Quakers, social justice and revolution

Unsurprisingly, after months of inflammatory rhetoric, repression of dissent and encouraging attacks against protesters at his rallies, presidential candidate Donald Trump is calling for the arrest of protesters.  It is the ultimate irony that he recently called himself nonviolent.

This makes it perfectly clear how these people want the political process to be, and should terrify anyone who believes in participatory democracy, not that much participation is really possible these days with the corruption of the political process.  But it is clear that if he was actually the president, he would use all the power available to him to illegally try to shut down protest in the United States.

Peaceful protest has been fundamental to our political process.  Majority rule overrules the beliefs of those who often strongly oppose a given political decision.  Peaceful protest is how the minority tries to persuade others, and is encouraged under ideal conditions, leading to improved political decisions for all concerned.  That is not what the radical right is about–for them it is about winning by defeating all who oppose them.  This is what fascism is all about.

The key is peaceful protest.  The alternative being violent conflict, which isn’t about an informed political process, but about imposing that group’s will on the rest of us.

Now is the time to support those who use peaceful protest to inform our political process.  Now is the time to speak out against fascism, before it is too late and the fascists attain power.  Now is the time to remind people of the importance and value of protest.

This is from MoveOn:

It’s become increasingly clear in recent weeks that Donald Trump’s rising fascist rhetoric poses a new and dangerous threat to our democracy. And now, MoveOn members are on the receiving end of his megaphone.

We’re not backing down from our work to stand up against Trump, Fox, and the broader right wing that’s seeking to divide our country. Not now. Not ever.

We must decisively reject Trump’s fascist rhetoric and this rising tide of hatred.

We are committed to nonviolence, but we will not be silent. We will not be invisible.

So here’s the plan: We’ll support MoveOn members to call out and nonviolently protest Trump’s racist, bigoted, misogynistic, xenophobic, and violent behavior—and show the world that America rejects Trump’s hate.

Pipeline fighter

Indiana Moral Mondays

Congressman Andre Carson flashes me the Peace Sign

Weekly Peace Vigil at Federal Building, Indianapolis

Indiana Moral Mondays march October 2014

Indiana Moral Mondays march October 2014

Black Lives Matter

Stop Keystone Pipeline

Many people know that I decided to refuse to own a personal automobile about forty years ago.  After some initial adjustments, including in thinking/attitude, I have managed to do without them since.  The main thing was to make sure where I lived was on a public transportation route, within walking distance of a grocery store, and that the location be as close to my work at Riley Hospital for Children as possible.  Many also know that I was entirely committed to the Keystone Pledge of Resistance, which became the first successful defeat for the fossil fuel industry’s plans to expand extreme mining practices (tar sands).  I don’t say these things to brag, rather to point out that people (many others besides myself) live without personal automobiles.

Quakers care about the earth and its inhabitants, and many have been involved in the environmental movement.   I think it is safe to say that everyone has tried to do things to decrease their carbon footprint.

But, as is true for most Americans, Quakers have not acted on the fact that fossil fuel supplies are running out, and even if there were endless supplies, every single gallon of gas burned adds to the significant carbon overload of our air and water.  We are well into the unknown areas of the consequences of this environmental disaster.

Every time I bring this up, the person tells me why they have to have a car.  All of the reasons sound great.  The problems are that EVERY GALLON burned makes it more certain that we will never be able to recover from the environmental damage.  EVERY GALLON burned deprives others in the world, and future generations, of oil for manufacturing and fuel.  Even if we succeed in converting to renewable energy, oil is needed for many products.

It simply does not matter how good your reasons for needing personal transportation are.  It is immoral to continue to knowingly destroy the environment and use resources needed by future generations.

This cannot be put off any longer.  Please stop now.  A mere 100 years ago essentially nobody had a personal automobile.  Think about that.

Bear Creek Meeting

Keystone Pipeline Fighter

Yesterday at North Meadow Friends, Jimmie Ilachild led a (two hour) discussion about racial terror, lynching, and his work with the Equal Justice Initiative in Alabama, where he lives most of the time.

I learned a number of things .  EJI has published an excellent report on the subject, Lynching in America.   I learned that lynching is not necessarily done by hanging.   “Lynching–an extrajudicial execution carried out by a mob, often by hanging or other  ways of execution.”  Wikipedia

I learned 4,000 men, women and children were lynched in the 12 states where most lynchings occurred.  After learning that, it was easy to understand that one of the main driving forces behind the migration of black people from the south was this widespread racial terrorism, not just the attraction of jobs in the industrial North, as I had been taught in school.

I learned this terror is STILL present in the south.  Beyond the sustained assault by police on people of color that continues today, this widespread underlying terror was illustrated by Jimmie’s story of some black people living along the route of the march to Montgomery going into their homes when the commemorative march went past, because they were STILL afraid that even watching such an event would get them into trouble.

All of this makes it easy to understand why the Equal Justice Initiative is working so hard to raise awareness about this.  Besides the published report, Jimmie also spoke movingly about his participation in the soil recovery project:

“To create greater awareness and understanding about racial terror lynchings, and to begin a necessary conversation that advances truth and reconciliation, EJI is working with communities to commemorate spaces where lynchings took place with memorials and historical markers. This week, a project to collect soil from every location where a person was lynched will begin with Alabama, where volunteers will collect soil from lynching sites across the state.

This soil collection project is intended to bring community members closer to the legacy of lynching and to contribute to the effort to build a lasting and more visible memory of our history of racial injustice. Jars of collected soil will be part of an exhibit that will reflect the history of lynching and express our generation’s resolve to confront the continuing challenges that racial inequality creates.”

North Meadow Friends

Benches at North Meadow Friends

Bear Creek Meeting

The American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) is holding a Corporate meeting now in Philadelphia.  David Duvall, from North Meadow Circle of Friends, plans to attend, representing Ohio Valley Yearly Meeting.

Dinah and David Duvall

At least one of the presentations will be about the Quaker Social Change Ministry (QSCM) program that North Meadow Friends have been participating in.  I’ll be very interested to hear what David hears about that at the meeting.

Greg Elliott, the AFSC staff person responsible for QSCM will be participating in a conference call with interested members of Iowa Yearly Meeting (Conservative) soon to discuss QSCM and how it might help meetings address immigration issues, and perhaps prepare to become places of sanctuary.

Greg will also be attending Iowa Yearly Meeting (Conservative) annual sessions this summer at Scattergood to talk about QSCM.  Last year I spoke about QSCM at Des Moines Valley Meeting, and at our Peace and Social Concerns meetings at Yearly Meeting.  I also had the opportunity to talk about this with Bear Creek meeting this past fall.

I has been interesting to see how this program has been developed, and is being adopted by the pilot meetings.  The reason I’m so enthusiastic about QSCM is because it simply helps us return to our historic practice of spirit lead social activism.

Ferguson and Faith is the title of a presentation scheduled at an Episcopal church here next week by the author of the book with the same title, Leah Gunning Francis, who is on the faculty of Eden Theological Seminary in St. Louis.  From the book:

“What many of the clergy interviewed in this book realized in the course of the Ferguson protests was that rather than sitting back in their sanctuaries and waiting for the young people to seek out the church for guidance or leadership, it was the church that needed to go out and meet the young people where they were, joining them shoulder to shoulder, on the streets, in the struggle for justice.  Equally important, the clergy did not go out there expecting automatically to lead or be listened to simply by virtue of being clergy. They understood that these young protestors were already leaders who were accomplishing extraordinary things, and that they needed allies in the clergy more than they needed the clergy to act as their leaders. At the same time, by meeting these young leaders where they were and being their allies in the truest sense of the word, these clergy were able to use their gifts, experience, and networks to complement and elevate the gifts and experience of the young activists.”

Black Lives Matter

Indiana Moral Mondays march October 2014

Black Lives Matter

Asking for civil rights protections for Indiana’s LGBT community

Congressman Andre Carson flashes me the Peace Sign

Congressman Andre Carson greets Indiana Moral Mondays

Indiana Moral Mondays

Bear Creek Meetinghose

North Meadow Friends

Benches at North Meadow Friends

I just found a remarkable book as I was researching the concept of the Beloved Community, “The Beloved Community: How Faith Shapes Social Justice from the Civil Rights Movement to Today” by Charles Marsh.

The first thing that caught my attention was this:

“While the church as a worshipping community exists for the specific purposes of confessing, proclaiming, and worshipping Jesus Christ as Lord, the beloved community quietly moves from its historical origins into new and unexpected shapes of communion and solidarity. To be sure, the church has an obligation to nurture and fortify the beloved community, even though it often fails in this task. But the church’s failure, its concessions to expediency and comfort, does not limit God’s action in the world. At such times when the church chooses the easy way over the narrow way, God may nurture and fortify the beloved community through the activity of the Holy Spirit. Beloved community may then become a source of knowledge and conviction for the church, which the church in turn must acknowledge and appropriate in humility.”

I can tell much of this book is going to be about the tension between the Church and activism/community building. I remember one of my earliest, and life long disappointments has been Quakers’ continued use of personal automobiles. Even knowing the environmental and economic consequences of the use of personal automobiles did not stop Quakers from owning them. “the church’s failure, its concessions to expediency an comfort, does not limit God’s action in the world. At such times when the church chooses the easy way over the narrow way…”

Yesterday I wrote something unusual about faith.  I want to find a way to talk to people, especially those involved in activism, about faith, and how faith can support them and their work in ways nothing else can.  I was trying to show how I approached the “Open Eyes” photography project might help someone who doesn’t have a routine spiritual practice, use that approach to explore their faith.

That blog post was getting long enough, but what I wanted to talk about after that was how you might go about that inner, faith exploration.   Religion has gotten a bad name in the minds of many people, often for good reason.  It is discouraging to see how often ministers and churches abuse the money and trust people put in them.  And it can be difficult to find a faith community you feel comfortable in.

Quakers are in some ways anti-religion.  Quakerism came into being in the mid 1600s in England in reaction against the established church, with the rather revolutionary idea that people didn’t need ministers to deal with spiritual matters for them.  Rather, every person is capable of communicating directly with God (or whatever word you wish to substitute).  So our spiritual practice is to gather together in the meetinghouse, and sit in silence as each person prays or meditates and works on their own spiritual life.  But it is much different than simply meditating by yourself.  There is usually a kind of spiritual group effect, which makes the whole greater than the sum of the parts.  When someone feels they have a spiritual message to share, they speak it into the silence.  It is surprising how often what is said relates to what a number of others had been praying/meditating about.  The meeting I attend in Indianapolis is North Meadow Circle of Friends, 1710 N. Talbott St, Indianapolis (photo below).  My home meeting in Iowa is Bear Creek meeting, Earlham, Iowa, also shown below (in the countryside).

So if you are interested in exploring your spiritual life, you would be most welcome to attend a Quaker Meeting.  QuakerFinder can help you locate one near you.

But I did want to close with something else related to spiritual visualization.  During one meeting for worship at North Meadow, I shared a spiritual message.  Afterward, I made a short video of what had lead to that message, and posted it on YouTube as  Spiritual Fire.

North Meadow Friends

Bear Creek Meeting

Bear Creek meeting

Peace Vigil

Stop extreme fossil fuel extraction

Entire Scattergood Friends School marching 12 miles to Iowa City to protest Vietnam War

Bear Creek Meetinghose

Bear Creek Meeting

Bear Creek Meeting

Benches at North Meadow Friends

As I was looking at an album of digital photos I hadn’t seen in a while, I was a little surprised to be reminded of just how many photos I had taken of some very specific subjects.  In this case, 1,050 photos of one sculpture, “Open Eyes”, by Don Gummer (email from him below).  This sculpture was commissioned for the newly built Department of Ophthalmology building at Indiana University Medical Center.  The building is just south of Riley Hospital for Children, where I work.  The sculpture was installed August 2011, and is 18 feet tall, made of stainless steel and glass.  One other thing to note about these photos is that the glass walls of the staircase of the building are made of optical quality glass, which often results in some nice colors and reflections.

But as the title suggests, what I’m wondering about isn’t really about the sculpture, but why I took so many photos of it, over such an extended period of time (a couple of years).  Of course I was initially attracted to how the piece was composed and what it was supposed to represent.  It quickly became apparent that what you saw changed dramatically as you moved around it.  I was struck by how esthetically pleasing each of those different views was.  It became a challenge to try to capture each of those views.

And particularly since the sculpture was about eyes and sight, and the use of colored glass, the interplay of light with the sculpture was revealed as important.  So I began to go to the sculpture at different times of the day, which often meant going there on weekends, or very early in the morning.  Similarly, since it was out in the weather elements, I became interested in seeing the interplay of the sculpture in the sun, rain and snow.

I decided what I was doing was trying to understand the sculpture as deeply as I could, and what it meant by exploring it visually from as many angles, and in as many different lighting and environmental situations as I could.

But again as the title suggests, this isn’t really about the sculpture.  For a number of reasons, both personal and related to our current situations of injustices of all kinds, I’ve been thinking a lot more about what our purpose is in life.  On the one hand I am encouraged by the return of interest in addressing injustice on the part of many young people, especially.  At the same time it pains me to see the lack of spiritual foundation so many have to support their activism, and their own lives.  It is difficult to find situations when others are open to talking about spiritual matters, and when it is possible, our language is so inadequate for doing so.  One of my attempts to explain this in writing can be found here:  Modern Quakers

One of the great things about art is that it is about whole different ways of communicating.  As I was thinking through all of this about the sculpture photos, I realized what I was doing was similar to my spiritual practice of trying to understand about God and spiritual matters by examining my inner self from as many different angles, and lighting and environmental conditions as I can.

So maybe you could look through the “Open Eyes” photos with that in mind.  Seeing how things change with different angles, light, composition, focus, color, contrast, etc.  And then you might somehow translate some of that to looking deep within yourself, and examine what you find of your spirit there.

Here are the “Open Eyes” sculpture photos.   http://1drv.ms/24jWhyi

Derek and Katie Glass (Glass Web Projects) hosted a 12 hour brainstorming session on Facebook this week, to solicit ideas for next steps in building the sustainability/activist community here in Indianapolis.

This past year saw the successful development of Sustainability Scout, a website that aggregates the blog postings from (currently 9) blogs related to sustainability and activism in Indiana. http://www.sustainabilityscoutindiana.org/

It was fascinating to follow all of the ideas that poured in throughout the day. It was a closed group, so I can’t share the details. But a couple of things happened at the end of the session.

Part of the event was a gift certificate to the local organic grocery. I have been very interested in Glass Web Projects ever since Derek and his intern Andrew created the Keystone Pledge of Resistance video http://bit.ly/keystoneresistance.   I’ve also appreciated how Sustainability Scout helps more people see what I write on my little blog site. Because I submitted a lot of ideas that I had been working with lately, I got the prize. But the good part of this story follows.

Peace Vigil

Weekly Peace Vigil at Federal Building, Indianapolis

I have been anxious for Derek and Katie to get to know my friends at KI, and some email messages have been exchanged, but the meeting hasn’t happened, yet. So I suggested the gift card be sent to KI. As you can see here, Katie was on the way to the post office to mail it, when she saw Gilbert, Debbie, Larry and I standing with our peace signs in front of the Federal Building, as we do every Friday afternoon. This was especially funny, because even though Derek and I have been working together for over a year, we had not met face to face until a couple of months ago, when Derek, Katie and their lovely daughter joined us at the peace vigil, so we could finally meet (above).