It doesn’t seem like too much to ask. What if every
child could make a bunny? (And what if they all had access to a tree to
climb as well, but that’s another story, as is the soccer ball made from an
old rag covered with rubber bands…)

I think of all the children of the world. There are those who are powerless
in the face of destitution—-who have nothing, and see nothing to hope for.
There are those who are becoming ever more powerless and passive in the face
of affluence, who are force fed entertainment and information, and denied
the opportunity to be actors and creators in their own lives. They are all
craving more, some because they don’t get enough and others because their
diet is so rich in addictive junk that nothing can satisfy for long.

I think about power. If you can’t be powerful within yourself, then you’re
vulnerable to promises of power without, and this tends to be the power that
dominates and destroys.

As these children I was with created more and more sock bunnies, fully of
love and joy and simple pride in creation, I caught a vision of the bunnies
multiplying, as bunnies do, and maybe, just maybe, saving the world.

Pamela Haines
Philadelphia 7/06

Some things that have given me hope recently:

The Network of Spiritual Progressives, started by Rabbi Michael Lerner as an
alternative to the Religious Right;

All the people in the US who have become passionate about the plight of the
children of Northern Uganda;

Consumer demand beginning to drive the sale of recycled-content office
furnishings--just as it drove the growth of recycling;

A report from a Bolivian grandfather about the spirit of hope that is abroad
in his land in their new indigenous president Evo Morales.

#45 Milestones, Pride and Equity

2006-07-28T22:10:00.000-04:00

MILESTONES, PRIDE AND EQUITY

It was a ceremony marking the graduation of 128 formerly out-of-school youth
from a very special high school program, YouthBuild. The evening was
profoundly moving, yet there was an undertow that has been pulling at me
ever since.

This was an over-the-top celebration. Even at the quietest of times it was
never quiet-people were just too excited, too charged up to be still.
Pride was palpable from the very beginning, as the graduates walked single
file down the center aisle to the front of the hall. Everyone stood to
cheer and cheer-for each and every member of the class, and for the class as
a whole. The director started by inviting all the parents to stand and be
recognized for their role in this great accomplishment, then all the other
family members, then all the friends. There were dozens of awards. Clearly
the ceremony had been planned to give recognition as widely as possible,
giving lots of people a chance to shine in their own way, to be seen for
their own special strengths. Getting to this point had been a whole group
project, and the sense of community was strong-among the students, between
students and staff, between students and family. The message was clear: if
I can do this, if you can do this, if we can do this, we can do anything. I
can't imagine how a graduation could be better.

Yet the whole context was wrong. Nobody should have to work that hard to
get a high school degree. (I learned afterward of how staff would bring in
bulk supplies of bread and peanut butter so people could have something to
eat and still stay in school.) Graduating from high school guarantees
nothing in this society; it is more like staving off certain disaster than
providing opportunity. Each one of those 128 who were sent off so proudly
is enormously and painfully vulnerable. They now have the right to step out
onto a perilous path toward economic security where one false step or one
unexpected set-back can easily knock them right back into the abyss.

My high school graduation couldn't have been more different. Though few
people knew our names, everyone in our class of 500 was expected to
graduate. Everyone in my family was expected to excel. This path had been
cleared and smoothed before me. It was well marked and well traveled.
While the journey required plenty of hard work, it was far easier to stay on
the path than go any other way. My parents, complacently marking this
milestone on my educational journey, serenely confident in my future, noted
the expected honors with due pride, took a few pictures, and went on with
their lives.

What kind of a country do we live in, where the same amount of effort gets
such wildly different results, where graduating from high school is as
normal as breathing for some, and an almost impossible attainment for
others? How can we get some better guarantee that hard work, determination,
and playing by the rules will keep us off the streets? And how can we all
get the chance to work that hard, be seen by a community that cares about
us, and have a room rock with pride in our accomplishments?

Pamela Haines
Philadelphia, 6/05

Things that have given me hope recently:

The power of laughter.

What a good ex-president Jimmie Carter is.

The 30-40 million families in China who have solar water heaters on their
roofs.

A note I got from a member of this group, Cassilde Ntamamari in Burundi: I
want to ask you if you know other friends who would be interested in
following our work at and inform them on my behalf.
Please keep on praying, let's do our part , and stimulate the good
intentions, since there are many ready to contribute, to make our world a
better place to live.

#44 Wealth and Poverty; What is Enough?

2006-07-28T22:08:00.000-04:00

WEALTH AND POVERTY; WHAT IS ENOUGH?

When you travel from the richest country in the Americas to one of the
poorest, the issue of wealth and poverty cannot be avoided. Yet in a way,
they are very relative terms.

Take my experience last month in Nicaragua. I stayed in a quiet
neighborhood in a mid-sized city. Streets were cleaned and trash was
collected. You could count on regular morning delivery of newspapers, milk
and fuel. There were convenient corner stores, the outdoor market had a
great supply of fruits and vegetables, and the supermarket was within
walking distance. Inexpensive taxis and cheaper public transportation were
easily available. Our house had electricity, a stove and refrigerator,
bathroom and laundry as well as ample living and sleeping space, all
surrounding a lovely patio full of flowering trees, where you could always
find shade, and often a breeze. Computer access was convenient and cheap.
People worked and went to school, laughed and played, and hung out with
family and friends. It was safe to be out at night. All in all, it was a
very livable city.

From the perspective of North American wealth, however, it was an impossible
place. Public transportation was a fleet of decrepit school buses,
cast-offs from the US, and microbuses into which people were shoehorned till
there was barely space to breathe. Many families’ means of transportation
was a bicycle—-carrying two, and often three, people.

Our stove was a two-burner table top affair, but gas was expensive and beans
got cooked in big batches over a fire in the corner of the patio; a man
pulling a load of wood up the street was the source of fuel. You had to
bring a pitcher out to the man with a bucket on his bicycle to get your
milk. Fast food came from a corner of your neighbor’s living room, and our
diet was a variation on beans and rice.

The toilets couldn’t handle toilet paper, and the water ran only
erratically, sometimes only an hour or two before 6:00 in the morning.
Clothes were washed on a concrete washboard and hung out to dry. You had to
go to a cybercafe to check your e-mail. Work was hard to come by, signs of
poverty everywhere. The heat was incredible. Being out in the sun was
exhausting and air conditioning was nonexistent. There was no escape from
the dust.

It would be good for this city to have more wealth. The schools are in
desperate need of resources and the cost of uniforms and supplies is a
barrier for many families. The public health system is under-funded. They
could use a good public library, more amenities by the lake, a movie
theater. More jobs and more income would help, so men didn’t have to pull
heavy carts from the farms into market, up and down the street, so parents
could ensure the basic health and well-being of their children. Maybe they
could even increase the public shade.

But, at its heart, this city works. It doesn’t need to be transformed to a
western model to be a good place to live. And the fact that it does work
calls into question some of our assumptions about the good life.

Are washing machines and twenty-four hour running water necessary for our
well-being? Are we deprived without video games and an infinite choice in
food products? Is it so bad to spend free time in the evening sitting out
on the step with our neighbors? Do we all need our own cars and computers
and air-conditioning to survive? If these people can manage without air
conditioning, then anyone can! Alternatively, if it’s a necessity for a
good life, then logically, they need it too, and we’ll have to be willing to
share out the world’s fuel for everyone.

As we move toward the end of the cheap fossil fuel era, our wealthy country
is going to face increasingly hard choices. We may need to study the models
of livable neighborhoods and communities in poor countries as we consider
how to retool our lives. Perhaps what we have to give up will turn out to
be excess--stuff we never really needed in the first place.

Pamela Haines
May, 2006

Some things that have given me hope recently:

Friendly and welcoming rural Nicaraguan families.

The sale of Philadelphia's newspapers from a profit-focused absentee
conglomerate to a group of local investors who love the city.

Three young men who went to Darfur for an adventure and came home
permanently, energetically and creatively committed to the children of
northern Uganda.

Prisoners who start vegetable seeds to be raised by urban gardeners to feed
the hungry.

My Nicaragua travel letter:
I went to Nicaragua to help our son Tim decide whether to take a job
with the house-building/workcamp program he's been helping out with. They
offered him a job starting a new site, near the same city he is now, working
closely with this US woman, Bonnie, whom he counts on and admires so much.
But he didn’t want to make a wrong choice and isolate himself from life up
here, so he asked if I would come down and take a look at the whole
situation and help him decide. What a pleasure! (I couldn't have decided
to go just for a vacation--it felt like an expensive luxury--so it was great
to have it be part of my job as a mom.)
Of course there’s way too much to tell... The first morning he rode me
out to the house-building worksite on his bike—-on dusty roads way out into
the country. I was surprised at how easy it was to balance on the bar, but
very conscious of how much extra work it was for him.
These people in the little rural community of Los Lopes that he’s been
helping to build houses for were so warm and open, and it was such a treat
to have access to their lives through their friendship with him. They’re
real people: Rafaela, Juan, Luisa, Andrea, Temporita, Ervin... It was
hard to be around people who had so little that one sickness or loss could
send them over the edge—-hard to have so much in that context. I also
became very aware of the difference between the young men Tim’s been
supporting, who have been surrounded by violence and drugs, crime and
dysfunction, and these hardworking, generally functional families. It makes
it seem all the more important to halt the migration from the countryside to
big city slums.
So I lived for a week in an ordinary house on an ordinary street in an
ordinary mid-sized city, spending a lot of time doing what ordinary
Nicaraguans do. What a gift! I struggled with the heat, and wished for
more soft places to put my body (cushioned furniture and rugs are
impractical because of all the dry-season dust—-thank goodness for
hammocks). But I was proud of the time I was the first one up and checked
to see if there was running water, ready to fill the barrels in case there’d
be no more water till evening (or 36 hours later, as happened one time).
And after I’d washed my clothes at the concrete tub/washboard that is part
of every house, I felt like I’d passed a rite of initiation. It was an
experience trying all different kinds of food, walking around the city in
the cool of the evening with everybody’s living room spilled out onto the
street, being at the market, squeezing into public transportation. One time
we climbed into the back of a bus, standing amid crowds and big bags of rice
and I thought, “All we need now are the chickens”—-and I looked down and
there they were. So many stories I could tell...
We spent a lot of time with our informally-adopted son Chino. I got to
watch him paint a picture that I then took home to sell (he’s good!) and see
the art class he’s offering to neighborhood children, and have intense
conversations about religion. I have a bigger, fuller picture of who he is
now, which I think well serve me well in the future (and it’s clear that
we’ll be in each others’ lives forever).
And what a pleasure to be with Tim! We had long talks, and he ended up
deciding to offer to work for them for one year, starting in December, and
spend the fall between home and Grammy in Kutztown, with a goal of looking
for leads for meaningful work up here, so it doesn’t seem like Nicaragua is
his only choice on into the future. I’m so proud of him I could bust.
It was good to get a better picture of Bridges (the group he’ll be
working for), to join the house-building process, spend time with Bonnie,
sort donations, get a sense of their accomplishments and conflicts. What a
challenge to be the interface between the richest and (almost) poorest
countries of the Americas—-a microcosm of the opportunities and pitfalls in
redistributing wealth. I came home recommitted to playing what role I can
in creating a global order that works for everyone.
So, the visit was just right. And I spent my whole day on the trip home
writing articles (on the city, on Bonnie, on the people in Los Lopes, on
Tim), which helped to ease the transition and make it more than just an
exotic interlude in my wealthy North American life.

#43 Spending and Saving

2006-07-28T22:07:00.000-04:00

SPENDING AND SAVING

I struggle at my little plot at the community garden with
waiting too long to harvest my vegetables. I’m always waiting for them to
grow just a little bit bigger, or saving them for later when I might need
them more. But if I wait too long, they get bitter or tough, or fall off
the vine. It’s particularly hard in the spring, when everything edible
that’s made it through the winter seems like a miracle. You don’t want to
just gobble up your miracles!

I’m not a big spender in general, while I’m a very good saver,
so I guess this attitude toward the garden shouldn’t surprise me. But it
really doesn’t make sense. As I promise myself this year to pick generously
and go for the goal of using everything up, I find myself pondering the
larger question of spending and saving. Are there other things that are
better spent than saved?

Well clearly, for starters, there is our time. One of the
problems with all the emphasis in our culture on technology that helps us
save time is that it offers no help in making wise decisions about spending
it. Yet if we don’t choose to spend our time today, it’s wasted and gone.

When we think about energy, spending often has a negative
connotation. We have expended too much, or it is spent. Conservation is
seen as wise. True, it’s not good to push our bodies beyond their capacity,
or deny them rest when they have been assaulted and need to recover. But in
a way, our energy is like our time. If we don’t make choices about how to
spend today’s supply, it’s gone forever.

Then there is caring. Again, the inclination to be protective
and spend it cautiously is strong. We want to put our caring into safe
investments, where we can count on it yielding good returns. This is
understandable, given how often it has been abused, starting when we were
very young. But from another perspective, it is our nature to care, and
withholding today will not increase the amount we have for tomorrow. If we
can get access to that well of natural caring, there is an endless supply
(though we’ll probably have to grieve as well, to keep the channels clear).
We can care hugely, every day, and there will still be the same amount left.

Money may be the hardest. Good arguments can be made for both
spending and saving. But I wonder, if we put our attention to being big
spenders in other ways—-in time and energy and caring—-maybe the money
choices will be easier to sort out.

In the meantime, I plan to harvest this season with more thought
to the present. Yes, I’ll try to spread out the season and think about what
can be preserved. But then I’ll pick my vegetables when they are new and
when they are in their prime and not wait. I’ll use them up—-enjoying each
mouthful—-and put my faith in the seeds and the land’s ability to produce
again.

Pamela Haines
4/06
Philadelphia

Some things that have given me hope recently:

People I know, and others I don't, who are having success in creating a work
life that gives them time with their children.

So many people of all religions who enter into the transformative heart of
their faith, rather than using it as a tool to judge or divide and repress.

All the people who dig holes to plant trees--and all the trees they plant.

#42 Just One

2006-07-28T22:06:00.000-04:00

Just one

One water bird on the Delaware
flapping in oil

Oh, my heart
stay open for this poor bird--
it is just one.

One family cold, without a home
in a rich land

It is not my greatest wish
to be numb.

One tropical tree, sustainer of life
felled out of greed

We were born to love
and grieve in times of loss.

One scared young man set up to kill
brave to the end

No matter who claims him
I know he is mine.

One starving child in a land far away
facing the end

I cannot save this troubled world,
but surely I am big enough
to hold this one
and weep.

Pamela Haines
3/06

Some things that give me hope:
--People who become more thoughtful and reasonable as you listen to them
respectfully.
--Early childhood program directors, working with limited resources in a
for-profit chain serving the poorest parents, passionately committed to the
well-being of children and hungry for help to do a better job.
--Car share programs that are popping up all over the country.
--Indigenous Bolivian peasants being represented by their country’s
president for the first time.

#41 Connections

2006-07-28T22:04:00.000-04:00

CONNECTIONS

This story begins in the 1970’s, when a man from the US (Chuck) met a
political refugee from Uganda (Abitimo) at an early childhood training
program. They made friends. He invited her and her children to play at his
family center. When her children were grown, the danger was past, and she
was ready to go back to Uganda to start a school (anther whole story), he
wanted to help. He thought with her about how to use the peer counseling
practice she had learned with him back in Uganda. His wife (Pamela) worked
with her to design fundraising materials. They stayed in touch with her
grown children (especially Aaron and Patrick), and Chuck helped Patrick
through a hard time. When Abitimo was back in the States for a longer period
of time, they gathered some supporters (including Barbara) to listen as she
prepared for the challenges of returning to a home wracked by civil war.

Fast forward to 2004. Barbara tells Pamela that there was an op-ed piece
in the paper by a reporter about that part of Uganda. (Uganda has never
been in the paper.) Pamela writes to the reporter (Carolyn) asking if she’d
like to meet a local Ugandan family with strong connections to home.
Carolyn is interested, and Pamela introduces her to Patrick, Aaron and
Aaron’s new Romanian wife (Anna). Carolyn gets Abitimo’s number in Africa,
and ends up spending a month in northern Uganda. She learns about the
school Abitimo has built, and also meets a young woman (Jennifer) who was
terribly burned in a civil war atrocity. Carolyn calls Chuck for background
information for her series, which has a prominent place in the paper in the
spring.

Readers (like Davida) respond. They want to help Jennifer. Carolyn
answers each one. A hospital offers to do surgery. Carolyn arranges for
Jennifer (now 15) to meet Abitimo and stay at her school in Uganda while
they arrange for visas. Finally it is all worked out and they fly to the
States together.

Fast forward to a month later, early 2006. Chuck and Pamela have invited
everyone to their house for dinner. They finally meet Carolyn in person,
along with her husband (Tim) and five-year-old daughter (Olivia). Patrick
arrives and helps Chuck in the kitchen while Pamela plays with Olivia, who
is sorry that Patricks children weren’t able to come. Anna brings Abitimo
and Jennifer who have been living in the family house (Aaron is at work).
Davida doesn’t arrive till dessert.

Over dinner Pamela learns that Tim and Carolyn have also lived in
Cambodia, Macedonia and Rwanda. It is the first step in a promising new
friendship. Carolyn jokes with Jennifer, in their limited half dozen common
words in Acholi and English, with Abitimo and Anna joining in. Withdrawn
and silent when she first arrived, and terribly disfigured by burns,
Jennifer laughs and laughs. (Tim and Carolyn have gotten to know her on the
long weekly drive to the hospital with Abitimo. ) The young people get tired
of table conversation and go off to play together. Olivia is eager to show
Jennifer the letters of the English alphabet that she has been mastering,
and Jennifer is eager to learn.

The grownups get to work to revive the corporation that the family had
set up years ago, to create a non-profit to support the school and the work
for peace in northern Uganda. They want to raise money to pay Abitimo, who
is near retirement but doesn’t yet qualify for Social Security. Chuck leads
the discussion. Patrick has gathered together all the old documents. Davida
offers the help of her lawyer. Pamela, and then Patrick, zip around the
corner to the African video store to make copies. The group drafts a mission
statement and clarifies a to-do list. Dinner ends with appreciation for new
friends and old, and for this opportunity to do something together.

When this story began, there were just two. Now it includes not only
Abitimo and Chuck, but Pamela, Patrick, Aaron, Anna, Carolyn, Jennifer, Tim,
Olivia, unnamed doctors, Davida, Barbara, and everyone’s friends and
families, spreading out wider and wider, all around. This description is
the merest summary, the barest plot line. There are whole chapters, filled
with other people, that haven’t been told. And the story is far from over.
Maybe it is really just begun.

It has grown through a collection of simple, ordinary acts—-greetings,
offers, requests and invitations: How are you? I’m pleased to meet you.
Would you and your children like to come? Can I help? Did you notice that
opportunity in the paper? Would you like to meet somebody? Can you help?
I’d be glad to do what I can. Can I give you a lift? Would you like to
learn something I’ve just learned? Shall we see if we can do this?

It is a story of people being human—-reaching out to make connections
with each other, taking those simple ordinary acts seriously. In the
process of reaching, they discover that barriers of age, language,
nationality and race are paper-thin, no match for our common humanity and
our deep underlying desire to have this world be right.

Pamela Haines
Philadelphia, 2/06

Some things that have given me hope recently:

Automotive students from a poor urban school (West Philly High) beating
Honda, Toyota and MIT, among others, to win an international alternative
energy car competition.
A group of twenty people who care about the environment each sharing
something they love about this earth, then going around the circle again
because there was so much more.
An older man from an inner city neighborhood speaking of the community he
has nurtured there, through horses and rabbits and vegetables and Boy Scouts
and listening and youth looking after their elders.
A young woman who has risen above her racist upbringing, while still loving
and valuing her family.

#40 Disposables

2006-02-16T22:56:00.000-05:00

I remember, back in the early 60’s, puzzling with my mother over the fate of
an empty aerosol spray can. A notice on the can said “Do not incinerate”
and all our trash that didn’t get burned in the fireplace was stored up for
the trip to the county incinerator. Somehow the compost pile—-the other
place we threw things—-didn’t seem quite right either. Finally we packed it
up with a note explaining our dilemma and sent it back to the manufacturers.
It was a little act of defiance, and one of my earliest run-ins with the
problem of trash.

Things have changed since then. We have a flourishing recycling program in
our neighborhood. Two Saturday mornings a month, people converge from all
over to a common point, laden with cardboard and plastic. Cars line up to
unload stuffed trunks and back seats. Neighbors walk, pulling grocery carts
and red wagons, trash bags of plastic bottles over their shoulders,
cardboard balanced on their heads. It’s like a cultural rite, binding us
together. But they take only two kinds of plastic. The city takes only
paper, glass, and cans. There is so much more.

So it was a thrill to find a place that recycled everything—-seven grades of
plastic, waxed cardboard orange juice and milk containers, styrofoam and
packing peanuts, batteries, clean rags, eye-glasses, electronics, aluminum
foil. Seeing big bales of material there, saved from the trash pile, en
route to being reused, was deeply satisfying.

I hadn’t realized how much my unwillingness to throw things out has to do
with hating the idea of contributing to the volume of landfill. Once I
discovered that somebody could actually do something useful with those old
plastic containers and the worn-out clothes that I had saved for rags
(enough to last a life-time or two), I was delighted to get rid of
them—-just as I had happily parted with piles of carefully saved scrap paper
when became recyclable. I came home from that wonderful center feeling like
I’d solved a problem that had been nagging me on a low level for years.
Finally I could do the right thing.

Yet this solution brought unexpected problems of its own. Where would we
store seven different kinds of plastic? What about packaging that has no
numbers? How can you be sure of the difference between #1, which crinkles
but doesn’t tear, #3 which leaves a white line when folded, and #6 which
crinkles and tears (unless it’s #6 styrofoam, which is separate)? What if
it kind of crinkles? The very next day we had Asian food and I was faced
with Korean packaging that had no number and did not clearly fit any
category. It just didn’t seem fair.

In our attempt to learn and organize (we recognize we’re on a steep learning
curve), our kitchen is now covered with little signs—-and I hate signs.
Having rinsed our glass and cans for years, we now get to clean orange juice
boxes, spaghetti sauce lids and styrofoam cups as well. I found the plastic
wrap from a package of vegan hot dogs in our new #1 bin. It has no number.
Is it really #1? How much do I care? I look longingly at the trash can.

Now, with each piece of plastic that comes into our house calling out for
cleaning, scrutiny, decision and storage space, I feel the enormity of my
collusion with this throw-away culture run amok. I didn’t ask for it.
Never in my wildest dreams did I feel a need for seven different kinds of
plastic—-or packaging that defies access—-but I am surrounded. I think a
group I know that invites people from wealthy nations to share with the
poor—-their mission is to ease the burdens not only of poverty but of
materialism. My trip to the recycling center reminds me of the burden of
stuff that I carry every day.

Knowing now that it’s possible, I will sort my plastic, rinse and flatten my
orange juice containers, separate my metal and plastic lids, save my
batteries and rags, and invite everyone around me do the same. I know it
matters. I know that consumers, defying market assumptions, have been the
driving force behind our fledgling recycling industry. I’m glad to fish all
that stuff out of the waste stream to keep it from going to the
landfill-—but I’m also sad. I’d so much rather be able to go upstream to
where it all gets produced, and just turn off the switch. Then we could
redesign the whole system, thinking together about what we really want and
need, designing it to last, remembering that there’s no real “away” where we
can throw things.

Pamela Haines
Philadelphia
1/06

A few things that have made me hopeful recently:

Neighbors who watch out for one another.

Old men from the south, new Asian and African immigrants, and urban
professionals finding common ground in a community garden.

Poor women in third world countries banding together to improve each others’
lives with the help of micro-lending projects.

The growth of an evangelical Protestant movement in the U.S whose message
includes action on poverty and the environment.

Winter Seeds

2006-02-16T22:54:00.000-05:00

The greetings that I sent to family and friends in Philadelphia last year at
this time are the same greetings I would choose to share again:

In the dark of the year
Good news is all around us
Quietly waiting to be shared.

Seeds of hope abound
Looking for fertile hearts
In which to grow.

Some things that have given me hope recently:

A young Polish woman teaching girls in a remote village in India to juggle
as part of an empowerment program, giving them an edge in a sexist world.

Nine and ten year old boys who have had enough playful and respectful
attention from adults that they can listen respectfully to each other’s
hopes and fears.

Voices from all faiths from all over the world, speaking out for the release
of four Christian Peacemaker Team members kidnapped in Iraq.

Individual states that are taking initiative to reduce greenhouse gas
emissions, despite US government refusal to acknowledge the problem.

Pamela Haines
12/05

#38 Empty Lots

2006-02-16T22:50:00.000-05:00

As I've gotten older I've grown less certain about many things--like who
are the good guys and who are the bad guys, and which simple formula will
change the world. But I've grown in my confidence that our future lies in
loving this earth and all its people. I think of you as part of a great
army of lovers--and I'm glad to be with you.
My offering this month is a poem, and a short list of things that make
me hopeful. As I was riding the trolley to work thinking what that list
would include this time, I wasn't in a particularly hopeful mood, but the
act of creating it shifted my perspective. I invite you to do the same.

Empty lots

Empty lots grow rank
with weeds and trash
construction detritus
appliances, old tires.
A cyclone fence
becomes an obstacle
that those who dump
seem eager to take on
and failed security
is added to the blight.

Neighbors step in at times
create a garden or a park
defend it stalwartly
against all odds
but this is rare.
The city cleans
(amidst publicity)
yet can’t hold sway
against the lack of caring
in the air.

But now a miracle
stronger than blight
spreads from lot to empty lot.
Some wise force
has conjured grass
within a picket fence—
a spell of stunning
power and simplicity.

These peaceful spots
deep symbols of civility
are startling
require a new response
call forth restraint, respect--
a barrier more powerful it seems
than angry metal mesh.

Pamela Haines
10/05

Some things that make me hopeful:

The enormous generosity of the American people (and others) in response to
natural disaster--an indication of our true nature.

All the college-age young people who are determined to play ultimate frisbee
just for fun.

Mixed race and mixed class urban neighborhoods with trees.

Two women, one young and one old, growing closer as they plan a workshop for
women of all ages.

Pamela Haines
Philadelphia, PA

#37 Family Reunion ~ Bedtime

2006-02-16T22:46:00.000-05:00

It was a Native American pow-wow at a rural county fairgrounds in northern
Pennsylvania. Tents and trucks were scattered amidst the booths surrounding
the central circle, and participants and spectators mingled freely. It
couldn’t have been a more informal event.

The dancers presented a stunning variety of types and costumes. Some had
features that could have come straight from those old nineteenth century
Indian photographs. Others were as blond and Caucasian as anyone could
imagine. People wore skins and feathers and beads and furs. Men had fancy
tops over shorts and jeans, slacks decorated with ribbons. Women wore
dresses of deerskin, cheap shiny fabric with fringy shawls, modest cotton
prints. Hair was long, braided, short, hairdresser-perfect, wild, dyed red.
No pre-conceived notion of what an Indian looks like could hold up against
this outpouring of individuality. The deeply personal nature of people’s
relationship to their tribal background and native identity was out there
for all to see.

One drumming circle was made up of half a dozen pale-faced young men with
short hair, matching red t-shirts and backward baseball caps—the image of a
small town high school sports team. Yet here they were sitting around a big
drum, utterly intent on their task, with native music pouring out of their
throats and through their drumsticks. The second circle was older, with
native heritage clear in the faces of three of the men. In a different
context the fourth could have been anything. Here at the drum singing, he
could be nothing else.

Yet in the midst of all this diversity, there was a common thread. Everyone
in that circle of drummers and dancers claimed some relationship to a native
heritage. The tribes may have been different, and for some the relationship
looked thin, but it mattered.

Why would that elegant professional-looking woman, those working class
families, that little blond girl, those all-American teenagers around the
drum, choose to claim this identity when they had other choices available?
And why would those for whom choice would never be an issue take them in?
There was a spirit of enormous and unexpected generosity in the air. If you
claim these roots, it said, if you’ve made your regalia and come ready to
dance, then you are welcome to be one of us.

Where were the gatekeepers, the purists? How could the welcome be so
all-encompassing? For many of these people, seven of their ancestors out of
eight had to have been among those who stood by while native tribes were
decimated.

Perhaps it is like the story of the prodigal son. People want to come home.
They want to be part of a larger family. They want an identity that has
meaning beyond themselves. They want to be proud. In the midst of all their
flaws, they want their goodness to be seen and reflected back. And their
family still wants them, regardless of where they have been and what they’ve
done. In this scruffy little fairground, with no outward sign of prosperity
or success, that welcome was made manifest, and hundreds of people made a
home. It was a most unlikely and heartwarming family reunion.

Bedtime

The workshop will be on
putting your garden to bed--
all gardeners are encouraged to attend.

But wait!
My garden isn’t ready to go to bed.

Carrots, kale and swiss chard
are still going strong.
New lettuce has come in thick.
Turnips just keep getting fatter.

They are awake, alert, full of life.
Why can’t they stay up a little longer?
(And why do other gardens
need such an early bedtime?)

Some things that give me hope--

Empty lots in struggling neighborhoods planted in grass.
The simplicity and power of listening for drawing out each other's stories.
Cuba's hurricane response system and strong neighborhood ties that virtually
eliminate fatalities.
Bogota, Columbia's great network of well-used public libraries.

# 36 Access to the Fast Lane

2006-02-16T22:45:00.000-05:00

Our city expressway is among the oldest in the nation, and our local ramp is
a challenge, providing easy access only at the best of times. Yet it serves
as a powerful metaphor on the relationship among speed, access and equity in
our world.

When there aren’t many cars on the expressway, there is no problem. The
spaces are wide, cars on the ramp are already in motion, and anybody can
find a way in. When there’s more than enough to go around, everyone can get
what they need.

When the expressway is so crowded that everyone is already moving slowly,
then those on the ramp simply edge in. The distinction between fast lanes
and ramp has disappeared and it’s like one giant merge. Everyone takes it as
a matter of course that they will have to yield to someone on the ramp. If
we’re all in the same situation, then we acknowledge our peerness and our
common need, and all work together to move forward.

Yet when the expressway is fully of fast-moving cars, getting on from the
ramp becomes an incredible challenge. Most of those who are zooming along
pay no attention to the line waiting to get on. Moving steadily on their
way, happy to be experiencing no difficulty, they are not inclined to make
any for themselves. Even if someone would choose to make space, when the
passing lane is full it is not easy to do. Slowing way down requires
entrusting your safety to the reflexes of many drivers behind you (as well
as incurring their wrath), and still may not offer a big enough gap for the
cautious person who has to proceed from a complete stop.

The more speed some of us have, the harder it is for the slower ones to get
in. In no way are those on the ramp less deserving of speed. Nor do we
have any particular right to our speed; we just happen to be already on the
expressway.

Equity will only be achieved when the expressway becomes so crowded that no
one has an advantage, or when those of us with the speed decide together
that there are some advantages for us as well as for others in slowing down,
or if we put resources into a massive redesign of the whole system to allow
equal access to those fast lanes.

Pamela Haines
Philadelphia, 9/05

Five things that have made me hopeful recently:

--Farmers and consumers in a rural county outside of Philadelphia taking a
day to talk with each other about sustainable communities.
--A struggling young artist in Nicaragua catching the vision of helping
others, and starting a little art school for street children in his town.
--Last Chance in Texas, a book by John Hubner describing the redemption of
criminal youth in a state correctional school.
--The growing number of opportunities to responsibly recycle more stuff,
especially electronics (check out http://rethink.ebay.com).
--A 22-year-old young man and his 87-year-old grandmother living together
and loving each other.

#35 Sacred Spaces ~ Puppies

2006-02-16T22:43:00.000-05:00

Sacred Spaces

This summer I started a support group in my neighborhood, inspired by all
the women I have met through my job with child care workers, and based on my
experience with peer counseling. I wanted a group that would cross barriers
of class and race, where women would listen deeply to each other and be
supported in moving forward with life goals.

I spent time cleaning so the environment would be welcoming. I left work
early to be unrushed and fully present. I brought fresh mint from my garden
for the ice water. My friend brought flowers. I talked about the precious
gift of listening that we can give each other. I set up moments for us each
to appreciate that gift. Reflecting on all these things, I realize that I
was creating a sacred space, building a container for an experience that was
more centered than our ordinary day-to-day lives.

During this same time I have been grieving over the ending of a three week
vacation my family had with dear friends in Poland. The defining element of
my experience there was the irresistible invitation to be fully present with
and open to those people and the environment around us. In a way, the whole
trip was a sacred space. My attention is pulled to what I can do to
maintain that openness with those people—-and to create more of that kind of
space in my daily life.

For many of us, a religious service is the container for a sacred space. It
provides rest and refreshment, anchors us in goodness. I’m still learning
to do the preparation as an individual member that helps keep the container
strong. And we all have much to learn about extending that container
beyond the sanctuary itself.

As I frame the question, other pieces fall into place. It took me a while
to realize the role I’ve played in a small family group in my congregation
in creating and holding such a container—-being present, centered and
welcoming. I think of the discipline I try to use on the trolley. When I
remember to offer a silent prayer of blessing for each person as they get
on, my life goes better. And there are all the times I give someone my
full and undivided attention, focused on reaching for the very best in them.

After realizing what I had been doing very methodically and intentionally
(if subconsciously) with my support group, and in these other ways, a
question came up at work about the monthly gathering of our child care
workers economic justice campaign. We had been experimenting with
different forms—-straight business, training, social hour—-and hadn’t quite
gotten it right. In a way, we were bumbling toward the same idea. What
would it mean to make that a sacred space? I would have to be more
intentional. It would require stepping out of the busy/work/task mode, and
focusing on being relaxed and fully present to each person. I think it
could be done; I think it would make a difference.

Now that I get the concept, I see the potential for so much more. I’m left
wondering if there’s any limit. At home, with family or dishes, at work,
with friends, on the street—-where are the unformed sacred spaces waiting to
be called into being?

Pamela Haines
Philadelphia
8/05

Puppies

These young people
Have taken the world on their shoulders.
Already leaders, teachers, mentors,
they see great need,
look for their place.

Yet here
they play
like puppies.
Day in and day out
on the river,
in the woods.
they romp
rush and attack
chase and catch
nuzzle, play
curl up close
sleep in piles.

They are wild to be together now,
with nothing on their shoulders
but each other, soaking up connection
in endless laughter and play.

Pamela Haines
Philadelphia
8/05

#34 Natives and Aliens

2006-02-16T20:01:00.000-05:00

I have finally learned the history of the public flower beds I’ve been tending these last few years at the trolley portal in West Philadelpia. They commemorate our country’s preeminent early botanist, John Bartram, and the plants he recorded finding here. They are all native Americans.

I hadn’t felt free to bring new flowers to these beds, but now I am empowered to fill in the empty spaces. Considering the plants that have multiplied at our community garden and could easily be transplanted, I pick up a little wildflower book to check which are native. No day lilies or chrysanthemums here. No daffodils or tulips. No roses or clematis or peonies. No lilies of the valley. Intrigued, I find a larger book that conscientiously notes each non-native as an alien. Bachelors buttons and cosmos both turn out to be alien. I go for something more obviously all-American and try daisies. Yet they too are listed as aliens. Seriously disconcerted, I check out the most ordinary plants I can think of, ones that no gardener would ever consider. Clover: alien. Dandelions: alien.

Somehow I have to stop and wrestle with this concept of “alien”. It is a hard word, vibrating with unwelcome, with not belonging. Yet these are plants that are deeply familiar. Many were brought here as beloved companions, carefully tended in hopes that they might flourish in foreign soil, along with those who loved them. They are really immigrants, and became un-hyphenated Americans long ago.

Then there are the ones that really are not welcome—like the kudzu vine—the alien invasives. Now there’s an even harsher label. Yet we have native invasives as well. The gardener is always choosing which spreading plants to encourage, which to contain, which to try to eradicate completely. And different gardeners make different choices—a weed, after all, is simply a plant this is not wanted in that particular place and time. Most gardeners have no idea of the country of origin of the plants they love and those they could happily do without.

So, if the concept of alien is bogus, what about the idea of native? Does long lineage in this country make a plant better? As I explore the plant/human metaphor, the big difference that stands out is that we were never in such competition with our native flowers that we felt compelled to push them out entirely. Most flower beds might be filled with immigrants from other lands, but the natives are still around.

Perhaps that’s the reason for these public beds I’ve been working in—to remind us of the vitality of the native Americans who were here so long before us. The beds are beautiful—with violets and black-eyed susans, asters and goldenrod, and many others whose names I have not yet learned. I have loved flowers indiscriminately—not knowing their country of origin—and I would wish that for everyone. But it has been a pleasure to learn about the natives and give them a place to shine.

Pamela Haines
6/05

#33 Abundance

2006-02-16T19:57:00.000-05:00

Scarcity seems to have a hold on our lives much of the time—scarcity of resources, money, space, time, skill. Whatever we need, it feels like we don’t have enough. The things that we have so obviously in abundance—shoe styles, beauty products, packaging, toothpaste and cell phone choices, TV channels—don’t seem to make our lives better. The true life-giving abundance that surrounds us can be hard to see---yet I’ve had such a concentrated dose of it recently that I can’t help but notice.

I was digging in the big front flower bed of our community garden last Saturday, trying to bring some order to that profusion of life. Just as I was asking an elder member her advice about getting rid of plants that had spread too far, a big yellow bus let out a crowd of would-be gardeners who had come to learn from our model. She told them that we had flowers to give away, and soon I was wrapping plants that had been destined for the compost in newspaper and putting them into eager, grateful hands. Our overabundance was transformed into their treasure.

Soon after, I was spending time with a young woman and her toddler and newborn. As the toddler explored the sidewalk in front of the house, an older neighbor came by and greeted this little family with enormous warmth. He engaged directly with the toddler, bringing a big smile to that serious face, and walking on down the street he turned back to wave at intervals until he was completely inside his door. To me, a stranger to the neighborhood, it was a stunning act of gratuitous kindness—a gift of value to that overstretched young mother, yet one that appeared to leave him no poorer. Our attention is a precious and ever-renewable resource.

At a recent community greening workday I met a woman who lives in the African American neighborhood that lies just beyond mine. She was eager to do more work on a project dear to my heart, and I’ve since made a call and a visit—and acquired a new friend. I can’t help but notice the abundance of potential for human connection in this world.
On a somewhat different note, finding our restaurant of choice closed, my husband and I ended up instead at a little hole-in-the-wall with Japanese food and take-out beer. We were treated to a sweet sermon by a friendly drunk and authentic Japanese working class fare, a first for us in the city (on both counts). If we keep our eyes open and are ready for the most unlikely possibilities, an abundance of adventure is waiting to be had.

Most recently, I’ve had the privilege of attending a conference on regional equity—making our city/suburb/farm regions work in terms of jobs and housing for everyone. Here were hundreds of people from all over the country—activists, funders, politicians, business people—passionate, articulate and effective—all working on issues of equality and justice. What a pleasure to witness this abundance of commitment and energy for issues that are not my direct work but are dear to my heart.

There is real scarcity in this world. But we are also surrounded by life-giving plenty that most of us rarely notice. To address the scarcity well, we need to root ourselves in that abundance.

Pamela Haines
Philadelphia, PA 5/05

#32 Justice Is Us

2006-02-16T19:56:00.000-05:00

One of the things that makes me mad about death penalty advocates is their
position that the state’s ultimate punishment can somehow make things better
for those who have lost a loved one, that people can’t find “closure” or be
at peace without an act of retribution from on high. It seems like such an
abdication of responsibility, such a self-defeating defense of
powerlessness. After all, the state can’t do the work of our hearts; we are
the only ones who can do that grieving and healing and forgiving. As I get
more of a glimpse of the power of forgiveness, I wonder at institutions that
seem set up to shield people from the necessity of learning it.

When I shared this position in a conversation with a friend—-confident that
she would agree—-I was startled that she didn’t. She said that the state IS
responsible for the healing of its members, because the state is us.

I find this a role that I’m pretty unwilling to take on. I like my
formulation much better, that each of us is responsible for our own
healing. Yet it does have that tone of individualism and isolation that
gives me pause in so many other parts of our culture.

So, what is our shared role in restoring wholeness that has been broken by
the hurtful or violent action of one among us? It’s always easiest for me
to get a grip on what I would wish for all of us by thinking about what I
would wish for our children.

If one child has hurt another, I assume that it is my role to help restore
wholeness. I know about how both a bully and a victim need attention. I
know about checking with both parties about what can be made right, what can
be negotiated, and what just needs to be grieved (and I know our tendency to
jump quickly over the grieving to a focus on solutions that often brings
only a momentary and uneasy peace). I know my role of holding out
everybody’s underlying goodness, and addressing the roots of what made
someone lose track, I know the feel, the tone, of a situation that has
truly been made whole again.

I’m willing to do that in controlled situations with small children. But
how to make the leap to grown-ups, and to larger groups where people don’t
even acknowledge the existence of the relationships that might need repair?

I’m reminded of something I read on an e-mail list—-a story traveling
through cyberspace that lodged in my brain—-about a society (in Africa, I
think) that has done this. When a member of their community does something
to tear its fabric, they all gather with that person in a special place, and
they tell him or her all the things they value, all the strengths and
abilities and goodness they see. They do this—-sometimes for a very long
time—-until that person can claim his place in the community again. Then
they can move to repair the other parts of the situation that need
attention.

With this image of shared responsibility in mind, I can see the flaws in
both sides of the argument: the state must punish so that the person who has
been wronged can find closure, vs. state punishment undermines the power of
the individual to heal and forgive. If we, as victims, expect the state to
do the work of healing and repair in our name without our participation, we
have given up our individual responsibility. Yet if we, as bystanders, say
that the state is not in the business of healing its members, we have
abdicated our corporate responsibility. They’re both easy ways out--they
both let us off the hook.

We’re not good at being the state. We need to practice on a small scale
before we’ll get it right with murder. This means moving beyond the little
children, and finding the next level of holding each other accountable, in
our extended families, our neighborhoods, our social groups. “We love you
and you did this. You need to look.” “I don’t want to look, but the
reality is that I did this. Will you still have me?” “How can we,
together, make it right?”

I know the field of restorative justice is rich in examples. I wonder how
many of us, like me, have to get over the hurdle of individualism (in
whatever form it takes) to embrace the wisdom and experience that is there
to be found.

Pamela Haines
March 2005

#31 Brand Names

2006-02-16T19:53:00.000-05:00

As I was meditating one day on the elements of a good life, it occurred to
me that one of them was immunity to the seduction of advertising, and
freedom from slavery to brand names.

Brand Names

Brand names
are not the work of the devil, I guess
but they seem close—
seducing us to pay more
offering…
what?

Yet I do like my bowl of Cheerios
in the morning,
a modest brand name attachment,
my only one, really.
The generics simply
don’t compare.

So I clip coupons
look for sales
argue that I deserve
this one little luxury.

But oatmeal is tasty too
with raisins.
A good bowl of oatmeal hits the spot.

I give myself the oatmeal challenge:
Could I be happy with it all winter?
not pine for the cheery ohs?

Wonder of wonders!
I survive the winter and spring
without a twinge of martyrdom.
In the heat of summer
I experiment,
enjoy home-made granola,
cornflakes (generic is fine)
with fresh fruit (generic too).
I even treat myself
to Cheerios.

They are tasty as ever, it is true.
But they no longer hold
that brand-name power.
Free at last
I look forward to the cool of fall
and oatmeal.

Pamela Haines
3/05

#30 The Con ~ Traffic Dance

2006-02-16T18:54:00.000-05:00

This column came out in the form of a meditation, so that's how I'm
sending it on to you. I'm also including a little love poem.

I've just finished reading an exciting and hopeful book about local
agriculture (Eat Here by Brian Halweil). It reminded me that, while it
helps to pay enough attention to the problems that surround us that we
understand their structure and dynamics, there is more than enough food for
despair in this world. What really needs watering and loving are the little
signs of hope that are always springing up everywhere if we just take the
time to notice. If you are looking for a regular dose of down-to-earth hope
for this world, check out Yes! A Journal of Positive Futures
(www.yesmagazine.org).

THE CON

I know about cons,
have dealt with my share on the doorstep,
been taken in once or twice
learned some of the signs.

I remember one woman
with an artful smile
and a polished tale that needed just five transit tokens
for a happy ending.
I said I didn’t believe a word of her story
but offered a token
in case the con covered real need.

But what about this man, this time?
He’s been on my doorstep before,
asked for work or tokens to ride the bus.
If this is a con, it is worn by a man
who is also my neighbor.

What is the cost of trusting him?
My good money could just go to drink—
there is a whiff of that smell about him—
and he would surely come back and ring my bell again.

But there is a cost in not trusting him too—
a separation between myself and the street.

I know how detail can coat a con,
make it easier to swallow.
Well, here’s detail enough to drown in.

The story he tells is full of truth
of people who have fallen
and are struggling to get back up
or have always been without
in a system that makes life hard for the poor—
landing job interviews without a phone
getting to the suburbs to work
without cash up front for the bus
jumping through the endless hoops
set up by those who would help.

This story is real—-but is it his?
I wish I could be sure.
I stand at the door and listen and listen
not wanting to be conned
hating my doubts.

In the end I give him tokens and money.
Even if it was all for drink,
he has opened a window of truth,
spoken with authority,
told a story I need to hear.
And the price of not trusting is just too high.

The view is not pretty through this window.
I wonder how I would fare out there—
how to come to terms with a broken life,
be thankful for systems that give something
but not enough,
hang on to dignity,
wake up each day still clinging to hope.
I don’t like to think about it, would rather not look...
We are encouraged not to look all the time.

If this was a con at my door
it was a very little one
to draw me in, invite me to connection,
play on my generosity.

There are much bigger cons out there,
cons with power and wealth and enormous seduction,
cons that plays not on our goodness,
but on separation, fear and greed—
the look-out-for-number-one individualism con,
the pay-to-be-happy marketing con,
the pay-to-live-risk-free insurance con,
the pay-to-be-safe-from-enemies security con.

If I would choose to not be conned
then I need to choose it all the time.
I need to look to the lies beyond my doorstep—
the lies that saturate my consciousness,
make me believe I have a right
to freedom from this kind of discomfort.

Besides, I think the man at my door
was telling the truth.

Pamela Haines
Philadelphia, 2/05

Traffic dance

I love four-way stops--
Together we weave a pattern of cooperation,
a dance among strangers.

Sometimes it is seamless perfection,
steady progress through that age-old system
of taking turns.

Sometimes it is not so clear.
Then we make eye contact
one gesturing for the other to go first,
chivalry (of both sexes)
playing out in the streets.

The rare driver who has forgotten his manners
somehow gets excused.
He is the loser,
outside of the dance.

Pamela Haines
2/05

#29 Wanting

2006-02-16T18:51:00.000-05:00

I’ll never forget a time I was upset about a situation where my husband didn’t respond to what seemed to me like a fundamental human request. Worse, he didn’t even seem to want to. I felt stopped in my tracks, could see no way forward. A wise friend said to me, “If it’s truly human, of course he wants to, even if he can’t know it yet himself.” Somehow these words transformed my attitude. I didn’t have to rage—or despair—in the face of this wall of non-responsiveness. I could know that he was reaching out to the best of his ability, be confident in his essential loving nature and love for me, and continue tending to my role in the relationship.

I’ve been reminded of that lesson as I’ve struggled to build a friendship with a woman of a very different background whom I met in the course of my work several years ago. We’ve had enough moments of good contact to know that we like each other and would choose to do more together. But it’s been hard going. She rarely returns calls, hasn’t responded to a variety of other initiatives, seems consumed with her own life. It’s a situation in which I could easily imagine getting confused—starting to believe that she didn’t like me, or want me, or have room for me. It would be more comfortable in a way to decide to give up, to cut my losses in order to avoid feeling rejected once again. Yet I’ve been sustained by the sure knowledge that she wants this relationship as much as I do. I don’t know how it happened, but it’s a blessing to be so sure, when all the obvious evidence points in the opposite direction.

This world is crowded with wonderful human beings who want all that is good and human—for ourselves, for others, and in relationship. We just aren’t always in touch with that wanting, or able to act on it. Most of the time most of us live crowded in by the confusion that this difficulty breeds, our sense of confidence diminished by the action (or inaction) of others. We live hedged in by doubts and uncertainties, focused on protecting ourselves from being hurt.

Yet the truth is that we want each other. With this woman, there are a host of barriers, some as simple as the priority of the moment, others that probably neither of us fully understands. On the surface it looks like nothing is happening, that we remain as separate as ever. Yet I see a much more dynamic reality—a wanting each other, a reaching out that just hasn’t been completed. There’s a possibility that we may never make that strong connection we’re reaching for; I don’t have total control of the outcome. But when I keep this picture in mind, it’s not hard to keep trying. It’s what I want to do.

We all make choices about how to invest our relationship energy—and there is wisdom in not pouring it all into places where nothing comes back. But there is a difference between thoughtfully deciding to put our efforts into more promising directions, and cautiously giving out only as much as we get, hedging our bets, focusing on defense and protection.

I’m deeply attracted to a way of living my life that assumes we are all reaching out as best we can, all wanting the best for our world. Then I don’t have to take personally the places where others seem to fall short. I don’t have to waste too much energy in anger and disappointment, or judge my efforts by the immediate response. I can continue to do my own wanting and reaching and not giving up, confident that it keeps me more alive, and that it matters in ways that I may never fully know or understand.

Pamela Haines
Philadelphia, 1/05

#28 Good News & Seeds of Hope

2006-02-16T18:46:00.000-05:00

SEEDS OF HOPE

As the boys have grown I’ve spent more time in my little vegetable plot at
the local community garden. (It’s on the site of a warehouse that burned
down years ago—-I remember digging piles of brick and glass out of that
barren place, hauling in anything that could break down into soil.)

This year, letting a few of my non-hybrid vegetables go to seed, I watched,
fascinated to see what kale and leek and lettuce flowers look like and how
they provide for their future, as they have done for who knows how many
years. It was like learning some very old, deep magic. I gathered up seed
pods and flower heads, and in the dark of winter evenings, separated out the
seeds to save for spring.

Their bounty is incredible—-one plant alone produces hundreds of seeds, many
times more than I could possibly use. I am awash in abundance.

(I am noticing seeds everywhere—-just waiting for the right conditions to
take root and grow. My son brought home some dried chilis from the grocery
story that reminded him of those in Nicaragua. We crushed a few, picked out
dozens of tiny seeds, and now little chili pepper plants are growing on my
windowsill.)

Lettuce has already come up from seed that I harvested. I feel tuned in to
the cycle of life on this planet. Finding sturdy plants that will thrive
where we live, offer us food, and produce good seed for the next year—-and
the next generation-–is work of such basic worth and goodness that it takes
my breath away.

Magic, abundance overflowing, a living link with past and future
generations—-the harvest from my garden this year has been rich indeed.

Pamela Haines
12/04

HEALING AND REBUILDING OUR COMMUNITIES

(excerpted from a report on a community trauma healing workshop,
which has now been offered to more than 500 people in Rwanda, Burundi and
Uganda, by David Zarembka, of the African Great Lakes
Initiative, in Quaker Life, 10/04)

Hearing someone else’s story, you could realize that you are not
alone in the struggle. And when it came to telling others about your story,
it was like something heavy was pulled out from the heart.

In the Rwandan workshops, ten of the participants are Tutsi survivors of the
genocide and ten are Hutu from the families of the perpetrators or, in some
cases, “released prisoners” who confessed to participating in the genocide.
Although most of the people at a workshop are from the same community and
know each other, they have not communicated with each other for almost a
decade. When they gather the first day, each group sits apart, and does not
make eye contact with the others. The most important aspect of the first
day is to develop a secure environment where everyone feels free to talk and
respected by the others. This may be the first time since the genocide that
this has happened.

Before, I was thinking that only having lost family members is
traumatizing. But now I have seen that the wrongdoer can be traumatized by
the horrible things she/he did.

The second day beings with learning good listening skills, followed by
learning the stages of grief and loss and how to come out of the trauma.
Constructive and destructive ways of dealing with anger are presented in the
afternoon.

Myself, as well as my neighbors, have lost many relatives and the
situation we are in is unbearable. But I discovered that the main issue is
that we have been keeping all inside us. We did not want to tell God,
neither our friends about those feelings. Grief can destroy one’s life and
body. We now find new skills. God and friends can comfort me.

On the third day the participants list the roots and fruits of mistrust on a
drawing of a tree—-retaliation, revenge, capital punishment. They conclude
by cutting down that tree. Next they discuss the roots and fruits of trust,
eventually concluding that the bad roots need to be replaced with good root,
which then yield good fruits—-rehabilitation, resurrection.

Participants expressed how the mistrust tree is real in their
hearts, and what has been the consequence of such evil. They openly
manifested their willingness to uproot that mistrust tree because, they
said, it is the origin of all horrible times they passed through for
generations.

We have to plant the trust tree in our hearts so that every Rwandan
can eat its delicious fruits.

There is a trust walk during which each Hutu participant is blindfolded and
led around by a Tutsi participant. Then the roles are reversed.

Each time I tried to find something to hold on to, my friend told
me, ‘Don’t worry, I see for you’ and I believed.

It was very touching, inspiring, full of love to see how
ex-prisoners ‘Hutu accused of participating in the genocide’ and survivors
‘of the genocide’ were holding each other and carefully they walked
together.

By the end of these workshops people, who only three days before would have
stayed out in the downpours of Central Africa rather than seek shelter with
their opponents, who would have refused to ask for water if they were
thirsty because they were afraid they would be poisoned, leave talking and
laughing with each other, inviting each other over for dinner.

#27 Finding Common Ground

2006-02-16T18:40:00.000-05:00

My husband and I used to have tremendous battles with my father-in-law. How could he be so wrong about so many things?! We would all get mad and raise our voices, dig in our heels and defend our positions. Not surprisingly, nothing changed. I can’t remember how long it was before I got smart and began looking for places where we could agree. As I focused on the things we held in common, he stopped seeming like such a jerk, it got easier to like him, and he even began seeing some merit in our point of view.

I think one of the big problems we’re facing right now in our deeply-divided country is that those of us around the big cities of the northeast and the west coast don’t have enough fathers-in-law in the south and Midwest to do that work of relationship building. There’s a scarcity of both contact and motivation, making it so much easier to just dismiss them all as jerks. (And, of course, the fact that many of them are doing the same in our direction doesn’t make things any easier.)

Without that regular contact it is too easy to fall into the traps of self-righteousness and separation. These are dangerous forms of self-indulgence. One of the defining characteristics of a racist, I’ve come to believe, is being content with the ability of your own world view to explain the experience and behavior of others. As I listen to many liberal/progressive/leftist types being so dismissive of those who have differing experience and views, I worry that we are willing to occupy that same destructive psychological space.

Our country is rife with manipulation and disinformation for sure. There are people in power with enormous blind spots in their humanity and scary agendas. But there are also millions of hard-working, ordinary, decent people who are not our enemy, whom we need to claim as part of us. It is the forces and lures of separation that are the real enemy.

We’ve been served up a plate of hot-button issues on which it’s practically impossible not to take sides. But there are real questions as well. What does the sacredness of life require? What is valuable about diversity? What is the essence of democracy? What are the values that give our lives meaning? What do we believe in deeply enough to sacrifice for? What is at the heart of what is right about this country? What is an abuse of free speech? What responsibility do we have for our neighbor? Who is our neighbor? Who is too different to respect? What is precious about the environment? How much is enough? What will make our children wise? These are important questions, and not ones that have easy Democratic or Republican answers.

Then there is another whole level of questions. What scares you? What makes you mad? What do you grieve? None of us has had enough opportunity to share fully and openly on these levels—and much of the good thinking of our citizenry is beyond our reach, hidden under layers of feeling.

I have a vision of everyone who despairs of a country divided into hostile camps finding someone on the other side, and making a commitment to engage in truly open communication, with the goal of listening, learning and finding common ground. I have a vision of religious denominations making matches between their congregations in different parts of the country, of sister city programs pairing towns in New England with those on the plains, of everybody looking to mine the potential of all their extended family networks. It may be more important at this time in history to make cross-cultural trips of understanding and relationship building within our own country than across national frontiers.

If the majority of people in the United States were persuaded by the message of our president, as they appear to have been, and if we want to shift those numbers, we can’t do it by talking to ourselves. And if we want to move beyond raising voices, digging in heels and protecting positions, we have to stop seeing those who disagree as gullible jerks. If we are really on the side of truth, there is nothing to lose, and everything to gain by going in search of other people’s hearts and respectfully engaging with their minds. We will have to face our fears—but we are already afraid. Rather than using our self-righteousness as a wall to protect us from the dangers that mass at our door, listening for truth can be the armor that takes us safely deep into Republican territory. Maybe this is the historic battle of our time.

Pamela Haines
Philadelphia, 11/04

#26 The Dads of my Childhood

2006-02-16T18:37:00.000-05:00

THE DADS OF MY CHILDHOOD

I was back at a reunion of the community I grew up in--and the whole weekend was a pleasure. I loved seeing people that I hadn't seen in five, ten or even twenty years. I loved showing my children the swimming hole and the house I used to live in and all the spots that I treasured in my childhood. I loved visiting with old playmates. But most of all, I loved being around the people of my parents' generation--now in their seventies--who had meant so much to me as a child.

Every time I thought about them--every time I think about them even now--my eyes fill with tears. There are four in particular, four men who lived close by, whom I could cry and cry about.

They were all big--but who isn't big to a child?--and friendly, with a ready smile. Ed Simons was my next-door neighbor, and my violin teacher. I remember the time he presented me with a big old folder of sheet music--so old that it was tattered around the edges--and said, "This is a difficult piece, but I think you can do it." When I took it home proudly to show to my mother she was skeptical, but I was unfazed. The fact that Ed thought I could do it was enough.

Charles Lawrence lived in the next house down--a bear of a man with a deep voice, a rich laugh and a ready hug. He always looked glad to see me, like I made his day a little brighter. He seemed so sure of people's goodness, he was like a rock. The fact that he was African American made my world feel that much safer.

I didn't know Irv Wolfe as well but again, he always had a smile, a greeting, a warm word for me--as I'm sure he had for all the children. Vic Sabini was more in my life than the others. Our families did many things together, and I counted on his good humor, his cheery optimism, his love of his fellow human beings--with me always included.

As I think about it, the role they played in my life was very simple. I doubt if any of them put much time into thinking about me. I'm sure they didn't put effort into planning out ways to make my life go better. What they did was include me in their world. They claimed me as a part of their life, as a valued neighbor in a community that they valued. They always smiled when they saw me, and greeted me warmly. They wished me well.

It was so simple. Yet it meant so much to me. Their warmth and welcome helped me to be rooted, helped me to flourish.

The conclusion is inescapable. As adults we can make an enormous difference to children who are not our own. And it doesn't have to take a lot of time or energy. All we need to do is decide that they are part of our world--smile when we see them, ask them how they are, communicate that we like them, be a consistently welcoming presence.

Of course it helps to live in a stable community where relationships endure over years. One of the real losses of our modern society is the transience that continually breaks up relationships outside the nuclear family. But if we can remember that we make a difference, we can look for opportunities, in our neighborhoods, our religious and social organizations, our extended families, to help children know that they are important and welcome in the world at large. We can be shade trees, like the dads of my childhood, providing a cool, refreshing resting place for the little ones who pass our way--a blessing in their lives.

Pamela Haines
Philadelphia, 10/04