The Eyes of the Future are looking back at us

Posted on June 29, 2020 by Jeff Kisling

“The Eyes of the Future are looking back at us and they are praying for us to see beyond our own time.”

― Terry Tempest Williams, Red: Passion and Patience in the Desert

I recently wrote the following.

As a teenager trying to figure out what I would do about registering for the draft (Selective Service System), I saw few Friends resisting. This was in contrast to the previous generation, where many Quaker men and their families choose to go to prison for draft resistance. Their example helped me decide to be a draft resister, too.

What are you bypassing spiritually?

I didn’t pay much attention to the phrase, in contrast to the previous generation at the time, but it has stayed with me since. The specific reference was to the stark contrast between the many Quakers of the previous generation who were imprisoned for refusing to participate in the new peacetime draft, compared to the Quakers of my generation. I am only aware of two other Quakers of my generation who were draft resisters.

One of the Quakers of the prior generation was my mentor and friend, Don Laughlin, now deceased. Late in his life he was working on a project to collect the stories of the Quaker men who refused to cooperate with the draft. I was helping him collate those stories, which include his story and mine. You can find “Young Quaker Men Face War and Conscription” here: https://1drv.ms/b/s!Avb9bFhezZpPiaMFA58DbzX6vnhaYw

I have wondered why most Quaker boys of my generation did not resist the draft. One reason is Quakers and others could apply to be classified as Conscientious Objectors, and would then do two years of civilian, instead of military, service. At the end of this is An Epistle to Friends Concerning Military Conscription, which discusses the differences between choosing to resist the draft versus becoming a Conscientious Objector. Don Laughlin and my cousin Roy Knight signed that letter.

In yesterday’s blog post, What are you bypassing spiritually?, I brought up three other topics related to what we as Quakers are doing today. Those other subjects are what are we doing about the evolving environmental chaos, racial justice, and right relationships with Indigenous peoples. I’ll wait for further discussion related to those subjects.

These discussions also have me thinking about what following generations will think about what my generation did, and what other things we should have done. What we should be doing now. I often think of the quotation of Terry Tempest Williams, “The Eyes of the Future are looking back at us and they are praying for us to see beyond our own time.”

This brings to mind the 7th Generation Principle, which is particularly relevant regarding how we are, or are not working to protect and heal Mother Earth.

I especially like this idea that Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples should forge relationships. This is what the First Nation-Farmer Climate Unity March was intended to do, and succeed in doing. Information about that: https://firstnationfarmer.com/

“In particular relationships between Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples should be forged with the Seventh Generation Principle in mind, so that future relationships will be positive for many generations to come.”

7th Generation Principle

The Seventh Generation takes its name from the Great Law of the Haudenosaunee, the founding document of the Iroquois Confederacy, the oldest living participatory democracy on Earth. It is based on an ancient Iroquois philosophy that:

“In our every deliberation, we must consider the impact of our decisions on the next seven generations.”

This philosophy is not unique to just the Iroquois nation. Many Native American nations, tribes and other indigenous people around the world have and still live by this philosophy

Today, The Seventh Generation Principle usually applies to decisions about the energy we use, water and natural resources, and ensuring those decisions are sustainable for seven generations in the future.

We should apply the Seventh Generation Principle to relationships – so that every decision we make results in sustainable relationships that last at least seven generations into the future.

In particular relationships between Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples should be forged with the Seventh Generation Principle in mind, so that future relationships will be positive for many generations to come.

http://7genfoundation.org/7th-generation/

An Epistle to Friends Concerning Military Conscription

Dear Friends,

It has long been clear to most of us who are called Friends that war is contrary to the spirit of Christ and that we cannot participate in it. The refusal to participate in war begins with a refusal to bear arms. Some Friends choose to serve as noncombatants within the military. For most of us, however, refusal to participate in war also involves refusal to be part of the military itself, as an institution set up to wage war. Many, therefore, become conscientious objectors doing alternative service as civilians, or are deferred as students and workers in essential occupations.

Those of us who are joining in this epistle believe that cooperating with the draft, even as a recognized conscientious objector, makes one part of the power which forces our brothers into the military and into war. If we Friends believe that we are special beings and alone deserve to be exempted from war, we find that doing civilian service with conscription or keeping deferments as we pursue our professional careers are acceptable courses of action. But if we Friends really believe that war is wrong, that no man should become the executioner or victim of his brothers, then we will find it impossible to collaborate with the Selective Service System. We will risk being put in prison before we help turn men into murderers.

It matters little what men say they believe when their actions are inconsistent with their words. Thus we Friends may say that all war is wrong, but as long as Friends continue to collaborate in a system that forces men into war, our Peace Testimony will fail to speak to mankind.

Let our lives speak for our convictions. Let our lives show that we oppose not only our own participation in war, but any man’s participation in it. We can stop seeking deferments and exemptions, we can stop filling out Selective Service forms, we can refuse to obey induction and civilian work orders. We can refuse to register, or send back draft cards if we’ve already registered.

In our early history we Friends were known for our courage in living according to our convictions. At times during the 1600’s thousands of Quakers were in jails for refusing to pay any special respect to those in power, for worshiping in their own way, and for following the leadings of conscience. But we Friends need not fear we are alone today in our refusal to support mass murder. Up to three thousand Americans severed their relations with the draft at nation-wide draft card turn-ins during 1967 and 1968. There may still be other mass returns of cards, and we can always set our own dates.

We may not be able to change our government’s terrifying policy in Vietnam. But we can try to change our own lives. We must be ready to accept the sacrifices involved if we hope to make a real testimony for Peace. We must make Pacifism a way of life in a violent world.

We remain, in love of the Spirit, your Friends and brothers,
Don Laughlin
Roy Knight
Jeremy Mott
Ross Flanagan
Richard Boardman
James Brostol
George Lakey
Stephen Tatum
Herbert Nichols
Christopher Hodgkin
Jay Harker
Bob Eaton
Bill Medlin
Alan & Peter Blood.

  • AM Deb Fink Horace Autenreith George Welch Jim Ginger Kenney Mary Autenreight Birdie Kisling Don Nagler
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What are you bypassing spiritually?

Posted on June 28, 2020 by Jeff Kisling

“…we say many things about the changing aspects of our lives. We say that since change is inevitable, we should direct the change rather than simply continue to go through the change.”

–Gil Scott-Heron and Brian Jackson, Delta Man

This morning I had been struggling to discern what I should write about. Experience has shown if I try to force myself to write, the result usually isn’t good. Sometimes I have to re-learn.

I was about to accept this would be one of those days. I was disappointed because I’ve been interested in the concept of Spiritual bypass I discovered recently.

Now I’m feeling this would be a day to ask questions instead of proposing answers. Those familiar with Quakers may know of our practice to consider queries, or questions. Many Friends find the practice of using the queries as a way to focus on how we are doing, individually and as a meeting, regarding our own faith, and how we practice it, right now in our lives. Something we treasure. This is an example of how Quakers are actively engaged in our spiritual life,

I’ll try to construct some queries related to Spiritual bypass. You might then pray about your answers to some of the queries. In a recent post I wrote of some areas it seemed many of us were bypassing. For each query, you might consider what you have done in your life related to the query. And what is unresolved in your life? What would you like to do now? Will you do it?

  1. What do you believe about war and peace? What does war mean in times of global wars on terrorism? Civilian deaths from remote controlled drones? What do you believe about nonviolence and peaceful protest on the streets today? Are you/should you be on the streets?

    As a teenager trying to figure out what I would do about registering for the draft (Selective Service System), I saw few Friends resisting. This was in contrast to the previous generation, where many Quaker men and their families choose to go to prison for draft resistance. Their example helped me decide to be a draft resister, too.

  2. What is your vision of environmentally sustainable communities? Will you take a closer look at your carbon footprint? Can you find people and organizations you can join to build parts of such communities?

    At 20 years of age I felt I could no longer own a car because of the terrible damage being done to the air, water and soil. I didn’t find many other Friends who stopped owning cars even as the evidence of the environmental harm became increasingly clear.

  3. Can you find communities of people, not of your race, to work with? Can you accept your role will be to listen, and allow the community to lead the work?

    Most Quakers today still struggle with White supremacy and how to be anti-racist. I still have work to do on this. I did become involved with a Black youth mentoring community and learned a lot there. I believe the only way forward is to build friendships and develop trust.

  4. Can you educate yourself on the true history of the violent forces that resulted in American Indians to be dispossessed of the lands sacred to them? That took native children from their families by force, to residential schools, where so many were physically or sexually abused. Where so many died? Which meant those children no longer fit into their home communities.

    Not many Friends have engaged with Indigenous peoples. Most of us are White settlers, with a long history of cultural genocide and stealing naïve lands. I have taken advantage of numerous ways to develop friendships with native people. Quakers in particular usually exhibit enormous Spiritual bypassing related to the tragedies from the forced assimilation of native children. Quakers ran some of those Indian boarding schools. And we are living on land stolen from indigenous peoples.

We’re seeing the sudden collapse of our economic, social, health, education, and political institutions. And the impacts of rapidly accelerating environmental chaos.

Now is the time to pay a great deal of attention to our Spiritual life. Now is the time to join with others outside our usual circles. We all need each other.

Posted in Black Lives, climate change, decolonize, Indigenous, peace, Quaker, race, Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Spiritual bypass and avoidance

Posted on June 27, 2020 by Jeff Kisling

In the previous post, I wrote about a concept that is new to me, Spiritual Bypass.

In simpler terms, spiritual bypassing is characterized by an active avoidance of pain and reality. It is deliberately deciding to cut out the discomforts of life, backed by a privileged perspective of spirituality and life.

The inaction of the spiritual healing community during times of injustice not only betrays the very principles of the 8-fold path, but helps maintain the system of white supremacy whose foundation is maintained through indifference and minimizing

White Privilege In Yoga Pants: Spiritual Bypassing by Tai Salih, CYT, Medium, 6.18.2020

Researching Spiritual bypass, I found there wasn’t much material on the Internet. Wikipedia includes the following warning, which makes me cautious:

American psychologist John Welwood came up with the term in 1984 after noting that some people, by resorting to spirituality to avoid difficult or painful emotions or challenges, tended to suppress aspects of their identity and needs and stall their emotional development.[5]Charles Whitfield later used the term in recovery literature.[5] The term has seen little systematic study.[6]

Spiritual Bypass https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spiritual_bypass

As I did more research, I came upon a related term, Spiritual avoidance. The section below, 5 Signs of Spiritual Work Avoidance, includes some suggestions to address avoidance.

I believe I was lead to these new (to me) concepts to help me better understand my lifelong struggles, and lack of success, to convince more people to act on injustice. This is more urgent now as our social, economic, and political structures are collapsing around us. Spiritual leaders and healers a desperately needed now.

  • As a teenager trying to figure out what I would do about registering for the draft (Selective Service System), I saw few Friends resisting. This was in contrast to the previous generation, where many Quaker men and their families choose to go to prison for draft resistance. Their example helped me decide to be a draft resister, too.
  • At 20 years of age I felt I could no longer own a car because of the terrible damage being done to the air, water and soil. I didn’t find many other Friends who stopped owning cars even as the evidence of the environmental harm became increasingly clear.
  • Most Quakers today still struggle with White supremacy and how to be anti-racist. I still have work to do on this. I did become involved with a Black youth mentoring community and learned a lot there. But there are a so many pieces to this struggle.
  • Even fewer Friends have engaged with Indigenous peoples. Most of us are White settlers, with a long history of cultural genocide and stealing naïve lands. This is another area I need to put a lot more work into. I have taken advantage or numerous ways to develop friendships with native people. Quakers in particular usually exhibit enormous Spiritual bypassing related to the tragedies from the forced assimilation of native children. Quakers ran some of those Indian boarding schools. And we are living on land stolen from indigenous peoples. What are we going to do about those two things?

5 Signs of Spiritual Work Avoidance

Just for fun here are a few signs that you are avoiding stuff on your spiritual path. Some of you may not have stalled; you may have come to a restful plateau. But that’s a completely different feeling. In that space, nothing is particularly coming up. There is openness and rest. There may be expansion and growth, which will continue on until you hit the next set of walls. But when you’ve stalled, the sensations are different.

  1. You feel stuck. In this scenario, you think you don’t know what you need to do (but you do). It’s always good to pause and take some time away from your regular life to get perspective. Spiritual friends, community, healers, and teachers can help give you that third-party perspective and show you what you are avoiding. It may seem really obvious after you see it.
  2. You think you’re done with the spiritual path. The unconscious ego is always looking for an out. Feeling complete and thinking you’re done are two completely different things. The ego may also be giving itself superlatives (grandmaster of whatever–sure there are grandmasters out there, but a lot of the time, they don’t give themselves those titles) and talking about how great it’s spiritual tools and/or life is. The ego is always looking to claim something, which in turn hides other things.
  3. You keep actively avoiding something. There’s something in your life that needs your attention. But it feels messy and uncertain, so you keep hiding out on your meditation cushion or with your chanting community. Meditation is just practice and a way to notice what is going on inside. You still have to step back outside and meet the next level of life’s lessons for you.
  4. You feel like you’re going in circles again. See if you can trace back the origin of this feeling. The great thing about karma is it is a circle. After awhile, you will be able to notice the loops and how you are setting them up.
  5. You are still doing things that don’t feel as supportive for you because they seem safe. Safety is always the language of the ego. It will get you into more trouble than you can possibly imagine. Ironically, the stakes seem to get raised as we go, and if you stop part way on the spiritual path, you can feel really stuck in an apathetic and awful inner space where nothing feels right. You are now caught between two worlds, and you will stay in this limbo until you make a choice to commit to one.

    Now, you may or may not have experience with this, but it can be extraordinary how much resistance erupts to avoid doing things that matter most to someone. Where the same individual was champing at the bit to do something, now the prospect of doing something that matters to them and which comes from this deeper consciousness inside can be virtually debilitating. But once you’ve arrived at this point, there is nothing else but action to take. Sitting and meditating won’t build the healing center you want to create. Crying out your mother and father issues won’t start the renewable energy business you want. Out-of-body experiences won’t help you to ask out that special someone. It’s time for conscious action–the most important type of action we can ever take.

Avoiding Parts of Your Spiritual Work, Spiritual Awakening Process, Jim Tolles, June 16, 2014

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Spiritual bypassing

Posted on June 24, 2020 by Jeff Kisling

Every once in a while I come across a concept that helps me understand or more clearly express some of those things that seem to float at the edges of my consciousness. This morning I was led to read about spiritual bypassing, a new concept for me.

Rumi once said, “The wound is the place where the light enters you.” Being with, and sitting through, the pain is the only thing that ultimately liberates you from it.

As you read this today, I’m asking that you do this: be brave enough to sit with some discomfort. Let it seep in so you can grow, transform and find your allyship.

Let’s collectively own up to the fact that we have incorrectly used our spiritual toolkit to avoid accountability.

It’s a tough pill to swallow. But think about it: Are loving-kindness and compassion complete if they don’t extend out to others? If we choose to only move through the world with ethically sourced rose-coloured glasses, are we truly living? Are we healing? Are we healers?

“Spiritual bypassing is a very persistent shadow of spirituality, manifesting in many ways, often without being acknowledged as such. Aspects of spiritual bypassing include exaggerated detachment, emotional numbing and repression, overemphasis on the positive, anger-phobia, blind or overly tolerant compassion, weak or too porous boundaries, lopsided development (cognitive intelligence often being far ahead of emotional and moral intelligence), debilitating judgment about one’s negativity or shadow elements, devaluation of the personal relative to the spiritual, and delusions of having arrived at a higher level of being.”

Robert Augustus Masters, PhD

In simpler terms, spiritual bypassing is characterized by an active avoidance of pain and reality. It is deliberately deciding to cut out the discomforts of life, backed by a privileged perspective of spirituality and life. The notion that spiritual healers and leaders were never involved in politics and took a passive stance on the political issues of their time is not just an unfounded assumption, it goes against the very examples they lived.

The inaction of the spiritual healing community during times of injustice not only betrays the very principles of the 8-fold path, but helps maintain the system of white supremacy whose foundation is maintained through indifference and minimizing. What do I mean by this?

  • Walking away from the discomfort of dismantling your privilege.
  • Not understanding the negative impact of avoidance language like “good vibes only.”
  • Being complicit in a system that does not see all lives as worthy.
  • Actively choosing to turn a blind eye to injustice.
  • Not recognizing that remaining overly detached and idealistic is what enables discrimination, mass incarceration, police brutality, lynching, hate crime, the school to prison pipeline, etc.

White Privilege In Yoga Pants: Spiritual Bypassing by Tai Salih, CYT, Medium, 6.18.2020

Spiritual bypassing helps me understand a few of my frustrations with my faith community, Quakers, also known as Friends.

  • As a teenager trying to figure out what I would do about registering for the draft (Selective Service System), I saw few Friends resisting. This was in contrast to the previous generation, where many Quaker men and their families choose to go to prison for draft resistance. (You might wonder about my own decision. It took a while, but I eventually turned in my draft cards.)
  • At 20 years of age I felt I could no longer own a car because of the terrible damage being done to the air, water and soil. I didn’t find many other Friends who stopped owning cars even as the evidence of the environmental harm became increasingly clear.
  • Most Quakers today still struggle with White supremacy and choosing to be anti-racist. I still have work to do on this. I did become involved with a Black youth mentoring community and learned a lot there. But there are a lot of pieces to this struggle.
  • Even fewer Friends have engaged with Indigenous peoples. Most of us are White settlers, with a long history of cultural genocide and stealing naïve lands. This is another area I need to put a lot more work into. I have taken advantage or numerous ways to develop friendships with native people. Quakers in particular usually exhibit enormous Spiritual bypassing related to the tragedies from the forced assimilation of native children. Quakers ran some of those Indian boarding schools. And we are living on land stolen from indigenous people. Trespassers, really. What are we going to do about that?

In a pyramid, every brick depends on the ones below it for support. If the bricks at the bottom are removed, the whole structure comes tumbling down.

Adapted from Ellen Tuzzolo and Safehouse Progressive Alliance for Nonviolence.

Here is the hard fact: your good vibes are doing nothing. It doesn’t matter that you aren’t showing up to KKK meetings dressed in white sheets. It doesn’t matter that you do not kill the individual yourself. It doesn’t matter if you have a black friend. It doesn’t matter that you hold egalitarian beliefs internally. Remember what your school teachers told you? A bystander can be just as bad at the bully. If you choose spiritual bypassing you are choosing to avoid the topic of such painful realities that allow these atrocities to exist… and it is killing us.

Let that sink in for a moment… that choice of pain and reality avoidance is killing us.

So, one more time, I am calling on each of you to start doing the work. Sit with the discomfort, work through it, and recognize that your decision to be a spiritual healer means that it is your purpose just to spread “love and light” — your purpose is to show up.

White Privilege In Yoga Pants: Spiritual Bypassing by Tai Salih, CYT, Medium, 6.18.2020

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What part of systemic do you not understand?

Posted on June 21, 2020 by Jeff Kisling

The phrase “what part of CONCEPT do you not understand?” is used to try to get someone to stop and think about whatever CONCEPT it is that you are talking about. This happens when someone is uncritically taking something (CONCEPT) for granted, something that is more complex, or looks different from a different viewpoint. Hence the need for critical thinking.

The CONCEPT I’m thinking about this morning is systemic. What part of systemic do you not understand? (You is not necessarily you, the reader, but you generally, as in us).

The global protests today are said to be about systemic racism. Most people have a basic understanding of racism. Although “what part of racism do you not understand?” is valid for many White people. At its most basic level, though, even White people can see (literally) that skin color determines how you are treated in our society.

So many White people, though, have had trouble understanding the systemic part of systemic racism. White privilege meant White people could choose to ignore double standards in almost every aspect of the society they are part of. Inequities related to criminal justice and policing, environmental justice, education, housing, health care, economics, and political power among others. Many White people were so caught up in White privilege they weren’t even aware of these double standards. Didn’t realize the choice for better treatment was already made for them by default, because of their skin color.

This is changing for several reasons now. Murders by police can no longer be ignored because of civilians recording and sharing videos of these acts. Police body cameras were supposed to help with accountability, but too often were turned off. And the widespread use of social media platforms mean these videos are instantly available for the world to see. What was so often hidden no longer is.

The widespread damage to, and corruption of our political system, with increasing authoritarianism makes it difficult even for White people to believe we can affect political change.

The COVID-19 pandemic has upended everyone’s lives. The virus of coarse doesn’t discriminate in who it affects. And has exposed the discrepancies in access to healthcare. Forced so many to stay at home, where vast numbers of people are re-evaluating how fulfilling their work is, and at the same time seeing who are really essential workers. Thinking about our public education systems. Seeing how it is to live without a steady income.

Almost hidden in all that news is our increasing environmental chaos. Severe storms, wildfires, drought, flooding, increasing air and ocean temperatures, etc. These things will continue to worsen.

The point I’m trying to make is how many systems are failing all around us in real time. I have the impression many White people have been narrowly focused on policing and criminal justice reform this past several weeks, when the damage to so many other systems is also happening, or perhaps is more visible now.

For many years indigenous peoples have tried show us that capitalism is the root of these systemic failures. A system that unfairly distributes wealth and is powered by fossil fuel energy has been destroying Mother Earth for centuries.

The indigenous organization Seeding Sovereignty recently created the campaign #CapitalismIsThePandemic. Making the connection between the colonial-capitalism system’s global economic and medical infections and their consequences.

According to Christine Nobiss, Decolonizer with Seeding Sovereignty, “Capitalism is the pandemic because, though we face COVID-19 together, the heightened economic imbalance is further exposing the deep racial divide in this country. Black, Latino/Latina, Indigenous, and immigrant communities are experiencing higher morbidity rates of COVID-19 due to pre-existing conditions created by the long-term global pandemic of colonial-capitalism.” These communities face strained and genocidal relationships with the American government and live with elevated rates of poverty, violence, unemployment, chronic illness, incarceration, deportation, water crises, inadequate housing, and food deserts—creating a perfect storm for mass infection.

https://seedingsovereignty.org/capitalism-is-the-pandemic

I’ve been working on this diagram to show these interconnected systems. Show that capitalism is failing, causing broken political and economic systems. In addition we are experiencing the adverse effects of the pandemic. Our communities are in disarray.

What I’m trying to show with the diagram is that I agree that capitalism is the pandemic. Capitalism is the basic part of systemic racism. What is needed now is to break out of the capitalistic system. This is perhaps the most difficult thing for White people to contemplate as they realize so many parts of their lives would need to change. Especially materialistically.

Decolonization is the process to accomplish this. Decolonizing means educating White people about colonial capitalistic systems. And embrace the healing necessary to move forward to better systems. The left part of the diagram shows how indigenous ways and leadership can replace capitalism with equitable and environmentally sustainable systems.

If this makes sense, then perhaps you have a somewhat different answer to “what part of systemic do you not understand?”

As my friend Ronnie James says so well:

I’m of the firm opinion that a system that was built by stolen bodies on stolen land for the benefit of a few is a system that is not repairable. It is operating as designed, and small changes (which are the result of huge efforts) to lessen the blow on those it was not designed for are merely half measures that can’t ever fully succeed.

So the question is now, where do we go from here? Do we continue to make incremental changes while the wealthy hoard more wealth and the climate crisis deepens, or do we do something drastic that has never been done before? Can we envision and create a world where a class war from above isn’t a reality anymore?”

Ronnie James
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Black Panthers

Posted on June 20, 2020 by Jeff Kisling

I was surprised and impressed to learn from my friend Ronnie James that the Free Breakfast for Children has continued to this day.

So I work with a dope crew called Des Moines Mutual Aid, and on Saturday mornings we do a food giveaway program that was started by the Panthers as their free breakfast program and has carried on to this day. Anyways, brag, brag, blah, blah.

So I get to work and I need to call my boss, who is also a very good old friend, because there is network issues. He remembers and asks about the food giveaway which is cool and I tell him blah blah it went really well. And then he’s like, “hey, if no one tells you, I’m very proud of what you do for the community” and I’m like “hold on hold on. Just realize that everything I do is to further the replacing of the state and destroying western civilization and any remnants of it for future generations.” He says “I know and love that. Carry on.”

Ronnie James (with permission)

When I wondered if I should cite him by name, or anonymously, he said, “Ha, trust me I’m on their radar. Use it however you want.” I responded, “Thank you. I’m on their radar too,” referring to being a draft resister in the 1960’s and for any number of things since. The Black Panther Party was formed in the ’60’s. There are obvious parallels between the 1960’s and the protests today.

The Black Panther Party (BPP), originally the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense, was a revolutionary socialist political organization founded by Marxist college students Bobby Seale (Chairman) and Huey Newton (Minister of Defense) in October 1966 in Oakland, California.[7][8] The party was active in the United States from 1966 until 1982, with chapters in numerous major cities, and international chapters in the United Kingdom in the early 1970s,[9] and in Algeria from 1969 to 1972.[10] At its inception on October 15, 1966,[11] the Black Panther Party’s core practice was its open carry armed citizens’ patrols (“copwatching”) to monitor the behavior of officers of the Oakland Police Department and challenge police brutality in the city.

In 1969, a variety of community social programs became a core activity.[12] The Party instituted the Free Breakfast for Children Programs to address food injustice, and community health clinics for education and treatment of diseases including sickle cell anemia, tuberculosis, and later HIV/AIDS.[13][14][15]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Panther_Party

I didn’t remember their work to challenge police brutality.

The Free Breakfast for Children Program was one among more than 60 community social programs created by the Black Panther Party.[5] They were renamed Survival Programs in 1971.[6] These were operated by Party members under the slogan “survival pending revolution.” Another Survival Program started by the Black Panther Party was referred to as “medical self-defense” with the creation of healthcare clinics and their own ambulance services.[7] Other survival programs include children development center, free clothing, free busing to prisons, free housing cooperative, free ambulance, etc.[8]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_Breakfast_for_Children

“We believe,” the Panthers’ Minister of Information Eldridge Cleaver wrote in 1969, “in the need for a unified revolutionary movement … informed by the revolutionary principles of scientific socialism.” Formed by young black intellectuals who read Marx, Lenin, Mao, W.E.B. Du Bois, Malcolm X, and Frantz Fanon, the Panthers fused black nationalism with Marxism in militant opposition to all of King’s evils and in accord with King’s conclusion that the “real issue to be faced” beyond “superficial” matters was “radical reconstruction of society itself.”

The solution, the Panthers said, was a revolution, a transformation of the whole society, to be achieved by combining the forces of the black, brown, yellow, red and white “proletariats” in opposition to America’s capitalist and racist empire. This idea was “Black Power” but also and, more broadly, “Power to the People.” As the legendary young Chicago Black Panther Fred Hampton explained in a 1969 speech:

We got to face some facts. That the masses are poor, that the masses belong to what you call the lower class, and when I talk about the masses, I’m talking about the white masses, I’m talking about the black masses, and the brown masses, and the yellow masses, too. We’ve got to face the fact that some people say you fight fire best with fire, but we say you put fire out best with water. We say you don’t fight racism with racism. We’re gonna fight racism with solidarity. We say you don’t fight capitalism with no black capitalism; you fight capitalism with socialism.

Black Panther Fred Hampton

WHAT WOULD THE BLACK PANTHERS THINK OF BLACK LIVES MATTER? By Paul Street, Truthdig. June 18, 2020

Here is another recent story that references the Black Panther’s free breakfast program.

PITTSBURGH — In Pittsburgh 1 in 5 city residents are food insecure. Operating on a no-questions-asked and mentorship-driven model, Feed the Hood seeks to combat hunger at pop-up locations around the city.

On Friday afternoon to honor Antwon Rose, a 17-year-old killed by a police officer in June 2018, the organization will give away free meals in Hawkins Village, where the teenager lived.

“The day we chose [June 19] specifically was the date that Antwon was murdered, to just not forget his legacy,” Chef Carlos Thomas, founder of Feed the Hood, said.

Thomas, a 29-year-old Pittsburgh native founded his business, Confluence Catering in 2011, and in 2016 he founded Feed the Hood. The initiative was born from Thomas being told by a Westinghouse High School teacher that many students depended on the school for regular meals. After the information led to him delving into the rates of food insecurity throughout the commonwealth, Thomas decided to use his skills to combat hunger.

“It’s relative to what the Black Panthers and Huey Newton did with their free breakfast program,” Thomas explained. “We’re kind of treading the lines of that, the only difference is we do dinner.”

‘Feed The Hood’ providing free meals to honor Antwon Rose on 2nd anniversary of his death, By Atiya Irvin-Mitchell, Special to the Capital-Star -June 17, 2020, Pennsylvania Capital-Star

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Juneteenth

Posted on June 19, 2020 by Jeff Kisling

Juneteenth (a portmanteau of June and nineteenth;[2] also known as Freedom Day,[3]Jubilee Day,[4] and Liberation Day[5]) is a Texas state holiday celebrated annually on the 19th of June in the United States to commemorate Union army general Gordon Granger announcing federal orders in the city of Galveston, Texas, on June 19, 1865, proclaiming that all slaves in Texas were now free.[6] Although the Emancipation Proclamation had formally freed them almost two and a half years earlier and the American Civil War had largely ended with the defeat of the Confederate States in April, Texas was the most remote of the slave states, with a low presence of Union troops, so enforcement of the proclamation had been slow and inconsistent.[6]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juneteenth

As a 68 year old White Quaker male I am sensitive to the idea of cultural appropriation, and hope I avoid that here. I admit I only became aware of Juneteenth a few years ago. The Quaker part of me knows the history of a few Quakers who were among those involved in the Underground Railroad around the time of the Civil War. But I have been aware that many of us use that history to make us feel we have done something for racial justice.

That’s a sad appropriation, especially if it allows us to feel we don’t need to do anything about racial justice today. The title of the book Fit for Freedom, Not for Friendship: Quakers, African Americans, and the Myth of Racial Justice by Donna McDaniel and Vanessa Julye, indicates what a problem this continues to be today. It pains me deeply to know of the cruel treatment of a Black Friend of mine by her Quaker meeting.

The recent murder of George Floyd by police in Minneapolis has triggered global protests focusing on systemic racism. This day, Juneteenth, celebrates the legal emancipation of those enslaved. But shines a light on systems that since that time have built political and economic structures that continue to enslave Black, Indigenous and poor White people today. As Martin Luther King, Jr, eloquently wrote:

In a posthumously published essay, Martin Luther King, Jr. pointed out that the “black revolution” had gone beyond the “rights of Negroes.” The struggle, he said, is “forcing America to face all of its interrelated flaws—racism, poverty, militarism and materialism. It is exposing the evils that are rooted deeply in the whole structure of our society. It reveals systemic rather than superficial flaws and suggests that radical reconstruction of society itself is the real issue to be faced.”

Martin Luther King’s Radical Anticapitalism by Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, The Paris Review, January 15, 2018

As my friend Ronnie James writes:

I’m of the firm opinion that a system that was built by stolen bodies on stolen land for the benefit of a few is a system that is not repairable. It is operating as designed, and small changes (which are the result of huge efforts) to lessen the blow on those it was not designed for are merely half measures that can’t ever fully succeed.

So the question is now, where do we go from here? Do we continue to make incremental changes while the wealthy hoard more wealth and the climate crisis deepens, or do we do something drastic that has never been done before? Can we envision and create a world where a class war from above isn’t a reality anymore?”

Ronnie James

And my friend, Christine Nobiss, and her organization Seeding Sovereignty, has been stating this as capitalism is the pandemic. #CapitalismIsThePandemic

On May 3, 2020, a 50’ sky banner visible to millions stating #CAPITALISMISTHEPANDEMIC circled Manhattan–the US bedrock of capitalism and banking–to deliver a powerful message of protest against colonization and worker injustice in solidarity with essential workers who aren’t properly protected or supported.

https://seedingsovereignty.org/capitalism-is-the-pandemic

For My People

Margaret Walker – 1914-1997

For my people everywhere singing their slave songs 
     repeatedly: their dirges and their ditties and their blues 
     and jubilees, praying their prayers nightly to an 
     unknown god, bending their knees humbly to an 
     unseen power;

For my people lending their strength to the years, to the 
    gone years and the now years and the maybe years, 
    washing ironing cooking scrubbing sewing mending 
    hoeing plowing digging planting pruning patching
    dragging along never gaining never reaping never 
    knowing and never understanding;

For my playmates in the clay and dust and sand of Alabama
    backyards playing baptizing and preaching and doctor 
    and jail and soldier and school and mama and cooking 
    and playhouse and concert and store and hair and Miss
    Choomby and company;

For the cramped bewildered years we went to school to learn 
    to know the reasons why and the answers to and the 
    people who and the places where and the days when, in 
    memory of the bitter hours when we discovered we 
    were black and poor and small and different and nobody 
    cared and nobody wondered and nobody understood;

For the boys and girls who grew in spite of these things to 
    be man and woman, to laugh and dance and sing and 
    play and drink their wine and religion and success, to 
    marry their playmates and bear children and then die
    of consumption and anemia and lynching;

For my people thronging 47th Street in Chicago and Lenox 
    Avenue in New York and Rampart Street in New 
    Orleans, lost disinherited dispossessed and happy 
    people filling the cabarets and taverns and other 
    people’s pockets needing bread and shoes and milk and
    land and money and something—something all our own;

For my people walking blindly spreading joy, losing time 
     being lazy, sleeping when hungry, shouting when 
     burdened, drinking when hopeless, tied, and shackled 
     and tangled among ourselves by the unseen creatures 
     who tower over us omnisciently and laugh;

For my people blundering and groping and floundering in 
     the dark of churches and schools and clubs and
     societies, associations and councils and committees and 
     conventions, distressed and disturbed and deceived and 
     devoured by money-hungry glory-craving leeches, 
     preyed on by facile force of state and fad and novelty, by 
     false prophet and holy believer;

For my people standing staring trying to fashion a better way
    from confusion, from hypocrisy and misunderstanding, 
    trying to fashion a world that will hold all the people, 
    all the faces, all the adams and eves and their countless
    generations;

Let a new earth rise. Let another world be born. Let a 
    bloody peace be written in the sky. Let a second 
    generation full of courage issue forth; let a people 
    loving freedom come to growth. Let a beauty full of 
    healing and a strength of final clenching be the pulsing 
    in our spirits and our blood. Let the martial songs 
    be written, let the dirges disappear. Let a race of men now 
    rise and take control.

From This Is My Century: New and Collected Poems (University of Georgia Press, 1989). Copyright © 1989 by Margaret Walker. Used with permission of the University of Georgia Press.

Posted in Arts, Indigenous, Quaker, race, Seeding Sovereignty, Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Indigenous and Black Collaboration

Posted on June 18, 2020 by Jeff Kisling

Many of you know of my years of wonderful connection with the Kheprw Institute (KI), a Black youth mentoring and empowerment community in Indianapolis. https://kislingjeff.wordpress.com/?s=kheprw

Of course much of what I learned there was far from wonderful. I witnessed so many ways structural racism affected this community. So many things that had been kept out of sight, or I had avoided seeing from my privileged life as a White person. When I left Indianapolis, I thanked the KI community for all I had learned. That I felt I had done graduate work there. Alvin said “we’ll put your diploma in the mail.”

Moving to Iowa three years ago, my lifelong concerns about our environment led to engaging with Indigenous communities. It was no surprise to find so many common and parallel issues to what the KI community faces. The sustained uprisings after the murder of George Floyd are as much about Indigenous injustices as they are about Black Lives Matter. Against White corporate capitalism. The following is from my friends at Seeding Sovereignty.

Dear Relative,

Seeding Sovereignty has had the absolute privilege to be involved in so many initiatives over the past four years, to take action and to contribute to the global movement of liberation for all Indigenous peoples. We stand in solidarity with Black people all over the world, and know that the Black revolutionary movement is not separate from the movement for Indigenous sovereignty. Black power matters, Black Trans power matters.

We’ve heard the call, and now would like to call on you, our supporters, friends and comrades to check out a few of the efforts we are elated to collaborate on! Here’s your opportunity to take action with us!

On June 20th we are co-hosting / sponsoring two incredible events:

Saturday, June 20th, 2020

1PM PT / 2 MT / 3 CT / 4 ET / 5PM AT:
THE CONDOR AND THE EAGLE IMPACT EVENT

June 20th marks the beginning of a 10 day endeavour to create accessible information for folx regarding climate change and Indigenous impact. Seeding Sovereignty is honoured to host the launch for World Peace and Prayer day with Chief Arvol Looking Horse with the online screening of The Condor & The Eagle

“The Condor & The Eagle documentary offers a glimpse into a developing spiritual renaissance as the film four protagonists learn from each other’s long legacy of resistance to colonialism and its extractive economy.”

World Peace and Prayer Day with Chief Arvol Looking Horse
More info here: https://thecondorandtheeagle.com/film-launch-impact-series/

This effort aims to raise funds for Chief Arvol’s work to honor sacred sites, Seeding Sovereignty and the Stop The Formosa Campaign.

While donations are encouraged, this online streaming event is available to all.

Please tune into this moving film that features Indigenous leadership from around the world:

_________________________________________________________________________

Saturday, June 20, 2020

Broadcast at 7am PT / 9am CT / 10am ET / 11am AT
& 3pm PT / 5pm CT / 6pm ET / 7pm AT

On Seeding Sovereignty’s Facebook Page:

POOR PEOPLES VIRTUAL MARCH

The Mass Poor People’s Assembly & Moral March on Washington is going digital! On June 20th, Seeding Sovereignty is pleased to co-host the largest digital and social media gathering of poor and low-income people, moral and religious leaders, advocates, and people of conscience in this nation’s history. A global pandemic is exposing even more the already existing crisis of systemic racism, poverty, ecological devastation, the war economy and militarism, and the distorted moral narrative of religious nationalism. On June 20, the 140 million poor and low-income people across this nation will be heard!

We will be live-streaming the March on Seeding Sovereignty’s Facebook page on June 20. Find more info here: https://www.june2020.org/

_________________________________________________________________________

Sunday, June 21, 2020 – Sunday June 28th, 2020:

5K VIRTUAL RUN

June 21st we are excited to announce the launch of our collab for a 5k Virtual Run, June 21-28 – Raising funds for COVID relief mutual effort!

Seeding Sovereignty has partnered with Jordan Daniels / Rising Hearts Jordan has become known both nationally and internationally for her prayer runs for MMIW.

We are asking you to join our social media campaign by posting the reason why you’re running and / or walking with the hashtag #InThisForTheLongRun.

All you have to do is make a sign with the hashtag: #inthisforthelongrun, and post to you social media tagging Jordan, Rising Hearts and Seeding Sovereignty!

Our goal is to raise $5,000 for masks and bring awareness to issues affecting our communities and people. This campaign is open to ALL PEOPLE.

Run registration link & key info: https://events.elitefeats.com/runningforallnations
Follow the FaceBook page: https://www.facebook.com/events/1149909182041663/

We hope you can join us starting June 20th.
Thank you for your support,
The Seeding Sovereignty Collective
Support our work at: seedingsovereignty.org

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Warriors Wanted

Posted on June 17, 2020 by Jeff Kisling

As I often say, I usually don’t know what I’ll be writing about each morning. This morning I am so excited to have been lead to find someone else who is looking for warriors for our time.

What first lead me to think about Spiritual Warriors was the following, written by my friend Joshua Taflinger, who lead the Dakota Access Pipeline water protector ceremonies in Indianapolis in 2016. Joshua went to Standing Rock several times.

I am inspired to share with you all more directly a post I wrote, because I consider you an established & effective nature/spiritual warrior, and believe that there is a need for the perspectives shared in the attached post to be more common thought in the minds of the many.

If you feel truth from this writing, and are inspired, I highly encourage you to re-write your own version, in your own words/perspectives, and post to your network.

With the intention of helping us all wake up, with awareness, clarity, and direction.

..spreading and weaving reality back into the world….

Joshua Taflinger

This is the post Joshua was referring to:

What has risen to the surface at Standing Rock is a physical/spiritual movement. Learn how to quiet your mind. To find the silent receptive space to receive guidance. To learn to adapt and follow the pull of synchronicity to guide you to where you will find your greatest support and strength.

What I have found in my time praying in the indigenous earth based ways, is that it’s not about putting your hands together and talking to god…. It’s about quieting and connecting with the baseline of creation, of nature. Tuning into the frequency and vibration of the natural world, the nature spirits. The beings and entities that have been in existence, for all of existence, the examples and realities of sustainability and harmony.

It’s about becoming receptive to these things. Being open and flowing with them. The spirit guides us, but we have to make ourselves receptive to feel, sense, and respond to this guidance

Joshua Taflinger

I’ve written a lot about spiritual warriors over the past several years: https://kislingjeff.wordpress.com/?s=warrior

This morning I came across this article about the work of Margaret Wheatley.

Seventy-five year old writer, consultant and activist Margaret Wheatley has studied the cyclical nature of civilizations throughout history and she is quite confident that the end of our civilization is closer than we might like to think. And she is doing something about it… something radical.

Wheatley is building an army of ‘warriors for the human spirit’ with people who want to lessen the suffering in the world – whether it be from natural disasters, political strife, war, famine, or from the tyranny of daily injustices in modern life.

Her warriors are trained as leaders with compassion, kindness, servitude and generosity as prime requirements. Wheatley has amassed a library of resources – articles, podcasts, videos, and even poems – to help inspire your inner warrior.

Warriors Wanted: Why One Woman is Training People to Defend the Human Spirit –by CBC Radio, syndicated from cbc.ca, Jun 17, 2020

I also think we are near the end of our civilization. It’s like we are in a perfect storm of chaos with rapidly accelerating environmental destruction, global pandemic, rapidly increasing poverty, military tensions, and global collapse of economic and political systems.

As my friend Ronnie James writes:

I’m of the firm opinion that a system that was built by stolen bodies on stolen land for the benefit of a few is a system that is not repairable. It is operating as designed, and small changes (which are the result of huge efforts) to lessen the blow on those it was not designed for are merely half measures that can’t ever fully succeed.

So the question is now, where do we go from here? Do we continue to make incremental changes while the wealthy hoard more wealth and the climate crisis deepens, or do we do something drastic that has never been done before? Can we envision and create a world where a class war from above isn’t a reality anymore?”

Ronnie James

Warriors exist through every culture. The deeper tradition of warriors which you can find in other cultures is that the warriors arise when something needs protection. And in this time, for me, it is human beings – people – who need protection. We need protection because we do have these great human capacities that I could define as our ‘human spirits’: our generosity, our creativity, our kindness.

There is a tradition of spiritual warriors or peaceful warriors that occurs over and over again in history. So we are standing on the shoulders of millions and millions of other people who have trained as warriors. And that’s also important because there’s no such thing as a casual warrior. You have to train. You have to sacrifice. You have to have a level of dedication that is really unusual these days. 

The commitment is to service. Warriors for the human spirit are committed to serving people but the quality of our service is that we vow not to add to aggression and not to add to fear. We want to be the embodiment really of the best qualities of human beings. And those are qualities of presence, good listening, confidence that isn’t based on arrogance just on self-knowledge. And we want to be there for others not for our own glory. 

Margaret Wheatley

For us, warriors are not what you think of as warriors.  The warrior is not someone who fights, because no one has the right to take another’s life.  The warrior, for us, is one who sacrifices himself for the good of others.  His task is to take care of the elderly, the defenseless, those who cannot provide for themselves and above all, the children, the future of humanity.

Sitting Bull

The following describes, and has a link to an online flip book about Warriors for the Human Spirit.

An offering for this time

The Warrior’s Songline is a multi-sensory experience of the journey all Warriors for the Human Spirit must take to learn how to be the presence of insight and compassion for this time.

This is a new form using voice and sound to engage your body, mind, and spirit.

As you journey on this Songline, may it change you.

May it summon you to become a Warrior for the Human Spirit.

May it be the start of your Warrior training.

https://online.flippingbook.com/view/0790/

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  • AM Deb Fink Horace Autenreith George Welch Jim Ginger Kenney Mary Autenreight Birdie Kisling Don Nagler
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United Nations Filing on Missing Children

Posted on June 16, 2020 by Jeff Kisling

Following is information about a coalition that filed a submission with the United Nations Working Group on Enforced and Involuntary Disappearances (UNWGEID).

The mission of the National Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition (NABS) is to lead in the pursuit of understanding and addressing the ongoing trauma created by the U.S. Indian boarding school policy. NABS is a 501(c)(3) non-profit, incorporated in June 2012 under the laws of the Navajo Nation.

Visit online to learn more. https://boardingschoolhealing.org

GENEVA, SWITZERLAND, May 14, 2019–Today a coalition of tribes, organizations, and independent researchers will go before the United Nations to testify about American Indian and Alaskan Native Children who went Missing under the United States’ Indian Boarding School Policy.

The coalition filed a submission with the United Nations Working Group on Enforced and Involuntary Disappearances (UNWGEID) on April 12, 2019 detailing a number of children who were taken into federal custody and whose fate and whereabouts remain unknown to this day.

The filing outlines how the U.S. has never acknowledged, accepted responsibility for, nor shown accountability for the many children that did not return home from federal Indian boarding schools. Nor has the U.S. provided any evidence that they systematically notified families or tribes when the children passed away or went missing from schools despite attempts by the coalition to obtain this information through the FOIA process. The coalition who filed the UNWGEID submission includes the National Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition (NABS), the International Indian Treaty Council (IITC), the Native American Rights Fund (NARF), the National Indian Child Welfare Association (NICWA), the Rosebud Sioux Tribe, the Saginaw Chippewa Indian Tribe of Michigan, and independent researchers Preston McBride, Marsha Small, and Eleanor Hadden.

Between 1879 and the 1960s, tens of thousands of American Indian and Alaskan Native children were forced to attend boarding school against their parents’ and tribes’ wishes. The United States enforced attendance at federal and church-run boarding schools by withholding rations from families or by incarceration of family members. Once taken into federal custody, many children died at the schools or went missing.

The coalition urges the UNWGEID to call on the United States to provide a full accounting of American Indian and Alaskan Native children who were taken into government custody under the United States’ Indian Boarding School Policy.

https://boardingschoolhealing.org/un-filing-announcement/

Human Rights

“Indigenous peoples and individuals have the right not to be subjected to forced assimilation or destruction of their culture” –Article 8, UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People (UNDRIP)

Definition of Genocide according to Article 2 of the UN Geneva Convention, 1948:

  1. A mental element: the “intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such”; and
  2. A physical element, which includes the following five acts, enumerated exhaustively:
    • Killing members of the group
    • Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group
    • Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part
    • Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group
    • Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group

RESPECTFUL GREETINGS TO ALL TRIBAL NATIONS AND ALLIES.

The Boarding School Healing Coalition (NABS) is worked with the International Indian Treaty Council (IITC), the Native American Rights Fund (NARF), the National Indian Child Welfare Association (NICWA), the Saginaw Chippewa Indian Tribe of Michigan, and the Rosebud Sioux Tribe to file a submission with the UN Working Group on Enforced and Involuntary Disappearances (UNWGEID) to call on the United States to provide a full accounting of American Indian and Alaska Native children who were taken into government custody under the U.S. Boarding School Policy and whose fate and whereabouts remain unknown.

On June 15, 2017, at its Mid-Year Conference in Connecticut, the National Congress of American Indians (NCAI) adopted Resolution MOH-17-014, sponsored by the Chickasaw Nation, encouraging Tribal Nations, families, and descendants to provide information on children who never returned home from Indian Boarding Schools. Read the Press Release about the NCAI Resolution and call for testimony.

On April 12, 2019, this coalition of tribes, organizations, and independent researchers filed a submission with the United Nations Working Group on Enforced and Involuntary Disappearances (UNWGEID) and on May 14, 2019, this coaltion went before the United Nations to testify about American Indian and Alaskan Native children who went missing under the United States’s Indian Boarding School Policy.

https://boardingschoolhealing.org/advocacy/un-filing-on-missing-children/

Minneapolis, Minn. – The National Native American Boarding School Heaing Coalition (NABS) announces the commencement of a ten-year strategic plan (2020-2030) designed to strengthen the organization as it continues to grow into the future. In its first few years of execution, the plan will be supported through a $10M grant recently awarded to NABS by the Kendeda Fund.

NATIONAL NATIVE AMERICAN BOARDING SCHOOL HEALING COALITION ANNOUNCES TEN-YEAR STRATEGIC PLAN AND RECEIVES $10M GRANT JANUARY 2, 2020 BY NABS

Read the ten-year strategic plan here.

https://boardingschoolhealing.org/
https://boardingschoolhealing.org/
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