Pennmanship

What I get from other faith messages

2012-01-09T14:58:00.000-08:00

When I am in DC, I am often attracted to the Sunday folk mass at The National Cathedral (10AM) rather than a Quaker service in the region. Given that I work for William Penn House as well as many Quaker schools and am actively involved in Friends General Conference and Baltimore Yearly Meeting, often in capacities of advocating for and on behalf of Quakers and Quakerism, I am sometimes conflicted with this. I feel I "should be" attending Friends Meetings, but I also feel believe that it is important that we be true to our leading, and mine often take me in this direction.
This does not mean I veer away from Quaker beliefs. In fact, I find that often, when I engage with and interact with people of other faiths or cuts of religious cloth, my Quaker faith deepens, but it is not so much faith in Quaker process.
So yesterday, as I alternately stood and sat at the folk mass, I was more acutely aware of all of this. To start, the readings and discussion (the folk mass has readings like most masses, but instead of a sermon, there is a congregational discussion) was about baptism not just as a commitment but as a re-commitment to one's faith. The question from the minister was "to what are we re-committing ourselves?" While some of the responses leaned towards a Trinitarian belief that God saves those who believe, I reflected that, for me, it is a re-commitment to my belief that there truly is that of God in all things and people, period, and this means I joyfully seek it without judging those who I may think don't see it or don't see things as I do.
At the same time, it is services like this that I have an opportunity to reflect on my own beliefs, and to not simply follow the flock. At this service, for example, following the discussion, there was the renewal of baptismal vows with a congregational response. Where we were asked to reaffirm our renunciation of evil, renew our commitment to Jesus Christ and our belief in Him as the only Son of God, his conception, etc., I was silent. These do not reflect my beliefs, nor do they reflect my deep personal commitments of how to be in the world. In fact, on some levels, they are counter to my beliefs (for example, that Jesus is the only Son of God). I'm not saying He's not, but it is simply something I am not deeply convinced of nor feel compelled to struggle with. My baptismal vow, if you will, is that I believe there is that of God in all and my renewal of that is a deeper commitment to joyfully seek and express this belief.
(As an aside: another perk of going to services like this was the image from the minister that the same waters of River Jordan in which Jesus was baptized are the same waters that flow in our world today, as we live on this earth in a closed system for all time. This was great fodder for contextualizing why the water/environmental/community work of our guest speaker at the potluck that evening is so important. I find that the perspective of other faith messages really has helped me to articulate why so much of the work we do matters.)

Institutions trying to Usurp a Movement

2011-10-19T13:03:00.000-07:00

It has been interesting to watch the doings on at the various occupations around the country. In particular, watching some groups and organizations that grew out of movements of the past are now trying to latch on to the "Occupy Movement" to try and stake a claim in it has been most interesting. HIV/AIDS organizations and activists, Jim Wallis' Sojourners, environmental groups, healthcare groups, and organizations such as AFSC are all looking for ways to somehow get their message on the radar. Some seem to be trying to remain viable; others (Sojourners most blatantly) are using the movement as a fund-raising opportunity. Let me just say, I'm normally a big fan of Jim Wallis, but I was really turned off to get the most recent fund-appeal e-mail from Sojourners titled "we've been doing this for 40 years" and then asking people to join their "sustainers circle" (even going so far as offering a "free" gift if you donate which, to me, isn't free but bartering). It is exactly this kind of exploitation and manipulation done by the "establishment" that, it seems to me, many of the occupation movements are rejecting.

My take is that this occupation movement is a culmination of a whole bunch of things, and it is also unlike anything we've seen before. It's the result of not just leaders but entire communities punting on big issues and always deferring on making serious changes and difficult choices for a later day, and that day is now. As NYTimes columnist David Brooks observed last May, we now have young adults who played by the rules their whole lives (structured childhoods of playdates, sports, and academics driven not by learning but by test-scores and grades) with the promise that compliance would be rewarded, but instead are faced with high-rates of un- and under-employment and burdened with loans. There is anger for sure, but there is also the recognition that the previous generations failed to prepare for the future. This is a non-partisan issue; it was under the Clinton years that there was an explosion of McMansion's, big cars and unprecedented debt (to that point) - very much an "if it feels good, do it" time. It's not that this was Clinton's fault or responsibility; it was just part of the era we have been living since the 1950's of American capitalism.

It is easy to see that all the various social, environmental and health issues are related to this movement. In fact, there is a strong element of chaos related to this movement as it attracts the passionate, the disgruntled, the angry, as well as the dropouts looking for company and a chance to get high. A look at the various signs that pop up at these places can speak to this, as the "issues" are clearly present. But it is also fair, I think, to understand the rejection of the organizations that have been established to address these issues or, at the least, be very skeptical of their intrusion into the movement. Taking HIV/AIDS just as an example: at what point do we look around and say that the outcomes (in terms of the continuing spread of HIV and the growing wait-lists for treatment) are not just the result of bad politics or inadequate funding? It is also the result of an entrenched industry that played "spend it or lose it" that wasted millions of dollars in needs assessments and studies. It is not a movement but a business that holds expensive conferences in glamorous places, patting itself on the back but slow to adapt to new realities and technologies. Too often it is driven not by mission completion but by protection of turf, and now wants more money. There have also been organizations that have slashed programs and staff, but maintained salaries and pensions. It is the lack of balance to sacrifices that this generation is experiencing. Consider, as another example, in the wake of the Gulf oil spill last year, not one of the countless e-mails from environmental groups that I saw that called for protests or for more funding also called on people to reduce consumption. You can replicate this process with almost all the issues of our times. For many of these organizations and institutions, the goal is to keep their issue alive in people's faces, but they don't want to really be questioned about their corporate presence and how it influences our lives, which is the very thing I see much of what this movement is about.

It will be interesting to see where this movement goes. I fully support the idea of a major community transformation that connects us closer to the ideals we espouse (see another David Brooks column for more about this). For me, it's not just about taxing the rich, nor is it about healthcare for all. It's also not mine to say what it is about. I do think that a part of the movement that is healthy is that we all need to be fully engaged and responsible. If we are educated and informed while being engaged, we will absolutely be a better society. It will also spell doom to all those organizations that want to make this their cause and exploit it for their own institutional survival. I can't say that mine is to go and Occupy anything, but to do what I can to nurture the transformations for a better, more just world.

Israel, Palestinians, and Quakers

2011-09-28T06:35:00.000-07:00

As clerk of the BYM Peace and Social Concerns Committee, I have recently found that to give this work due diligence, it is becoming increasingly important that I have a better knowledge base on the complex issue of the Palestinian/Israeli conflict. Most recently, the call for Palestinian statehood – which had long seemed a no-brainer to me – has heated up. Within the Yearly Meeting, there are those who are passionate that we should be vocal in supporting Palestinian statehood and boycotting all things Israel. Widening the circle I have seen and heard from some folks that not supporting statehood makes no sense and Obama is once again not showing fortitude. Among some of this group I have been taken aback by what I would call a somewhat toxic response laced with nasty comments bordering on hatred. And, in mid-September, three Quaker organizations (AFSC, FCNL, and QUNO) released a statement endorsing the Palestinian request at the UN for statehood - an act that the Obama administration asked them not to do, but to instead try to negotiate a peace first. In the Quaker statement, it is noted that the Palestinian request at the UN is a peaceful act, and should be endorsed. What seems to be missing is a deeper understanding of some of the history, such as that Mr. Abbas, despite recent actions, seems to struggle with making decisions (see this editorial for more) and this could be problematic in establishing a peaceful statehood.

And yet, as I sat and watched things unfold, I saw this issue evolve (or devolve?) into another partisan issue, where the political left generally endorsed statehood and the right did not, and Obama’s acts were perceived as politically motivated to appease the right. Personally, I am suspect of any issue that becomes partisan in this country, and wonder what the middle-ground is that people do not want us to see. So, I started to reach out. First, I contacted a friend of mine from high school who is Jewish, very liberal, and very connected with Israel. After high school, she did a year-long kibbutz, and this year her twin children are doing two separate kibbutzes in Israel. I forwarded to her some materials that I was receiving from Friends for her input. She connected me with a Jewish scholar who works at the Institute for Christian and Jewish Studies in Baltimore. From both of them, I have started to gain a deeper understanding of these issues. For example, among Jewish Americans, there is little support for Israeli occupation of territories, but there is also a strong concern about the security of Israel. And yet, in the various materials I have shared with them, they felt that the security of Israel was not a consideration. If Palestinians are granted statehood, does that mean that they could assume that Jerusalem is included as part of this deal? If that’s the case, we probably could expect to see a sharp rise in violence in that city. So I was starting to see that, in fact, Obama is right to say that peace needs to lead to statehood, and not the other way. Statehood first, I now think, will most likely lead to more violence, not less.

Then this morning there was this op-ed piece in the Washington Post questioning why Human Rights groups are ignoring Palestinian war of words (written by one of the founding members of Human Rights Watch). Essentially, for me, this best clarifies the issue, which is that, while I think Palestinians should have statehood, if it is established through the UN and not through a peace settlement with Israel, the anti-Israeli element of the Palestinian government and society could very-quickly take up arms. As the writer points out, the speaker of the Palestinian parliament called for the killing of the Jewish people “down to the last one of them” in 2007. I am reminded of the comments I heard from a speaker at the National Cathedral – a man from Darfur who was from the side that was being persecuted and executed (another issue I am shamefully thin on understanding). He said that with all the “Save Darfur” signs he was seeing, he was clear that the last thing we wanted to do was arm those who were being persecuted because the vengeance would be more brutal. Can we take comfort that this will not happen to Israel?

This is a very complex issue, and one that is going to take an immense amount of bridge-building. As I have delved into this, I am more convinced that this Friend (me) will not be actively involved in the public policy statements and minutes that take the side of the Palestinians in such a blanket way. There are factions within the Palestinian community that absolutely want to do violence to Israel. Peace, for some, is not the goal; eradication of Israel is. At the same time, within our own communities, when we ignore this reality, we are also not being kind to neighbors who do not support Israeli policy but are passionate that Israel must be protected. So, while I think we need to stand down from the partisan policy statements, I do think we should step up our role as bridge-builders – the ultimate peace makers. It is when we can widen our own circle of understanding that we can perhaps see new ways forward.

Peace is a dance, not a stance

2011-08-06T07:34:00.000-07:00

This was the talk/presentation I gave at BYM Annual Meeting for Business as clerk of the Peace and Social Concerns Committee:

“Peace” is a dance, not a stance. We can easily dance among ourselves, but when we also learn to dance joyfully with people we may not know, and with whom we may not agree, we are bringing greater peace. To joyfully seek that of God in all things is to see all people and things as dance partners.

We also recognize that the greatest marks left by Friends in the world – from influencing the ideals of our country, to the abolition movement, to voting rights for women – have often been the work, passions and leadings of individuals, not committees. What these individuals shared was a fire and a passion that could not be extinguished. Knowing that their objectives would not be achieved in their lifetime, they remained undeterred in working towards how they envisioned the world should be. Quakerism was often the source and inspiration of their work, and what emboldened them to take leaps of faith, to speak their truths, and as a result, the world is better.

As the 21st century unfolds, however, we face new challenges – within ourselves as well as in the world. Within this Yearly Meeting, we know that there are a great many good things happening in the name of peace. Support for and active involvement in the works of African Great Lakes Initiative, the Zarembkas and Ann Riggs in east Africa; Bolivian Quakers; the work of the Intervisitation Committee and involvement with FUM are but a few of the things worth mentioning. There are also the leadings of individuals within our Yearly Meeting, and some Monthly Meetings that are doing wonderful works in their community, too many to mention here. At the same time, we recognize that some PSC Committees struggle and may even be inactive. Just this week we heard, for example, that the Ad Hoc committee on gender and sexual diversity is laying itself down, and yet even in Friendly circles we hear people and things being called “gay” in a world where this kind of benign intent can do harm. So while a committee’s work may be done, there is still work to be done. While it is easy for us to look outside of ourselves and see fault, we must also seek to be ever-vigilant and increasingly conscious of our own blind spots. As Moliere said, “it is not what we do, but also what we do not do, for which we are accountable.”

For this committee, we find it both important and challenging to harness our efforts so that we are greater than the sum of our parts and the world continues to be positively influenced by our presence. We recognize that all things are connected. Torture, hunger, and the fuel and energy we have all consumed to be here this week are connected. We cannot shy away from this fact, but should instead be willing to embrace it. A challenge for all of us is to take the learning, wisdom and passions we share to not only support the issues, causes and programs we care about and deem worthy, but to apply them in our daily lives so that in the communities where we live, eat, sleep and work, we can know that the world is ever so incrementally better for having had this day. It is important to daily challenge ourselves to move in the direction of the world we seek. Supporting programs and building relations in remote places – whether they be in prisons, in South America, on a Reservation, or in Africa – is necessary, but if we do not also expand our circle of dance partners in our own backyard joyfully seeking that of God in all, we are missing something. Issues help bring unity among like-minded people, but are also used to divide and conquer. It is relationships – honest, genuine relationships that we live out every day – that bring unity to our global community.

As the Peace Testimony marks its 350th year, this committee will be looking for more opportunities to create more dancers and partners, seeking to nurture the leadings of some while creating opportunities for others to explore the world in new ways, with new lenses, learning new ways to engage or to simply re-contextualize the issues. Some examples of our work include:
• Prison Ministry. We have members and attenders on the committee who do prison mediation, AVP and teach non-violent communication in the prisons. There is also a pen-pal program. These are not only opportunities to connect to prisons, but also to deepen these practices in oneself. There are opportunities for people to be trained in mediation, as well as to simply be a pen-pal.
• Gleaning. Every year, in all of our communities, thousands of tons nutritious food is wasted simply because it is not transported. In an era when hunger and malnutrition is on the rise, this is unacceptable. We will be embarking on an effort to organize a few days this year to have Friends go to an identified farm, pick crops and get them to our local foodbanks. As an added bonus, because most gleaning programs are currently populated by Christian churches, this is an opportunity to build relationships among our neighbors whom we may not know and even hold judgment against without having known yet.
• Torture. We have a member who is actively involved in programs and activities that educate and inform people about the practice of torture and a call to end the practice. There will be a variety of opportunities throughout the year to engage and learn more.
• Workcamps. We will be looking to develop a Workcamp somewhere in the region over the next year that will be an opportunity for people to perhaps see things anew, or with new energy or sense of empowerment. These are also wonderful ways to bring community together across age, religion, culture and economic divides. Once one has learned to build and cross a bridge, it is not where the bridge has landed but that one knows how to build a bridge that matters.
• HIV/AIDS. As we continue to support the works in East Africa where AIDS is devastating, we must also recognize that the trends in the US are not good. However, a “game-changer” is in the works: self-testing for HIV. When the FDA approves this (perhaps as early as spring 2012) we will be approaching Friends Meetings to embrace this as an opportunity to “lead by example” by nurturing this option. There are those who say testing without education and support is dangerous. Possibly, but even if so, support and education doesn’t have to happen in an office; it can happen in safe places where people know they are loved and informed.
• National and International legislation. We will strive to have more effective pipelines with FCNL, AFSC and QUNO to provide guidance on issues, so we can get in a flow of discerning how to best use our voices while also becoming better educated and informed so we can reach into our own communities effectively.

To bring about the world we seek, many things are necessary, and none are sufficient. It is our strong hope that Friends can find their piece of the puzzle – their gift, their voice, their leading – and to invite this committee to be a part of nurturing it and being nurtured by it. Ultimately we are seeking to move towards the day when there are no destructive barriers of “us” and “them”. In this world, there is only “us” – all of us. Despite best intents, many of our movements of the past have become institutions of the present and do little to promote unity. It is the artist, the creative spirit, the mystic and the visionary who can envision the world as it should be as well as the person who recognizes the problems of the world as it is that are a part of this dance. We welcome people to attend our meetings with their ideas. We encourage folks to join us on September 10 for our annual Networking Day, as well as at William Penn House for our Sunday, 9/11 potluck when we will be talking about what we can learn from this past decade that we can take into our future with meaning and purpose, rather than lamentaion. We also ask that active PSC committees share with us their works. Our desire is to add value as well as support innovative and new works.

- Brad Ogilvie

Of Sundances and Yearly Meetings

2011-08-03T09:14:00.000-07:00

Last week I was on Pine Ridge, SD as part of a Workcamp. Our work focused on preparing grounds on a point overlooking the Badlands for a Sundance Ceremony. Sundance Ceremonies are the most sacred of ceremonies – four days of praying, fasting, singing, dancing, sweating and piercing by Sundancers (all of whom have native/indigenous ancestry) surrounded by an extended adopted family that spiritually supports the dancers while also supporting each other through community. For those of us who were there as part of the Workcamp - 7 teens and 3 adults - it was an incredible honor to be entrusted with helping to prepare for this sacred ceremony. We helped rebuild the dance arbor, build new sweat lodges, clean the grounds, and dug a pit for an outhouse that had fallen over.

We were invited to participate in sweat lodges, another sacred tradition. One of the adults with us also participated in a traditional buffalo killing/butchering. It was a week that deeply touched and challenged us to stay open to doing what we were asked to do and had opportunities to do. Soaking rains and hot temperatures could fray the nerves, but we stayed with it. We also got to know some of the dancers who are spending this current week in even more trying conditions, making incredible sacrifices in the belief that this is what helps to keep the cycles of the year. (It should be noted that both Sundance ceremonies and sweat lodges are sacred ceremonies; news that they are harmful are often connected to people who have adapted them to events for profit and, with so many things, money and profit often corrupt the goodness and original purpose of things – sometimes at great harm).

I left the group on Sunday (kicking and screaming, I must say) to join Baltimore Yearly Meeting’s Annual Sessions. I had been asked to lead a retreat for Friends, and had developed a theme of “Simplicity, Truth and truths.” For me, the motivation for this was my belief that has been validated by experiences that when we truly engage in the world in the spirit of deep appreciative listening and staying open despite discomfort, some incredible things can happen. For me, this is what it means to be a Friend - to joyfully seek that of God in all. To do this to any large degree takes discipline and commitment – the ability to hold true to one’s convictions, not be intimidated by others, and at the same time truly honor others as sacred beings (“seeking that of God”). During the retreat, I know I stepped on some toes and sacred cows as I questioned how well we Friends are at doing this, and going so far as challenging us that we are stuck holding on to social and political ideologies more than our core truth. As an example, I noted that Friends cannot easily say what Quakers believe, but in Quaker circles people often and easily state what “others” believe (including Catholics, Evangelical Christians, Tea Partiers and Republicans). In my pushing some of these issues, there was at times a tension that rose in the room as people were uncomfortable with being challenged, avoiding conflict and pain.

This has had me thinking about annual rites and traditions, and their purpose. The Sundance Ceremony – one full of sacrifice, pain, spirit – is done selflessly and completely on faith. The people who participate give greatly of themselves, and are challenged every day to make it happen. Even among the Workcampers, we were sleeping in the elements, using the outhouses, working outside in hot conditions, and being challenged both physically and emotionally, intentionally as well as inadvertently, as we were called to look out for each other and take leaps of faith that our works matter. We became a community and became a part of a larger community. Deep and meaningful conversations took place at the most unexpected times about humanity (ours as well as others), about compassion and judgment in our lives and the world, and how we can support each other simply by letting the experience of deepening relationships unfold. These were conversations that could not be planned for, but are deeply meaningful and transformative. To me, it is Quakerism in action – letting our lives speak. The irony is that all the teens attend a Friends school, but could say little about what going to a Quaker school means other than that the Testimonies are on the wall. However, as our week together progressed, through our work and talk, I think there was a deepening of the sense of Quakerism through our words and actions.

But among Friends, I sometimes observe that our gatherings ask little of us. All our meals are prepared; we mostly stay in rooms (but for a smattering of tents) and can easily get out of the elements. No doubt there is great information, networking and sharing that happens at these gatherings, but I wonder if we are not missing out on opportunities for even deeper spiritual growth and outward connections by avoiding challenging ourselves on our faith, our beliefs, and how we interact with one another. The message of my Workshop was that kindness – the authentic kindness that I experienced when I did the AIDSRides in the late 1990’s when thousands of us took to the road for long, painful bike rides while intentionally supporting and cheering each other rather than focusing on our own pain, the authentic kindness that truly welcomes the stranger - can really transform and revolutionize relationships, and it is the simplicity of intellect and emotion that opens us to truly and joyfully seeking that of God in all. I question whether we as Friends are very good at this these days as we have developed great attachments to issues over the past few decades. In challenging us, maybe we can support each other in being better at it. But if we are afraid to challenge each other at our gatherings on what we believe and in the ways we do and do not live in accordance of those beliefs, can we really be any good at (and do we even have a leg to stand on) in challenging others on these very same things?

The Sundance ceremony taught me about how faith, prayer, challenge and sacrifice prepares and propels the participants (and the world) for another cycle around the sun. Can we likewise learn to be uncomfortable at our annual gatherings as Friends? The fellowship and sharing of information is important, but if we are to also challenge ourselves to a deeper radical connection to our core truths – the kind that revolutionizes and transforms, we have to be willing to be made uncomfortable. I’m not suggesting we adapt any traditions or practices, but am suggesting that we be more willing to feel a bit more heat around our faiths and practices so that we can more deeply embrace the things that really matter. The heat and fatigue in South Dakota wore away our facades as we got to know more deeply the spirit in and around us; can our Annual Gatherings help to do this as well? If we remain solely in our physical and emotional comfort zones, I suspect this may be harder than it needs to be.

-Brad Ogilvie

Musings about "what love can do"

2011-07-01T09:37:00.000-07:00

“Let us try then what love can do” – William Penn

Among Quakers, this quote if often seen and cited as a guiding principle.

I was thinking about this quote a lot over the weekend, as I have been in the midst of a busy few weeks with Workcamps, while planning for future Workcamps and preparing to lead a retreat at Baltimore Yearly Meeting on Radical Hospitality and Simplicity.

What I was thinking about was this:

Do we as Friends sometimes turn to this statement about love when other tools in our tool box have failed to achieve the desired outcomes? After attempts at trying to get people to see our way either through argument, persuasion, protest or lobbying, do we then think “alright, let me try ‘love’ as the means to get the result I am looking for”?

If this is the case, I suspect we have misinterpreted the great potential, and perhaps also missed the intent of William Penn. I am learning to appreciate that “love”, like a healthy lifestyle, requires a greater consciousness and commitment – a real spiritual practice. It is more about having a presence than a skill. “In what ways am I being ‘loving’ in what I am doing” is the question that seems to be formulating for me. This is different than loving something such as spaghetti or bologna. It has to do with engaging with heart, not with head, but not disconnecting from the head either. It seems to be about letting the heart lead, rather than using the heart to do what the head wants.

At this juncture, all of this is still very rudimentary and almost foreign to me. My comfort zone is to stay in the head, but I also have seen the limitations of believing we can think our way to solutions. This is not an “either/or” process, however. It all does connect to Radical Hospitality and Simplicity; articulating this is still something I am working on. As part of this work, however, what I find I do need to do is step away from reactionary politics and theology, and to always look for what I can do today to be a more loving person by nurturing understanding, compassion, reconciliation, forgiveness and healing, rather than blame and anger. I recognize that this is not about denouncing others for their actions, either, but to simply state where I am coming from and honoring others for theirs.

I also know that, at best, I can hope to achieve this 20% of the time. Tomorrow, maybe I can hit 21%. Such is the challenge of “practice”.

Are Friends "bumper-sticker" social justice? Can we be more?

2011-05-13T11:52:00.000-07:00

Earlier this week, when I was in Costa Rica, I went on-line to get information about and to contact Casa Ridgway, a Quaker-run guest house in San Jose, Costa Rica that I was planning to spend the night at. As I was looking more into the information about this place, I read a statement recently written by the adjoining Peace Center (“Amigos Para la Paz”) that stated “we categorically reject military intervention as a solution to problems”. In the afternoon, as I was walking up to the guesthouse, I spotted the seemingly ever-present “War is not the answer” sign in the window. Later that evening, I would spend time at a Lutheran church in San Jose that runs a support group for men with HIV, and then share a meal with three Lutheran pastors and a Catholic nun – all of whom have done some hard work both within their respective churches and within the communities they live (San Jose and Guatemala). The conversations revolved around the hard work of challenging our own faith communities and beliefs in our shared commitments and desires for a better world. We talked about the ethical and moral dilemmas of our work. We shared ideas about how to reach deeper into community and higher into bureaucracy in our eternal pursuit of a better, more just world. It was an evening of enriching, enlightening, energizing and challenging conversation.

All of this has had me thinking more deeply about and seriously questioning the viability of Quakers as a meaningful player in the modern world when it seems like the majority of our actions seem to consist of driving a Prius, self-segregating with like-minding people, writing Minutes condemning some action or some policy, and then wringing our hands, but not really getting out there and getting our hands dirty. I know that there are notable exceptions to this, but when I read the requests and Minutes of committees and business meetings, these are too few and often being undertaken in isolation. We have created so many committees that our social justice work (glbt equality, race, environment, etc) is fragmented and disjointed.
What we are left with are signs. Take “War Is Not the Answer” (to quote Henny Youngman, “please”). You are hard pressed to encounter an unprogrammed Meetinghouse that does not have this somewhere clearly visible. My problem with it is not the sentiment, but the fact that this is a statement, not an invitation to a conversation. And yet, it is in conversations that we find common ground and common humanity, develop deeper understanding, and gain new insights and perhaps new ideas. “War Is Not the Answer” also oversimplifies the world and smacks of a partisan tone that does little to nurture deeper thinking. Consider, for example, one of the other popular signs seen in Quaker circles: “Save Darfur.” Is there an action plan behind this statement? How do we suggest stopping the genocide? Most likely, some kind of military presence is going to be needed or at least strongly considered, but doesn’t this go against the grain of the statement “War Is Not the Answer”?

I am increasingly finding that I am having more enriching, challenging, spiritual and growth-provoking conversations outside the Quaker world when I sit with people who are really questioning how their own faith communities may have to make accommodations in order to serve the world. These are not the kinds of conversations that make us angry and powerless, but actually challenge us to think, act and live differently. When I sit with Friends, what I hear more is either statements about how others are wrong about some act or some policy, or lengthy reflections of what it means to be Quaker. What I see as needed and missing is a combination of these two – a deep passion and commitment that there are things we need to do about injustices in the world, but to stop with the signs and minutes, and instead be a part of conversations and programs with people doing the hard work. I think we need to seriously consider doing away with the simplistic signs and the definitive minute statements (especially to people such as President Obama, knowing full-well it won’t make a bit of difference). We should instead be willing to go out and be challenged as to why we care and what it is that our faith calls us to act on.

Are Quakers Ready for Quaker Youth and are Quaker Youth Ready?

2011-04-05T08:06:00.000-07:00

“The Quaker Meeting is a faith community, grounded in the shared experience of God’s guidance and grace felt in our Meetings for Worship, our Business Meetings, and our fellowship. We are a diverse group of individuals who have been drawn together by the Spirit and a longing to find a faith and community that could speak to our condition. This brought us to Quaker Meeting. It is only with God’s Spirit that such a diverse group of individuals can realize and embody the kind of unity, belonging, and community that answers to that of God within us.

The Quaker Meeting is meant to be a Blessed Community – a living testimony to a social order that embodies God’s peace, justice, love, compassion, and joy; an example and invitation to a better way of life. Like our other testimonies, Community can be a prophetic call to the rest of society”.-Southeastern Yearly Meeting

My cousin, Rob Sandford, a Baptist minister in Virginia shared the following:

” Over half of our Baptist churches in VA are plateaued and many are dwindling down to handful of seniors. Thus the emphasis on 'church planting' or church starting with a focus on young families, college & youth.

The passing of the torch is difficult if no one is coming along who wants to pick it up or sees its value. But part of the church problem is that youth were excluded from decision making from day one. They do not see the church as "their" church as a result.”

Last year as Pendle Hill was reorganizing, a proposal to remove the requirement that the Executive Director be a Quaker was suggested due to the limited number of individuals who are Quaker and who have management experience.

How did Quakers reach the point where our knowledge about the Religious Society of Friends is so limited and that our pool of leaders who are both Quaker and have experience in management requires us to look elsewhere?

This is reflected in the average age of participants in business meetings, in our committee appointees and in the number of our young people who were raised as Quakers and no longer participate.

For many organizations, leadership is shared based on ability not age. By being open to the gifts of others we are enriched and challenged to be more than the sum of our parts. We cannot assume that age, education, or traditions are precursors of wisdom. If our Quaker faith is to grow and survive, our youth must be engaged at all levels. They must be given roles in leadership and in the challenges inherent in a vital faith. We must ask the younger Friends to serve and then give them meaningful work and respect their decisions and approaches. We must recognize that with young people, the past informs but does not dictate. We must accept that we will be challenged. When cost is a factor the funds needed must be provided.

At William Penn House, we have worked to make this a reality,
1) The average age of the staff is 34.
2) The Hospitality coordinator is in her mid 20’s, as was our Workcamps coordinator.
3) 5 of the members of our board of directors are 30 or younger.
4) We release our staff to travel among Friends and allow them to serve our broader community by paying their travel and registration costs.

If our small Quaker organization can do this then the challenge is for each monthly and yearly meeting to recognize the gifts of our younger Friends and to change priorities to fund this service and to nurture the many gifts that these younger Friends bring.

"You have faith; I have deeds." Show me your faith without deeds, and I will show you my faith by what I do.” Book of James

In the 1950’s, the Young Friends of North America was a vital and spirit led organization and during this time there was a very strong group of Young Friends from all over at Earlham College which was our mailing address. They generally had their meetings several times a year at Earlham College and elsewhere. FUM had always been a strong supporter of YFNA, as was Philadelphia YM. But beyond that YFNA did all of their own fund raising and paid their own way to meetings etc. And had very little supervision or support from any Quaker organizations.

Our problems with engaging Young Adult Friends are systemic. From a blog was this clear statement:

The expectation was that young Friends wouldn't want to attend much of the "adult" stuff. And so the program was segregated. Our kids left frustrated and unhappy. We talk a lot about "including youth." We are asked to consider young Friends for our committee work and in other capacities. But if we really expected that that would happen would we have teen programming at the very same time as worship, business meeting and committee meetings?

Our Young Friends are often ill equipped to discuss their faith, because we seldom teach what our faith is about, how it fits into the faith of others and why what we believe is important. When we know why we believe as we do then we can live our faith. If we are to be a big tent of beliefs then we must be open to a broader range of beliefs and be willing to listen to others.

Adults are to pattern behavior, if our kids never attend worship, never attend business meetings, how do they learn to be Quakers. Is it hormonal, one day they wake up and go wow, let’s go to meeting for worship with a concern for business! And we keep it up. We discount their preparedness, their convictions and their responsibilities. Since they function in a parallel universe, we are not exposed to them nor they to us. So when we are seeking engagement from our younger Friends, we do not even know who they are.

So the problem of the older Friends recognizing the gifts of our younger Friends starts with First Day and is codified at Yearly Meeting. And we do not know when to make the change. Do we ever see or hear young Friends at worship, other than to shake their hands and grin as they leave worship after 20 minutes or return to worship at the end. Do we ever see or hear them at business meeting. And at Yearly Meetings they are paraded in for a dog and pony show with the teachers serving as their voice then they disappear and we can continue with adult stuff.

Studies of Young Adults have shown willingness if not a yearning to serve but they like to be asked and to be valued and they know what they can do and they know their abilities and time constraints.

How do we engage our youth if we do not ask them? How do we prepare the next generation to nurture the RSOF if we do not nurture them? How do we grow our faith if we do not share and yield? How do we change if the change agents are not at the table?

Among Friends, are blue collar workers welcome? Are business leaders welcome? Are young people following a different path welcome? Are Republicans and Tea Party followers welcome? Have we become so homogeneous that our sameness excludes others? Among liberal friends, can we talk about Jesus? Among Christ centered Friends, can we talk about Buddha? Can we challenge our elders? As the baby boomers retire from our jobs, will we step aside and let younger folks, who may or may not listen to our muse change Quakers to be relevant to them?

How do we make this change to engage others in the life of our meeting?

But as the saying goes it takes 2 to tango. The older Friends must reach out to the younger Friends but the younger Friends must also step forward. If young Friends do not attend business meetings, how will we know that they are ready to be involved? If young Friends do not participate in committees, how do they learn about the life of the meeting?

“When I was a child I acted as a child, but now that I am an adult I must give up my childish ways”. The young adults, the young friends must step up to the plate and deliver. They must be engaged in the life of the meeting and be willing to serve. The excuse of time is one all of us can use. The excuse of lack of experience is one that will be addressed by doing what it takes to serve. Quakerism is an On the Job Training faith. We can only become Quakers by being Quakers.

“You must be the change you want to see in the world.”
Mahatma Gandhi

The Fragmentation of Friends?

2011-04-04T16:01:00.000-07:00

I’ve been noticing a trend recently in Quakerism. Consider these:
• Last summer at a Yearly Meeting gathering, I heard a presenter talk about one Friends organization that has reduced programming by 50% while keeping pensions 100% funded
• A high-tuition Friends School and its sponsor Meeting are considering separating over concerns of the tuition not in-line with Quaker values, and concern about what it is that makes the school “Quaker”
• A Yearly Meeting’s budget proposal that would eliminate financial support for Young Adult Friends (YAFs) programming and support. As a result, young Friends and young-oriented Friends are passing around a petition of support, but using words like “organizing” and “standing in solidarity with YAF’s”.

Each one of these issues, in a vacuum, is of concern. In each case, I could easily take sides and say “sure, people who have worked all these years deserve their pensions, and yes, high-tuitions smack of greed and reek of arrogance and privilege, and no doubt we should support YAF’s as they are our future”. But when I take a step back and look at the bigger picture of what’s going on here, and then look at the larger world, I see a pattern emerging among Friends that is immensely disturbing to me. There seems to be a drawing of lines along wealth and generations that is somewhat convoluted, and all are driven by the current economy. But rather than coming together, we seem to be pulling ourselves apart at a time when we need each other the most. I would love to pose this: We are in a deep economic hole as a result of at least 30 (and more likely 60) years of punting on big issues, and now the chickens have come home to roost. The whole country (as well as other countries) is facing the same thing, and we Friends are no exception. Can Friends be truly prophetic, embracing the community as one entity not segregated or intimidated by generational divides (or any other divides for that matter) in dealing with these big issues? Basically, to use a phrase from a former intern, “Can we all just put on our big-kid panties, hold each other’s truths, while considering what we all need to give up so that our future is bright and our presence is felt”? This would mean that we should perhaps drop all long-standing committees (on race, glbt, Indian, environment) that tend to pull us apart more than bring us together, and reconsider where we see ourselves in the world. We will also need to put our egos aside and accept that, no matter where we fall in the generations, “it’s not about us”.

So, to go back to the three bullets above as an example, I propose the following questions:
• How can we use the unexpected drop in income to best serve the communities we have made commitments to (social justice requires a long-term commitment) while honoring our promise to our retirees and honoring the spirit of their work that only lives in the future through the next generation of workers (most-likely to be YAF’s). I would hope that some of the 100% pensioners might be willing to give up some of the pension to invest in the future, which would also be a wonderful Testimony to Simplicity, Integrity and Equality.
• Has anyone asked the students what it means to them to be at a Quaker School, regardless of the tuition? It’s the parents who have the wealth, not the kids, but it is the kids who will inherit the wealth. Shouldn’t we welcome the opportunity to work with these schools to nurture Quakerism – not as a political value or a practice of silent worship, but as a deeply committed lifestyle that promotes peace and justice, including economic equality? I’m not sure we help this effort by arrogantly looking down on the tuition or the ego-driven life to get into the best school and to be a huge success.
• To the YAF’s: How is “A movement of Solidarity” nurturing compassion and understanding? Does the loss of this position mean you can’t carry on? I don’t mean to sound harsh, but you are all adults now. You’re not disenfranchised voters or exploited and abused laborers. Yes, your concerns need to be weighed and considered by the whole body (that includes you), but a “movement of Solidarity” seems a little dramatic to me. I have to say that even embracing “YAF” as a separate category has added to a “separateness”, and the elders have certainly played along (or lead? I’m not sure which came first). At the same time, I do know that the current structure of much of Friends is not particularly welcoming of new ideas or thought.

I think these are extraordinary times. As these events unfold, my hope is that we can put our reactivity aside and see that we are all in this together. Let's recognize the challenges and conflicts, and come together rather than choose sides. We desperately need the vision, creativity and energy of all for whom that is a gift (most often the youthful ones), and we need the wisdom that can bring the learnings of the past to the present but not be constricted by past – and often false – visions of how things were. But we need these to make up one body, not separate bodies.

I am sure that this may very-well offend people who I deeply admire for their passion and work as humans and as Friends, so please know that this in no way is meant to cause any. I am really wondering if we Friends can take to heart that we all need each other to have a future; divisions and exclusions of any kinds, whether it is walking away from tables of people with whom we disagree, or focusing on funding only as the issue that matters seems to be little more than a lost opportunity for us to really practice our faith.

You Are My Sunlight After the Rain

2011-03-21T13:36:00.000-07:00

Just as I was preparing to settle into 7:30am silent worship, the doorbell rang. Our guest was a black male in his mid-thirties and holding a clipboard. Assuming he was one of the handful of service men who periodically stop by to fix, spray or check things, I stood firm in the doorway and asked him what he needed so I could direct him quickly. It turned out that the clipboard was for his own purposes and he was hoping to join us for worship. When we talked at the end of that half-hour, I discovered that he was in a divinity program at Howard University and was exploring different approaches to worship, but even if I’d known that information (it being a rare event) I still would have sat through the silence struggling with whether I should feel guilty about equating a clipboard and a black man with a professional visit. Without absolving myself of the responsibility to question such things in the future, I came to a rare (for me) acceptance that the perception was reasonable and I should let it go.

I find myself hyper-vigilant, well beyond issues relating to race, about being morally “good”. It is likely a combination of parenting, growing up in the age of restrictive political correctness and repeatedly planting myself in crowds where social justice and community are strongly valued. So on a social level, I am always self-monitoring for my motives, always secretly chiding myself for not feeling enough empathy for certain groups or persons; and on a personal level, I can become downright self loathing for not doing right (or being perceived as such) by the people I care about.

Recently there was a friendship in which I made poor decisions that caused a lot of pain, many enacted out of temptation or anger, and many with the aim of simply doing what is healthy and right for me. While there were plenty of layers to that relationship about which I could reasonably be sad, the one that ended up plaguing me most was the idea that his verbal condemnations, and my self-imposed ones, were evidence that I am a bad person. Though I hadn’t fully connected with that recognition yet, I left the house this past Saturday night with a strong need to keep my mind on the surface and gain positive attention from others. I would process what was really going on later.

At my second party of the night, held at a bawdy college bar, I wanted to work through some of this in my favorite way: dancing. Eager to start a marathon dance night but noting that most of the party goers weren’t yet lubricated enough, I invited myself along with a YAF who was heading to a dance party a few miles away. When I left the college crowd I was in great spirits and told my new friend I’d meet him shortly (he took his bike, I took the metro).

I carry a journal with me even (perhaps especially) on nights when socializing and alcohol are involved, so I was glad to have it with me on that long subway ride when thoughts of others’ opinions and my moral faltering began to slide in. Even while pining for that friend to tell me that what I did was forgivable and that he still thinks I’m good, I knew that the only person who could genuinely make me believe that was me.

So there I was alone with me, journaling and periodically crying, on a cement bench with a fifteen minute transfer wait. A train arrived in the opposite direction that would take me home. I thought, “This is no state to be dancing in. I should just go back,” but passiveness and a stubborn clinging to my “fun night” idea kept me sitting there. When I arrived at the club, I followed the friend upstairs into a room where humidity levels were five times what they’d been outside. I stripped down to what was essential and moved to the dance floor where I rocked back and forth in a kind of depressive stupor, letting my hair hang over my face to help block out the world. Soon his friends showed up and we all migrated to the center of the floor. While I felt comforted to have dance partners, I mostly kept to myself, each moment wondering how much longer I was going to do this before I decided to go home.

Things weren’t getting any better; I was just moving my body in spite of myself and was inches from leaving…until Kirk Franklin’s “I’ve Been Looking For You” came over the speakers – “To all my people in the struggle, you think God's forgotten about you. Here's some pain medicine….” – and I raised my hands up with the rhythm and lightly wept. Real or not, balm for the masses or not, I was reminded that God thinks I’m worthy. The universe believes I am worthy of being alive, no matter how poorly I live up to my own ideals. I danced until 2:45 in the morning, and I got an invitation from one of my dance partners to hang out at another time.

“Jesus you are my sunlight after the rain.” –Kirk Franklin–
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VkVD9KyE8ck

10%, Do You?

2011-03-03T09:34:00.000-08:00

We live in a community where many non-profit organizations support and perform activities that are dear to our hearts: FCNL, AFSC, FMW, FGC, ACLU, WPH (William Penn House) and WQW (Washington Quaker Workcamps). Each of these organizations depends on the financial support of those who value their work.

When we are asked to donate, we often respond that we already make donations, but how much? The old rule of thumb is that we give at least 10% of our gross income to charity. Are your combined charitable donations equal to or greater than 10% of your gross income? Have your donations increased at the same rate as your income? Do you have a cost of living factor in your charitable donations?

If the answer is no to these questions, how do you expect the organizations that you support to maintain staff, to maintain their programs, to survive.

Byron Sandford

The Spirituality of Simplicity

2011-02-22T09:20:00.000-08:00

"Simplicity" is one of the testimonies that most Friends claim as a fundamental part of our practice. But what does "Simplicity" mean? If you peruse the internet, it seems to be about minimal attachment to material things, and plainness. The Earlham website puts it this way: “The Quaker testimony of Simplicity invites us to recognize what is central in our lives by listening to inward leadings and learning from others. That listening can give us clarity as we make choices about the responsible use of our time and resources. A life guided by the testimony of simplicity can lead us to recognize what makes us genuinely happy and to be good stewards of personal, community, and global resources. It replaces distraction, stress, and excess with clarity, focus, and a sustainable life.”

What is missing from much of this, for me, is Simplicity as a spiritual practice, something that this definition seems to dance around, but not really name. For example, the statement that "a life guided by simplicity can lead us to recognize what makes us genuinely happy" seems to be saying that when we unclutter our lives, we will see what makes us happy. A spiritual practice of Simplicity would be not so much that we recognize what makes us happy as that we can be joyful in all things. Most of us are familiar with the Shaker hymn “Simple Gifts”. “Tis a gift to be simple; tis a gift to be free” is how it starts. I am finding that for me, this starts with growing in the ability to find joy in the little things – the snowy day, the winds, the commute to work; to even find joy in the moments when I am failing to find joy. But this has just been the starting point.

I have long been a follower and admirer of St. Francis of Assisi, who has challenged me to sow love where there is hatred, to sow joy where there is sadness, seek to understand rather than be understood, and to love rather than be loved. This has been a guiding prayer of Simplicity for me; if there is “that of God in All”, as we Quakers are so fond of reciting, than it has been the Prayer of St. Francis that has helped me to try and live this better (no doubt failing over and over, but I think I am getting better at it). Francis has been a model for seeing God in all the creatures on earth– the lepers, the poor, the animals.

More recently, as we have deepened our expression of this at William Penn House (in the form of “Radical Hospitality” and then having to explain what we mean), I have started to read more about the person attributed with the term, St. Benedict. As I have delved more into his theology and writing, and more recent writings of people from this monastic tradition, it has brought a deeper level of challenge and awareness to what Simplicity can mean. Benedict challenges us to not only have compassion for the poor, the weak, the elderly, but also for the wicked, the despised (even by us), the powerful, the wealthy, everyone. No wonder Radical Hospitality is challenging. However, there are some writings that have helped me to go deeper in this work. For example, Simplicity means not only letting go of attachments to material goods, but also to beliefs and judgments about others, and of how I think the world should be. One writing talks about “Simplicity of Intellect”, not as a simple-minded thing, but rather devoid of judgment so that a deeper truth can emerge, and a deeper love for our fellow humans which is really an expression of God’s love.

I have seen that when we can embrace Simplicity as an internal spiritual practice and discipline rather than an external expression or focus, I find fellow sojourners for a better world in places I did not expect, mostly because I have seen goodness in people I did not expect to see it in. Ultimately, I think we may also see more simple solutions to some of the worlds bigger problems.

Does this mean that the Simplicity as expressed by plainness and detachment of material things is wrong? Hardly. But I think it is the deeply spiritual, joy-filled Simplicity of Benedict and his monastics (as an ideal) that may be the glue to it all. It is this Simplicity that truly allows us to detach from all the external things so that we can better seek relationships and embrace more people in our daily lives. It is this Simplicity that can help us break through our fears and anger that can ultimately help us to build a stronger community with all of our neighbors - the despised as well as the needy. And out of this community, we can bring great equality and perhaps even more peace to the world.

Inreach, Outreach and Quakerism

2011-02-15T14:17:00.000-08:00

I have been both reading about and thinking about Quakerism and outreach. Some of the terminology has been about "revitalizing" Quakerism. Among the writings that I've seen has been talk about looking within our meetings for articulations of our beliefs. For me, however, when I hear about "revitalization", I think it would be helpful for us to also consider what inspires us and excites us about how the world could be that flows from our passions for our beliefs. This means that we not stop at the Meeting community level, but go deep within our own individual selves and reflect on our own passions, beliefs, and vision for the world. In the process, how can we also cleanse our minds and hearts of all the clutter of our biases and judgments about others so we can truly be loving presences for all people.

As an effort to nurture this within the workings of William Penn House, we have started to present to groups the following:

Consider the following reflection questions. Do any catch your attention? As we do our programs together, we invite participants to choose one or two as the ones to bring their attention to as we do our service work.

1. How do we recognize our unique talents and abilities? How can we use them to benefit the greater good and serve others?

2. What role do materialism and consumption play in our daily lives? Particularly when compared to themes of generosity, simplicity or sacrificial living is this division in lifestyle choice something that can be bridged?

3. To think and act on a deeper level, what steps can/should be taken to learn more about a local, national or global area of need?

4. How do you relate with your neighbors— if static, are there tangible ways to reach out to those living near you?

5. Is there a group or individual you find challenging to love or embrace in this world or in your community? What is the importance of reaching out to these people and loving them anyway?

6. What is your impression of “caring for the least of these” and how can we stretch ourselves to do so habitually?

7. How diverse is your network – culturally, religiously, politically, economically and racially? Are there things you can do to expand this?

8. How can we reach out to others— that is to say, are there specific activities we can pursue together or individually to achieve this goal?

9. In which context and how might we express our creativity and exercise our purpose to “make a mark” (either broadly or on a smaller scale) in this world?

10. With whom can you share your aspirations and thoughts in order to live out your goals with “missional momentum”?

(These were adapted from Helen Lee, author of “The Missional Mom”; see more at www.themissionalmom.com)

The trouble with "Anti-"

2011-01-24T14:11:00.000-08:00

Today, Monday, January 24, there is the annual "March for Life". Here at William Penn House, we are hosting some groups that are participating in the March and the events surrounding the march. We are glad to have this group for these few days, and hope there is a way the time here affords an opportunity for dialog.

But, as I was riding my bike in this afternoon, I rode past the gathering of folks participating in the march, and the varied signs ("De-fund Planned Parenthood", "Defend Life", "Women regret abortions", "Abortion denies men fatherhood"). What I have been thinking about is this: Where does a movement "for" something end and become an "anti" movement? What happens when we join forces under an 'anti-' movement, without giving a whole lot of thought about what we stand for. In the case of this march, for example, I did not see one sign denouncing the death penalty, unnecessary death caused by war, or legislation that calls for equal rights of all those who are born (such as for education, healthcare and marriage rights).

The lack of these kinds of questions I think is less a reflection of the people participants than the success of "movement" leaders. Often, these leaders succeed by giving people scripts (in the form of banners, slogans, bumper stickers), but not too much that they might actually think. Consider that the keynote speaker for the March for Life Dinner is Rep. Michele Bachmann, hardly a spokesperson of compassion for all of humanity, as she, in general, denounces the majority of her fellow Americans every day, calling on her constituents to take up arms ("metaphorically", she claims, but still without compassion). It really seems to me that this event is more about "anti-abortion" than "for life".

For those of us who generally reside in the "left" of things, I don't think we should sit too smugly, either. Do we reach out to others to have conversations about this? Are we grounded enough in our own beliefs and philosophies that we can have deep conversations with people with whom we disagree on abortion but perhaps do agree on "for life" issues? Just as the "anti-slavery" group in the run-up to the Civil War was made up of a broad coalition ranging from those who viewed blacks as equals to those who denounced slavery but did not believe in equality, our coalition of "anti-war" peers is a broad spectrum of people, not all of whom are also pacifists. In fact, "anti-war" people would actually include many in the military, but because we denounce the military, aren't we also being divisive by staking a claim in "anti-war".

I'm not sure where to go with all of this. I do know that movement leaders do great things by labeling things are "for" or "anti", or sometimes labeling something as "for" when it really is an "anti" (or vice-versa). I don't know that we are all served when we follow as lemmings with our placards, bumper stickers and yard signs rather than holding conversations that allow for deeper thought and introspection.

Are we too comfortable in our concerns?

2011-01-08T15:10:00.000-08:00

"Whatever you have that you do not need does not belong to you".

These words cut me like a knife. Yesterday, Byron (E.D. at William Penn House) handed me a pamphlet printed by FWCC called "Standing in Uncomfortable Places". It's written by a woman, Alexie Torres-Fleming, about leaving a successful midtown Manhattan career to return to her Bronx NY community with a calling of love. Towards the end of her essay, she moves on to her lessons of life. The sentence above is lesson one. No explanation needed. Just a whole lot of hurting. It's something that has also been very much on my mind for quite a few years, but with greater clarity in the past few months.

I am becoming rapidly and increasingly convinced that so many of the issues that we Friends spend lots of time and money on are missing the most fundamental things that are more in-line with all that we espouse. Specifically, we as the larger body are completely missing economic equality, and I think we do so at the risk of our own integrity. I am not saying we be held responsible for the world of poverty, but as we raise our voices and live our lives in modern society, I do think we have to be more active in recognizing the role of poverty in the perpetuation of all that we lament. The challenge is that economic equality is not something we can simply look at as a problem of the poor: it is as much a problem of those of us who have more than we need. "Poor people" are not a culture, they are a part of society.

Background
In all the years that I have been doing HIV-work, I have long-felt that the real issue is not HIV, but economic inequality. Bono was the first to raise this to a new level of awareness but his message has always been muted by his own image and lifestyle. It is hard to be critical of him, and I suspect he fully understands the dilemmas, but many of the people who have heard his message do not stop to think that poverty has a flip side - greed. He also painted the face of poverty as non-European. As a result, what we have is a fragmented approach to HIV - poor Africans and Asians, or in this country it is gay men, blacks, or drug users and sex-workers. We don't acknowledge the role of economics in how we break it down in our backyard and, in doing so, we don't recognize that it is American consumerism that feeds global poverty, and that "global" includes our country and those within it, not just beyond our borders.

Outside of HIV, among Friends we talk often about diversity but, when you look at our gatherings we are not a very diverse group. When you scratch beneath diversity, however, there is very little mention of economic equality. We have many Friends schools that are very liberal and progressive in thought, and can be vocal about the need to care for the poor. In most of these schools, you will see service trips, fundraisers and assemblies that talk about the poor and the afflicted, but how many of these challenge the kids to consider the wealth of their families in the equation. Many of the students come from families of great wealth. At what point do we introduce the idea that, as they enter adulthood, if they want to be serious about economic justice, what they do with their resource will matter. (For a more in-depth reading of diversity and equality, I strongly recommend "The Trouble with Diversity: How we learned to love diversity and ignore inequality" by Walter Benn Michaels).

But we don't need to go to the wealthy to be challenged by this concept of need vs. want. In my work at William Penn House, by standards of my peers, I (and all of us) are underpaid. But we have also talked about that being not just ok, but important to our work. I still can meet my needs and have some perks (or at least catch up on past wants). This keeps me still better off than much of the world, although far-below the level of many of my peers. I know that, among Friends, many of us make our career decisions with a heavy dose of ethics and integrity in the equation, but how deeply do we take the challenge that pursuing economic equality presents?

If you look at the FCNL list of issues, we really don't consider this at all. No doubt there are some issues that touch on economic equality, but there is nothing on the list that specifically calls for this in the form of what we need to call it: redistribution of wealth. FCNL takes its marching orders from the community of yearly and monthly Meetings, so it is really up to us to bring this forward. Are we willing? When was the last time we had a true national champion speaking up for the poor? Robert Kennedy? There have been others - Ted Kennedy, Jimmy Carter, to name a few - but in terms of a national campaign that really spoke truth to economic inequality, it's been a long time. Mention it now, and it can easily be called "un-American". But I also think it is too easy for us to sit smugly and "tsk-tsk" the uber-wealthy and the corporate elite. Don't many of us have more than we need as well?

"Whatever you have that you do not need does not belong to you". As I said, this cuts like a knife. I suspect this may become a guiding principle that I will need to somehow consider as life continues to unfold.

The Dilemma of Bradley Manning

2010-12-28T10:57:00.000-08:00

Bradley Manning is the Army Private accused of releasing classified documents to Wikileaks that created a global scene in the past few months. He has been kept in a military prison for over 215 days. No doubt, we should speak out that he be treated humanely and not be subject to any cruel and unusual punishment. We should also be vocal in our support that he be given a fair trial, and not be a scapegoat for something much bigger. But at the same time, I think it is important that we, as Friends, not blindly join in calling Manning a hero for being a whistle-blower in the name of justice. There is much more to the story of Manning himself and to the consequences of the information he has released that should concern us.

The first wave of information that Manning supplied to Wikileaks was about questionable military tactics in Iraq that resulted in civilian casualties. From the "whistle-blower" world, the military is denounced for violating the rules of engagement that call on the military to only attack opposing forces in uniform. Unfortunately, the opposition in both the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are not playing by these rules but are, instead, specifically hiding among civilians. I abhor war as much as the next person, but given the current state of affairs in this region of the world, it's actually surprising that there are not more civilian casualties.

It is because of my abhorrence of war that I am most concerned about the efforts to put Manning on a hero's pedestal. Other than the leaked video, the rest of the Wikileaks have not been in the "whistle-blowing" category. They have not exposed anything subversive or shocking. They have been full of, basically, gossip in the form of private communications among diplomats. The information itself is, for the most part, nothing new or shocking, but rather personal opinions among diplomats to help prepare for meetings and further diplomacy. It's the kind of stuff we all do - paint broad characterizations of people to help others prepare for interactions. Some of it is really no news at all - such as news that Berlusconi of Italy is a womanizer. Much of this has been amusing stuff from the outside; from the inside, the damage is not to the military but to the world of diplomacy and it is in the diplomatic world that we have our best hopes to avoid military conflict.

I would love to know what motivated Manning to release documents that are not at all related to "whistle-blowing" but only serve to hamper diplomacy. According to this Washington Post piece, there is a biographical narrative that seems to indicate he was driven not by moral outrage at his government, but something more personal.

I have seen flyers at a few Quaker Meetings and among writings of Friends calling for the unconditional release of Bradley Manning. I think it is easy for us to jump on this bandwagon because of our dislike of military action and this can be an outlet of moral outrage. But it seems to me that Pvt. Manning was not motivated by the same outrage. The State Department leaks are not of that nature. In these leaks, it seems to me that Pvt. Manning violated confidentiality by confiscating information that had nothing to do with government wrong-doing, and the result is embarrassing at a minimum and, more troubling, harmful to diplomacy. I think we have a responsibility, as Friends, to look more deeply at the issue rather than risk being over-reactive anti-military but uninformed or inconsistent with our values. Our integrity calls on us to ask for humane treatment and a fair trial, but also that we understand the difference between whistle-blowing of blatant wrong-doing and violating confidentiality for less clear reasons.

Friends and Patience: Rushing Transformation

2010-12-21T05:43:00.000-08:00

(Written December 12, 2010)

As I sit on an incredible spot in the world - a home about an hour west of San Jose, Costa Rica, looking out over the mountains to the distant bay and sea - listening to the breeze and the birds, knowing that 17 dogs are all quiet, I am slowing down from the pace of life that we have set for ourselves in the US, in particular in the northeast. There are many ex-pats living down here; the majority of these folks are retired, and many that I have spoken with say they have retired here because they cannot afford to live in the US where they spent their careers. (The irony of this is that, as more folks from the States come here to retire, the cost of living goes up here, but that’s for another day.)

I have asked folks how they like living down here. To a person, so far, everyone has stated they love it. Sure, there are issues they face (bad roads in some areas, for example, crime in cities – especially pick-pockets, and a somewhat chaotic government system), but one thing many say they appreciate is the simplicity of life. One person commented to me that many of the houses owned by “Tikos” (native Costa Ricans) are small, but this is not necessarily a reflection of wealth as it is priorities. He said that the culture here is much more about living simply. As I have experienced in just about every place I have been outside the US, I see much the same thing. People live at a more casual pace, seeming a bit more content with what they have rather than constantly pursuing what they don’t have.

As I was leaving for vacation, the idea of patience and taking time was very much on my mind. In the month prior to leaving, I had had a few experiences of Friends expressing an interest and desire in exploring peacemaking, social justice and hospitality in what seems to be an increasingly divided and hostile world, and what we as Friends can and should do to bring about change. In both cases in which I facilitated either a workshop or presentation, there was limited time, and in both cases, after the workshop/presentation, it was clear that not having enough time was a problem. Then, just before leaving for vacation, we had a board retreat at William Penn House that was all-about story-telling. We spent the day telling stories – individual as well as collective, as we learned the art of storytelling. We were gently guided through an awakening process – external as well as internal. It was a great day, and something we want to continue. In some ways, it was a transformational experience in terms of self-awareness and in knowing about others. I also know that there are folks within Baltimore Yearly Meeting who want to explore singing and story-telling as part of our spiritual and community development. So I floated this idea to folks, with the proposal of a two-day workshop. Time was quickly raised as a barrier. People want to engage in, experience and learn tools for transformation, but don’t want to take the time.

I understand the pressures of time, and how full our calendars are. And yet, as Friends, if we are truly to be a part of a broader community in which we bring a greater sense of peace, and we want to see a transformation take place in our community, we are going to somehow have to learn to take time. That in itself is a part of the transformation. We need to take time to let things sink in, see what sticks, and come together after a good sleep and “non-task” time. But when we don’t allow for time, we do great disservice and perhaps even harm to the work. Things become hurried. Comments are made without the time for understanding and listening. Instead of healing, people can leave feeling unheard and perhaps discounted. It’s like making a cake. You can have all the ingredients, mix them together, put them in the pan and put the pan in the oven. You may then do other things, but your primary task is still tending to the cake. If you let it slip completely from your consciousness and drift too far either physically or, say, by falling asleep, the cake is ruined and all that work is for naught. This is why I am increasingly convinced that, if Friends are serious about wanting to make something beautiful with all the gifts of the people in our midst – including the transformational workshops – we are going to have to learn to attend to the importance of allowing time to do its transformational work.

We are going to have to engage in a practice of patience that we bring to the world, and not just practice when we remove ourselves. It can’t be rushed. Baking the cake at 500 degrees won’t make the cake better. It will only ruin it quicker.

Bridging the Generations

2010-12-06T05:04:00.000-08:00

This past weekend was busy, but also provided an opportunity to reflect on the intersection of theology, culture and politics as they relate to William Penn House, our mission, Quakers/Quakerism, and multi-/inter-generational work in a pluralistic society.

A brief recap:
Saturday was the board retreat. For the retreat this year, we had a 27 year-old man named Mike lead us in a workshop on storytelling as a craft. I had been a part of a storytelling workshop this past summer at Philadelphia Young Friends Camp Onas, and was fascinated and inspired by the experience, so I thought it would be a great exercise for the board in helping to do storytelling about William Penn House. What I am learning about this art is that it is not just about telling a narrative, but it is about bringing one's own narrative to life - exposing oneself, speaking from the heart, and, in doing so, becoming more conscious of it. It is a way of bearing witness. But, just as important, in engaging people in storytelling, we also learn how to listen to their story. We learn to use questions to elicit a story. It has the potential, I think, for building community as we learn to listen more deeply. This can then help to bring reconciliation, healing and peace to the community. We also can attune ourselves to listen for the societal narratives, and look for ways we can bring our voice to that narrative. Storytelling becomes a way to hear for process, not content and it really is process that needs to change in our lives and world.

Sunday started with a "second hour" discussion at a DC-area Friends Meeting about the responsibilities of Quakers in these times of two costly and seemingly-endless wars. (While we have ended military involvement in Iraq, there is still a strong military presence and what we have left behind has stronger ties to Iran, so this story is hardly done). The pragmatic reality is that not much can really be accomplished in one hour when we are talking about wars and what pacifists can do. Essentially, I just wanted to introduce some of the program ideas we have been developing at William Penn House that help us deepen our understanding of the root causes of war and unnecessary violence (for example, when our passions can create divisions and recognizing that divisiveness is a main building block for physical, cultural and biological violence). We talked about core truths, the importance of reaching out (actually not reaching out, but going out into the world) - basically the work of Radical Hospitality. In one hour, I wonder if actually it is counter-productive. Here's why: there were three people who raised issues. One made the claim that, until there is a safe place to say that Muslims - even radical Muslims - are inherently good people, there can be no end to war. A second person presented a flyer from AFSC about where our tax dollars are going, and people need to know this. A third person made the comment that people just need to know that the war in Afghanistan is wrong, and we need to protest a la 1960's and '70's as that is what ended the Vietnam war. These people are all my age and older.

Sunday evening, then, we had a potluck at WPH. Bryan Montanio, a grad student in architecture, presented on the earth building movement. Bryan is in his mid-20's, and has a gentle passion for this movement not just as an industry but as a means of social justice. He recognizes the time and effort it will take for this movement to take root on a broad scale, but his presentation left us with the impression that it can be done. It was energizing and inspiring. It was also not well-attended.

Here's what I take from the weekend: Between Mike and Bryan, I saw two people in their mid-20's using their talents and interests to make a difference. They don't necessarily have the "key" solution, but they see options, and they have optimism - hope. In Bryan's case, it's a career pursuit. In Mike's case, he does other, less-satisfying work so he can let his life speak through his side-interests. They are engaged in creatively developing new ways to address age-old problems and, as they engage in the telling of the stories, we become more conscious of our roles, narratives and options. Contrast this with some of the comments of people my generation and older at the Sunday morning meeting: "people just need to see what I see, and take the action that I think they need to take, and speak what I think needs to be spoken, and the world will be ok". There was anger, despair, hopelessness.

So the challenge is, how do we bridge these generations? Among some of the "elders", there is certainly wisdom and experience. No doubt, the anti-war protests of the Vietnam era were a part of bringing an end to the war. But what we need to have is conversations, not lectures. Wars during times of draft during times of voluntary service are very different beasts. I think the challenge is we have to look to those who don't volunteer for the military because of pacifism and ask "so how can you/I/we serve?" In asking this question, my experience is to ask people to consider visioning solutions, not getting stuck on problems because that is then all one sees, and to be creative in developing action steps that start with "I/me", not "them". This is the heart of my experience over the weekend: Bryan and Mike are starting with "here's what I'm doing" and inviting others to find what is theirs to do. The push-back I got from some on Sunday morning was "people just need to see and do what tell them" with a mix of righteousness and despair based on real experiences. It is this dance of life and hope that we must constantly do if we are to really make a difference.

Peace and the Struggle for Peace

2010-11-15T14:13:00.000-08:00

Annually at William Penn House, we host our National Consultation Committee. Most of this committee's members are reps to the Friends Committee on National Legislation as well which starts the evening after we wrap up our gathering. Because of the FCNL connection, many of the people on our NCC are active and involved in social justice issues with an awareness of the role that advocacy and service play in our faith community.

This year, as the WPH staff and interns were presenting the continuously evolving programs and mission of William Penn House, it was evident that we have become much better at articulating what had been intuitive processes (such as "Radical Hospitality"). Because of this, conversations that ensue become a part of the evolving articulation which can then bring greater consciousness to the work as it relates to our core truths and our faith practice. It is a cyclical process that really highlights the power of conversations when we engage from a deep place of faith and respect.

On this particular day an observations made by the NCC members, as he listened to the story of how "Radical Hospitality" came to be and our on-going commitment and challenges to move towards being able to live this every day, is that he sees three main camps of Friends: birthright Friends for whom being Quaker has always been a part of their lives; people who are drawn to Quakerism because of it's "quietude" - the practice of silent worship that, for many, is so different than the chatter of their previous experiences; and those who are drawn to Quakerism because of the "Peace Testimony" and the struggle for peace. To over-generalize each of these, "identity", "faith-practice", and "values-aspirations".

Each one of these, in and of themselves, come with challenges and, when held up against each other, can become sources of further tension. The Quaker identity, for example, can become a source of division when it is held up against other faith identities. Our faith practice (sitting in waiting silence for the spirit to lead) can lead to some wonderful revelations and actions, but can be a paralyzing process when it mires us in mundane decisions, and can actually bring unnecessary tension to a faith committed to peace. The "value-aspiration/struggle for peace" work can also be a source of conflict internally as people with passion for action can get frustrated with inaction, and in the larger world, can be a source of division when we judge others who hold a different worldview, or proclaim that our course of action is the right one. To be sources of division as we struggle for peace can sometimes mean the we add unnecessarily to the struggle.

It seems that we, as Friends, have an inherent challenge and responsibility to nurture a flow among all of this - a flow that takes us out into the world, and back deep within ourselves, using the silent presence of spirit to ground and quiet us to go back out. But each time we go out or in, if we are doing this well, we become changed, perhaps even transformed. Going to the quiet space is not just a personal "time-out" to calm down, but to again sit with the spirit that was with us as we were out in the world. As a nun told me once, the real spiritual ministry work is when we cycle through going out and in, like a pendulum, throughout the course of our days, and not just as we go from one interaction and task to another, but even while in the doing of one task or interaction. We listen externally, and we come back to listening internally. I have found that in the rare times that I can consciously do this - struggle within my daily practice - greater peace can actually come.

"How was the Rally?"

2010-10-31T06:34:00.000-07:00

After I broke my leg in 1999, I was in a hip-to-toe cast for a few months. Sometimes during this period, people would ask how my leg was as they stared at a completely immobilized leg while ignoring the "body". At other times, people were disbelieving when I would say I'm doing great. See, what I was learning during this period was life-transforming. I was learning how to not always run to the next thing, but to be in the moment, and to take time to consider my actions with greater forethought rather than be impulsive. All these were great things that, perhaps, would have come to me at some point, but basically having the use of one leg for 4+ months really deepened the lesson.

I was thinking of this yesterday as I was being asked "How was the Rally (to Restore Sanity)?" It was a great time. A huge crowd on a beautiful day. Both before and after the rally, I have had friends and family asking for reports. I find it difficult to give simple information about things such as this because of the context in which they are happening. Crowd estimates vary from 150,000-250,000, so something is going on outside the rally to bring that many people to one place at one time. I'm not sure that the sense of this can be captured easily. So here goes, in two parts. Use this as an analogy: "How was the college?" 1. The buildings were beautiful. 2. The education really has made a difference.

How was the Rally? The facts: I was riding my bicycle down towards William Penn House. I left my apartment at around 8AM. At first, I was surprised how little traffic was on the road and bike path, but as I neared the Air and Space Museum, the energy was buzzing so I opted to instead park my bike by the American Indian Museum and set up my chair and blanket under a tree on the first block near the stage. A real stroke of luck. By 9AM, the police closed off entry to this section. Like me, there were a few other people around me who laid out extra blankets and chairs for friends who could not get in, so we filled in for each other in sharing the experience. I walked around periodically to take in the signs and get-ups, so the 3+ hours went by fairly quickly. I had brought a book to read, and an Mp3 player to listen to Car Talk if I got bored, but being there was absorbing. There were people of all ages. Most of the signs were non-partisan. Many picked up on Jon Stewart's theme that Obama and Bush are not Hitler. I think that many of us who saw the "Bush=Hitler" signs and were silent need to perhaps to some reconciliation around our silence.

The performance started right on time. I won't go into the details of the performance itself as this is readily available on-line. But among the highlights for me were:
- Hearing John Legend's amazing voice singing "Dear God, I'm trying to believe in you. Dear God, I see your face in all I do." Stunning.
- Yusuf (Cat Stevens) coming out to sing one of the 1970's anti-war anthems ("Peace Train"). Rather than settling in to a serious peace message, though, Colbert almost sacrilegiously cutting him off, saying he can't get on the Peace Train, and bringing Ossie Osbourne on to sing "Crazy Train". The back and forth banter culminated in Yusuf and Ossie singing their songs simultaneously until the O'Jays ended the dispute with "Love Train". Colbert signed on to the Love Train because love can hurt and cause std's. Good stuff!
- The awards for sanity and fear were great. A really nice touch was Colbert giving one of his fear awards to Anderson Cooper's shirt rather than to one of the easier media targets (Limbaugh, Beck, Olberman). Cooper in general is perceived as a good guy - especially some of his recent work on anti-bullying. He is, however, one of the subtle fear-mongerers. Recognition of this is a good reminder of how pervasive the fear in the media is.
- Stewart's message was great. Not political (despite how some - including McCartney in the Washington Post - are shamefully representing it) but a reminder that we are all in this together, and only together will we be able to come out of this. "These are dark times, but not the 'End Times'" he said. I appreciate, as a fellow Jerseyite, the reference to the fact that, sometimes, the light at the end of the tunnel is New Jersey. Even his message at the very beginning of the show asking the crowd to leave the mall cleaner than we found it ("plant topiaries if your a lanscaper") resonated with me. I often use this message in both Workcamps and program messages: the essence of peacemaking as a lifestyle is a commitment to leave a place better than it was upon arrival, regardless of whether it's in the daily routine such as re-stacking weights mis-laid by others at the gym and picking up trash while on a hike, or more pronounced such as mediating a conflict. It's about Stewardship ("Stewart-ship"?).

All in all, a wonderful show.

How was the Rally? The night before, I led a group of 8th grade students from a local private school on a Workcamp to help prepare foods as part of an all-encompassing meals/job-training/employment program in DC. These students chose to be there, as did all the other volunteers including some young adult professionals looking to be a part of and to give back to community. The private school (Norwood School) seems to do an amazing job of giving kids an opportunity to see the world and reflect on purpose. One of the kids even remarked that they were having more fun than being at home watching TV. This school also hosted a viewing of the documentary "Race to Nowhere", which speaks volumes to their admirable commitment to youth development, not test performance. I only bring this up to note that I already was in a pensive mood having spent the prior evening with youth and young adults with a passion for a better world - so much so that they were spending their Friday evenings actually doing something.

As I mentioned above, the rally itself was attended by, what I could see, people who really want to be a part of something different than the status-quo. But it was after the rally that there were deeper conversations about this. At William Penn House, we had an open house after the rally, inviting people to come in for cider and cookies. Many people came in, much appreciative of and a bit taken aback by the openness to strangers, but this is something we have embraced as a part of our "Radical Hospitality" (if I had been more on the ball, we should have done something similar during the Glenn Beck rally if we want to really walk our talk). When I first got back to the house, there were some older folks from Gettysburg at the table. Nice folks who were heading back to PA that afternoon. Most of the folks who came in afterward were also leaving town that afternoon, and were walking to the bus parking at RFK. For us, by opening our doors and welcoming in strangers, it was a good opportunity to quietly be an example of what the rally's message was - being civil.

One of the conversations around the table that flowed from one group to the next was "Do you think the rally will make a difference?" This, to me, is the real heart of the matter. Clearly, there is something stirring in society, but can a "call to Sanity" become a movement? Is our society really ready to take this on ourselves? The media and the politicians are not going to take the lead on this. The political parties are too much about power - so much so that they often penalize their own who try for some civil discourse (witness how Sen. Lindsey Graham has been treated). I do have to say that Republicans seem a bit better at this than Democrats, but I sometimes think that this is because Democratic leadership is lame and unfocused, not more civil. I reflected to one group from the Philly/Poconos area when asked these questions, "Isn't it up to us to have it make a difference?" I know from my experience working with people and groups not necessarily pro-what-I-want that we really can find the common ground and civility that is beneficial to our collective responsibility to leave the world better than we found it. A lot of the people at the table said that it won't be easy to bring about these changes - something as simple as turning off the 24-hour news - but, hey, no one said this would be easy.

So, how was the rally? Great! How would we like the rally to have been as far as making a difference? That's up to us. I'd encourage that we start now - by turning to each other to continue the momentum, and not read what the "pundits" have to say. They are already trying to snuff out any glimmers of light and passion that might spread. We don't have to pay them any mind. Between the kids on Friday evening and all the folks I spoke with after the rally, there is much to build on. It's not your parent's movement, for sure, but the hope and willingness seems to be there.

Are Quakers Prophets?

2010-10-25T10:38:00.000-07:00

"Prophecies" are inspired declarations of divine will or purpose, according to Merriam-Webster. Synonyms are along the lines of predicting, prognosticating, foretelling and the like.

This has been rattling in my brain since early this weekend. I was present at Friends General Conference's Central Committee - a wonderful gathering of inspiring people who have accomplished a lot, cumulatively, over the course of their varying lengths of lives. As a collective body, however, I left wondering whether we are caught in a system that is less than the sum of our parts. A gelling, jarring and telling moment came when the word "prophetic" was used in describing one of the program proposals. Without going into too great detail, this had to do with a proposal to upgrade the web-presence of the organization so that its messages and communications can be more egalitarian and timely. I had to be honest (and spoke to this at the gathering): upgrading the web presence and technology is essential to today's world, and, given that we are now wrapping up 2010, this can hardly be considered "prophetic". "It's about time" is more appropriate although, given the challenges on the road ahead for FGC, and the fact that the plan calls for this process to take 3-5 years, "too late" might be even more apt.

One of the Quaker testimonies is "Community". There are only 5 testimonies. Technology has profoundly changed the face and networks of the global community, how things get communicated and how things get done. It is a wonder what community FGC has had a covenant with that it finds itself, technologically, this far behind the times. I wonder if this is not reflective of a deeper challenge not just of FGC, but of all the Religious Society of Friends, and our corporate process. Certainly, among Friends, there are countless folks out in the cyber-world active and engaged. Why have none of the governing bodies of Friends (FUM, EFI, FGC) embraced some of this energy and integrated it into their web-world?

Beyond the mere integration and adaptation issue, for FGC-Friends, I am troubled by the use of the word "Prophetic" as a self-descriptive term. To what extent are we, as Friends, so enamored with our prophetic, cutting-edge and radically-progressive past that we are completely blinded to our present? We talk about embracing diversity, but there was more diversity at the local bar in New Windsor with 20 people than at Central Committee with a gathering of 150+ Friends (I'm talking real numbers, not proportions). I continue to find little movement among Friends in promoting HIV-testing - a small thing that we could do to show greater unity in our communities. To not do so is an act of white-privilege, especially here in DC. I increasingly feel that their are a rising number of Quakers who are and can be prophetic, and some of their messages of the need for change are directed not at the outer-world but at the Friends institutions themselves. If what I witnessed this weekend is any indication, these institutions have a long way to go before their actions can really join the world in sharing prophetic messages again.

Thoughts on "Meaningful" Work

2010-10-07T12:37:00.000-07:00

As I am about to end two plus years of leading a service-learning program, I am reflecting on my time here and the lessons I have learned. A common phrase I hear a lot is “meaningful work”. Pastors, youth group leaders, and parents have all use this term when they call to inquire about my programs. Over time I have found out that this is actually code for “instant grafication”.

Yesterday the phrase came up again, while reading a document on Quaker workcamps. In one section, the writers wrote that meaningful work needs to be important and effective, then they go on to give an example of how cutting back invasive species is not meaningful work.

For the past two years, I have collaborated with Anacostia Watershed Society (AWS), an organization devoted to removing invasive species from the local watershed in Washington DC. From the dedicated employees of AWS, I have learned about an epic environmental disaster happening in our midst. This disaster threatens our whole eco-system, because the invasive species only support, on average, 5% of the species that native flora support and in many cases, the invasive species have been growing wild for more than a hundred years. This disaster threatens our food supply because of the way the food chain works, i.e. if insects disappear, then their predators are at risk, and so on. AWS have developed a five to seven year plan for sites of eradicating invasive species. The organization is always in need in volunteers to help with this work. In an afternoon, a group can make a tremendous amount of progress if they are part of an organized plan, like the one developed by AWS.

Instead of these types of projects, leaders want their groups to volunteer at homeless shelters, soup kitchens, etc… These places have a need for volunteers too, but most of the time, they are filled to the brim with volunteers, sometimes a year in advance. Adults ask for these places, because they want to get to know people in need. I can count on one hand the number of conversations I have had at soup kitchens with the clients, because when you are serving food or cleaning up after people there is not time to sit and talk. But, the volunteers leave feeling good about themselves when they go home to their own bed, because they have “helped” someone. Where is the volunteer when the client needs something to eat the next day? How many tested models are there for eradicating hunger or homelessness in five to seven years from an entire section of a city?

For the adults who ask for “meaningful” work, they are great adults who are dedicated their lives to working with youth in their community and they want to ensure a great experience for their group. In addition, groups are needed to volunteer in all areas. I try to plan workcamps that include all types of volunteering, because these issues are all connected. How can you help people out of hunger and ignore a problem that threatens our source of food? The error is calling one type “meaningful” and another “unmeaningful”. If we are unwilling to work on an issue affecting our community, then who do we expect to work on the issue?

I see in the history of Quakers as investing in long-term struggles, whether the issue was slavery, peace, suffrage, civil rights. Friends devoted their whole lives to causes that did not end in their own lifetime. Friends, generation after generation, continued working on the same issues and changing their own lives to bring about the change they advocated for. Friends today are continuing in this tradition by working on a wide range of issues. Friends Testimonies remind us to consider how our lives, individually and corporately, affects the rest of the world.
In our youth programs now, are we teaching our Young Friends about how solving problems take a long-term plan and vision or are we more interested in teaching band-aid solutions that ignore larger less glamorous issues?

-Greg Woods

Does God speak only through the Silence?

2010-09-27T09:45:00.000-07:00

As I have had conversations with people about core truths of Quakerism, reflecting on our faith, values and practice, there has been one level of thinking that keeps popping up. To put it into a query: "To what extent do we act as if our practice of silence feeds a sense of righteousness because we believe God only speaks through the silence?" I quickly take this to another level of query: "To what extent might it not be that God speaks to us, but that we can become more practiced in deep listening that is perhaps our greater asset to the world?"

Here's what I mean: Our practice is to wait in silence and to be spirit-led in our Meeting messages as well as in our Meetings for Business. What seems to happen is that we go through this process and then take what emerges as our marching orders. We often proceed with a clarity of "here's what needs to happen", "here's where the injustice is", etc.

But what if we instead went forth with a commitment to nurturing and seasoning the sense of the group no matter where we go? Imagine going and sitting in conversation, fellowship, and service with people of other faiths, cultures and beliefs, and listening for the spirit and sense in that gathering. I don't mean sitting with fellow liberals or moderates of different faiths or colors - that's too easy. I mean, sitting with people where we are not necessarily welcome or may not feel comfortable, and being a loving presence, listening for God.

I am learning to view our practice in our Meetings for Worship for Worship with a concern for Business (or any other issue) as just that: PRACTICE. But, as a former runner, I know that practice is what we do in preparation for the real events, the ones that engage the "other". And, rather than look at this as a competition where we want to be the better/wiser person, we instead want to be the best bridge-builder, listener, loving-presence. Let it be our practice and our process that we bring forth externally, rather than hold it internally while sharing the outward message.

Too busy to notice?

2010-09-19T05:59:00.000-07:00

We were sitting in the office at William Penn House the other day, and Greg showed Susan (Byron's wife) a trailer clip of a documentary called "Race to Nowhere". The main message of this documentary is that we have become a society in which our children are not allowed to be children anymore. There is too much pressure coming from all segments of society (parents, colleges, media, government, performance tests) that children need to succeed in school to the point that they are overburdened. One of the quotes is "our children are pressured to perform, but are they really learning?"

This past Spring, a student at a NY state high school gave the valedictorian speech in which she called out the education system. In her speech, she talked about the goal of the education, from her experience, is to excel and to get out, but not to learn. She said "while others sat in class and doodled to later become great artists, I sat in class to take notes and become a great test-taker. While others would come to class without their homework done because they were reading about an interest of theirs, I never missed an assignment. While others were creating music and writing lyrics, I decided to do extra credit, even though I never needed it." She referred to herself as the "best slave" by doing what she was told "to the extreme".

At William Penn House, we run Quaker Workcamps. We work with many youth groups from schools all over the country. For many of these youth, the reality is that they are doing the service not because they care, or because their strength is in service, but because they have to meet the school requirements. When I fill out the forms for students, I don't think I have ever seen a question about whether the student seemed to have a passion or gift for service. Most of the questions are about whether the student participated and was cooperative - basically, was the student obedient. Questions are asked about whether hours were completed, but not whether a project was completed. Even the organizations we work with and advocacy groups I am connected to don't encourage thinking. Scripts are given, but thinking about solutions to problems is not encouraged.

Almost thirty years ago, when I was first starting my work career (working in a mental health center with children not able to make it in public schools) I read a book by Tufts sociologist David Elkind called "The Hurried Child". This book called attention to the dangers of exposing our children to overwhelming pressures that can lead to low self-esteem, pregnancy and suicide, and that in blurring the boundaries of what is age-appropriate, by expecting - or imposing - too much too soon, kids are forced to mimic adult sophistication while secretly yearning for innocence. The third edition of this book (published two decades later) found that the problem had only been compounded by media, schools, home, and new technology such as the internet and video games. The subsequent decade did not alter this at all.

In all the meetings and networks I have been involved in, including Peace/Justice committees and networks, not once has the concern for this pattern been raised as a serious issue. But to me, nothing is more important than education, and not the kind that tells people what to think, but actually nurtures the ability to think. Real deep learning, I think, is as much art, play (one of the reasons I enjoy the workcamps is it is an opportunity to bring play to service), creativity and research as it is performance, but we have come to put way too much emphasis on performance.

Recently, as I was stepping into the clerking position for BYM Peace and Social Concerns Committee, I requested that the committee take a day together to discern, as a committee, what is ours to do. I sent this suggestion out to the committee of about 12 people. Only three responses came back and were the same: "we are too busy". And yet, when I see what people are doing, I don't see a whole lot of collaboration which, in its purest sense, is about making the whole greater than the sum of its parts. I do see a lot of networks and activities that, because they lack creativity, play, and visioning of solutions, end up often producing less than the sum of its parts. As an aside, in my experience, when true collaboration happens, we can actually be less busy but more effective.

There is a societal pattern here of keeping people busy without really thinking about what we are doing. It gets even worse when you consider that there are people working in various systems (including non-profits) who are doing studies and running programs as they always have not because it is the right thing. In some cases they know what they are doing is pointless, wasteful and even counter-productive, but they do it because they are being told to do it and it is the way it has always been done.

In the documentary "Race to Nowhere", one person says "This has to stop somewhere!" But where? Dr. Elkind warned of this almost 30 years ago, but few seemed to notice - in fact, things have gotten worse. The NY state valedictorian spoke up, so maybe that's a start. The fact that Norwood School in Bethesda MD is hosting a screening of "Race to Nowhere" and publicizing it on their website could also be a part of that start. But where are Friends schools on this? I was fortunate to go to Cambridge Friends School in a time when play, creativity, and self-directed learning seemed more weighted than they are now. I never even saw a letter-grade until high school (thanks, Mom and Dad, for that one - seriously!) Are we, as Friends, going to live our gospel truth that there is "that of God in all", and take the time to allow for the youth to develop their own soul and their own way, or are we too busy? As the Religious Society of Friends that includes Friends Schools, can we follow Norwood's lead, recognize that the performance-driven world is doing nothing to break the cycle of violence and unsustainability that we are currently on. Should not Friends schools, because of our gospel truth, be at the forefront of this? When I see so many such schools committed to their students going to the best schools, I have to say "no, not now". But when I get to know the kids, and some of the people working in these schools, I can see that the potential is there. It's just going to take some courage for us all to stand together, as the valedictorian courageously did, and say "This has got to stop".

"Root Causes" vs. just roots

2010-09-14T06:48:00.000-07:00

I was attending the BYM Peace and Social Concerns Networking Day on Saturday. It was a beautiful sunny day, and Sandy Spring Meeting is a beautiful surrounding. The gathering was a spirited and passionate group of Friends who vary greatly in where they focus their passions and social justice efforts. Among the issues: Israeli/Palestinian conflict (with an leaning toward Palestinian rights); mental health services; Muslim relations and understanding; peace scholarships; and environmental laws and policies. Among the various actions: prayer vigils, letters to Obama and elected officials, petitions, education and awareness events, and relationship building efforts (notably between Friends and Muslims).

Among the discussions, there were a few things about the process that struck me. First, there were two Monthly Meetings that seemed to reflect where my own passions are - that all things are interconnected. One of the Meetings started their report stating that they were "all over the board", as they see our current path (globally) is unsustainable, using the concept of "peak oil" as an example. Having this vision of the world - that not only is reducing fossil fuel consumption a good idea, but is a harsh reality that will happen whether we want it or not - influences the way one sees all the other issues of the world. We have an infrastructure that depends on fossil fuels for existence - our homes, our cars, our economy - and we have not made the paradigm shift needed to move away from this. The result is an increasingly volatile geo-political environment as pipelines for oil are extended deeper and farther into more hostile environments of all sorts. This view can do two things: bring a greater sense of clarity of what we need to change in our lives, and make many of the other social justice efforts seem like "window dressing", sort of like fiddling while Rome burns.

Second, there was one Meeting's committee that was not looking at topics, but process. It was considering the extent to which it can nurture individual leadings, serve as a source of education for its members, take on issues as a committee, and reach out to others on common causes. Basically, this committee seems to be considering how to do things more holistically, and how it can get the "most bang for its buck" in terms of energy. I personally think that this is one of the most important things that we can do as Friends. Minutes, epistles, and prayer vigils are fine things, but they are also actions that place the responsibility for problems and how to fix them on someone else, somehow conveniently elevating our own lives and lifestyle above reproach.

This leads me to another thing that has stuck with me from this meeting: a discussion of systemic and root causes. I think it is real easy for people to regress into a highly intellectual discussion about the "root causes" or "real problems" of the world that tend to accomplish very little other than perpetuate blame while fostering a sense of powerlessness. For those of us on the left, this tends to boil down to terms like "multi-nationals" (including banks) and "oligarchies". I am in no way denying that these are not fundamental to our challenges in working for a more just and egalitarian world, but, in pontificating about "them", we are in denial of how we who live in comfort and have thrived off the backs of the disenfranchised for centuries have been beneficiaries of these institutions. We can talk about root causes as if there is some linear cause/effect formula in play, but I prefer to just see that the roots of all we face are deep, connected and have been there a long time. Moving to community banks will not end homelessness - we are going to have to drastically change how we live. I don't mean "we" in a euphemistic "them" way, I mean "we" as in you and me. In fact, I would say that our ability to sit in comfort and talk about the big problems of the world, while our actions are whittled down to pointing out where others are flawed is a form of oligarchy in itself.

I juxtapose this with the main speaker we had that morning. Nathan Harrington is a young man who has started an intentional community in southeast DC while working in some of the more challenging school districts (currently in Prince George's County, MD). His story is full of courage and humility, a gentle balance of following a moral compass with meeting his own needs. He readily admits that finding a home in southeast DC was as much driven by affordability as motivated by conscience. But the entirety of the story is simple: he is bearing witness, and is a vehicle for consciousness. In doing so, I believe he sees more clearly the nuances of social trauma as it has played out over the centuries, and how painstakingly slow the work of reconciliation and sacrifice will be. It is his radical example that I hope to inspire in the real work of the Peace and Social Concerns committee as the real justice work of Friends.

Where are my First Amendment rights?

2010-08-31T14:43:00.000-07:00

Last week, after more than 8 years of discerning, I signed up for the Selective Service.

Every male resident of the United States of America, between the ages 18 and 26, have to sign up for the Selective Service, which will supposedly help in the time of a draft. (This is debatable if the Selective Service would actually help at all in the time of a draft.) If males do not to sign up, they could face jail time or fines. When the government pursued legal action against non-registrants (males who didn’t sign up for the selective service), they were highly unpopular and resulted in more males deciding not to sign up. So, in the early 1980s, Congress passed the Solomon Amendment, which prohibits non-registrants from receiving federal financial aid for college. Since then, there have been more restrictions, such as denying non-registrants access to most federal jobs. Most states have also passed laws denying non-registrants drivers licenses and barring from attending state colleges.

I believe that the Selective Service is a part of war and I oppose participating in war. My belief comes from my Quaker upbringing. In a 1660 letter to King Charles II, a group of Quakers wrote in their first statement of pacifism:

Our Principle is, and our Practices have always been, to seek peace and ensue it, and to follow after righteousness and the knowledge of God, seeking the Good and Welfare, and doing that which tends to the peace of All. We know that Wars and Fightings proceed from the Lusts of men (as James 4: 1-3), out of which Lusts the Lord hath redeemed us, and so out of the Occasion of War. The Occasion of which War, and the War itself (wherein envious men, who are lovers of themselves more than lovers of God, lust, kill, & desire to have men’s lives or estates) ariseth from the lust. All bloody Principles & Practices we (as to our own particular) do utterly deny, with all outward Wars, and Strife, and Fightings with outward Weapons, for any end, or under any pretence whatsoever. And this is our Testimony to the whole World.

When I was in middle school, I sent letters to every representative and senator I could asking for them to end the Selective Service. I had hoped that the Selective Service would end before I had to sign up, so I wouldn’t have to decide whether to register or not.

Sadly the law did not change. On my 18th birthday, I thought I would make a stand and write a letter to the editor decrying my position, but I did not. Over the past eight years, I have been a conscientious objector. I have not been able to apply for federal aid for college, apply for state jobs in my home state of Missouri or most federal jobs.

During the past eight years, I started reading the Bible and I am now call myself a Quaker and a follower of Jesus. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus says: "Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called sons of God." (Matthew 5:9) I believe that killing people and war is against Jesus' teachings. I know people have other interpretations, but this is how I read His teachings.

I ended up violating my conscience and my religious beliefs and signing up for the selective service because in less than a month I turn 26 and I would be bar permanently from most federal jobs. I found that I have been silent about being a conscientious objector, so what is the use of holding onto a belief if I am too scared to publicly voice a belief? Also, I hope to one day be married and have a family and I don't want my decision to adversely affect my future family.

I comprised my moral and my religious beliefs against war to comply with this law. Where are my First Amendment rights to free exercise of religion?

For more information about Selective Service and Non-registrants, visit
Center on Conscience and War

Core Truth of Quakerism?

2010-07-22T15:11:00.000-07:00

Earlier this week, I sent out a one-question survey asking people what they thought the core truth of Quakerism is and has been since the beginning. So far, 80 responses have come in. We will be doing much more with this information - mostly using it for further discussions and conversations and encouraging Friends how our individual and collective belief informs our actions and our stances on issues. What I want to do here is to give people who are curious the most basic overview and observation about the responses
First, an observation about the responses (something I would encourage people to have further reflections about): it was not always clear whether people responded based on what they as individuals believe the truth to be, or what they believe it is based on what they know and observe corporately. For others, it also seemed that their responses were what they felt this truth should be, but is perhaps not what it is.
Second, about the responses themselves: they seem to fit into 3 main themes. The first (and the one that received almost half of the responses) is along the lines of "There is that of God in everyone." The second was similar, except for a "continuing revelation/availability" component. For example, the Light of God is available to all, but there must be some seeking for it to be there. The third area was the Quaker Testimonies (mostly, Peace, Integrity, Community. The few "Equalities" I categorized with "there is that of God in everyone"). The last category, at this point, is more of a miscellaneous, very Christ-centered. I'm going to ask Faith to spend some time with me on these.
Each of these areas can be good for reflection. One thing Byron and I talked about, however, is that the first two themes ("There is that of God in all" or is available to all through continuing revelation) I think call on us Friends to look at how we engage with others. In both these cases, if we hold them as unequivocal truths, shouldn't we commit to engaging with all people - including FUM? In the first theme, if God is in all, it is there as well, and we won't see it if we disengage. In the second theme, continuing revelation means staying with things and seeing what unfolds. Of course, revelation is different than strategizing and planning - it takes that leap of faith, trusting that core truth.
As for the theme of the Testimonies, these present a different level of discussion. For example, if our core truth is Peace, what does that mean? We live in a violent world, so just saying "peace" accomplishes what?
My hope is that this starts a vibrant exploration among Friends: What is your individual core truth? What is the Truth of Friends? Are they the same? How can they be the same when the answers are so different? Can we find a "common denominator"?
More to come...

Racism, White Supremacy and White Privilege

2010-07-20T12:17:00.000-07:00

Over the weekend, there was a bit of a media firestorm about comments out of the NAACP that there are elements of the Tea Party that are racist. Despite the protestations of Sarah Palin and the denial by VP Biden, it's clear that there are certainly elements of racism in the Tea Party. Denial of this is not good, but so is over-generalizing. But this has had me thinking about racial issues in our society, and how ill-equipped we are at having real conversations.

Coincidentally, two weeks prior, some friends and I were having dinner, and the conversation turned to race. I made the distinctions between racism, white supremacy and white privilege. One friend said that these are all racism, and the effort to distinguish them was more to placate myself. Maybe so, but as I pointed out to him (also a gay man), people that are for 90% of gay rights are not in the same category as people like Fred Phelps who think the glbt community should have no rights.

But I think these are good questions for conversation: what are the differences between these terms, and why does it matter? I would say that the differences of these have to do with variations on two scales: intent and consciousness. For conversation sake, I'll apply this to blacks and whites, but we could, with adaptation, apply it to gender and sexual orientation. Racism, to me, suggests intent to keep others down based on race. White Supremacy is a belief that white people are a superior race to black people, but that does not necessarily mean people should not have the same rights. Abraham Lincoln and many of the Republican abolitionists of his time were white supremacists, and were more driven by the ideals of freedom for all than out of concern for blacks. No doubt, Lincoln detested the institution of slavery, but he did not view the black race as equal. (Lincoln was truly remarkable and was very much a product of his time; this is not to knock him, but to try and look at him objectively, compared to the "liberals" of his time).

White privilege seems to be a bit trickier and elusive but, to me, is rampant in our society. It is trickier because there are many of us who believe that all are created equal and should have equal opportunities, but are perhaps not aware of the privileges our own skin color affords us. Nor are we willing to perhaps give up these privileges so that we can work towards the true equality we believe in.

Working at William Penn House continues to give me an opportunity to explore these issues - not with a vision to the past but a vision to the future. I work with and interact with many Friends organizations and meetings and there is rarely much in the way of racial diversity. Often these groups may lament the lack of diversity in their "body", but do little to go out and be a part of creating that diversity - not by having people "come here", but by going there, congregating at other places, moving to different neighborhoods, etc.

I think all of this is tricky, and certainly not easy. But as Friends, I do think that we would do well in times like this not to jump on the "Tea Party=Racists" bandwagon, but to instead reflect on our own white privilege and what we can do about that.

Transformational Experiences

2010-07-12T21:56:00.000-07:00

This year, at the annual Friends General Conference Gathering, held last week in Bowling Green, Ohio, I noticed a theme of personal transformation in the three evening plenaries. On Monday night, George Lakey addressed not avoiding conflict. During his talk, George shared several stories about how he and groups he has worked with have been transformed though taking a nonviolent approach to conflict, instead of acting violently. For instance, he once led a workshop where he conscientiously allowed a bitter debate to happen between two groups of young people coming from two different sides of an ongoing bloody conflict. This idea frightened his co-leaders, but they allowed the debate to happen and the debate revealed more than two sides to the conflict they had come from. This realization allowed each group to see that common ground was possible between the two groups. At dinner that night after the debate, the groups were intermixing and laughing, which didn't happen before the debate.

On Tuesday night, Phillip Gulley talked about universalism and Quakerism. During his talk, he spoke about a transformative experience he had where he realized, at age 24, that he believed in universalism. He called this a "peak experience". He defines universalism as everyone is invited to God's "party". Then on Thursday night, Amanda Kemp shared her wonderful play, "Show me the Franklins! Remembering the Ancestors, Slavery and Benjamin Franklin", which focus on having people recognize past history of slavery in the United States in order to help transform race relations in present day.

For me, amid listening to all of these plenaries, I started to reflect on the transformations I have experienced in my life, especially a transformation that led me to become a follower of Jesus in the last couple years.

For most of my life growing up, I believed in a higher power of some sort, but I couldn't put a name on this higher power. As I transformed to become a follower of Jesus in my early 20s, I was heavily influenced by the actions of several Christian friends who lived out their faith in their daily lives. I remember, during World Gathering of Young Friends in 2005, hearing Latin American Friends talk about the love of Christ that they had felt, which was the first time I heard about the love of Jesus. Growing up I heard much more about the wrath of God or, if I didn't believe in God or call myself a Christian, I would go to hell. Then I would see these same people, who had told me this, live lives full of lies and deceit, so I wondered often why I would want to identify with that kind of religion.

As I reflect on this experience, I realized I wasn't alone in my journey, even through it was a personal transformation. When I started exploring living a life following the teachings of Jesus, I had people willing to listen to my questions and reflection, even if they didn't think or feel similarly. These friends would pray with me, or offer books for me to read, or even just offer to sit with me. Looking back, my transformational experience resulted from inward reflection, being open to change, and soaking up several different experiences while practicing mindfulness, rather than any one specific profound experience. This is where my transformational experiences differ from what George and Phil talked about in their plenaries, because they talked more about particular, specific turning points. I can't remember any specific moment that I felt transformed immediately. For me, my transformations have usually been the culminations of a variety of experiences.

With my transformations so far, I have also realized that these transformations have come from inside me, not from outside influences. Nothing about me changed physically after any transformational experience nor did I become a new person overnight. I am the same person, but these experiences have caused me to view the world in different ways than before.

Currently I run Washington Quaker Workcamps, when I try as best as I can to include the ingredients for a transformative experience during each workcamp, like having different activities each day, hosting outside speakers to come talk about the topic we have, and leaving space for ample reflection each day. I do know fully that I cannot create, manufacture, or guarantee a transformative experience for the participants, because I know it will be a inner realization that will cause the experience to happen, rather than anything I can ever try to plan.

In thinking about transformational experiences, I find myself wrestling with these two questions:

How can I further open myself up so I can be transformed again by the Inward Light?

How can I assist others in opening up themselves to transformations in their own lives?

"We Believe that Peace is Preferable to War"

2010-07-11T18:00:00.000-07:00

These were some of the words listed on the Welcome sign at Pipe Creek Monthly Meeting in Union Bridge, MD. I will get back to these words later, but here’s what was going on:

I was with two Friends who are members of Gun Powder Meeting, and actively involved in Friends Schools as educators. They are also kindred spirits in our shared desires to challenge ourselves to connect to the core values of Quakerism and peace-making in a divided and contentious world. With these Friends and 5 others, we had just spent the prior evening sharing a picnic supper in a meadow surrounded by woods and hills. I had asked to get together with this couple as a part of my own clearness and discerning process about Quakerism in the world, and the potential role that William Penn House can play in both that larger world and in the Society of Friends.

The evening discussion was very enriching. Increasingly, as I venture in the world of Quakerism while deepening my own internal journey of what it means to identify with and be called to Quakerism, I have been asking people “what is the core, unshakable truth and value of Quakers?” The answer has been almost universally in the spirit of “there is that of God in all” (with secular/universalist/Christian variances). Much of our discussion from there revolved around, if this is our unshakable truth, then everything else must be held open with an element of doubt; that, when we adhere to an issue – from war to Republicans and conservatives – we have to challenge ourselves to not place this ideology above our core value. It is not easy, we all agreed. We shared some ideas about resources that can help us to do this work, and we shared personal experiences of when we do really put ourselves out there, letting go of our ideology and trust in that core belief that there is that of God/goodness in all, and we operate with love, the world really can seem wonderfully changed. “Continuing Revelation” was a term used to describe this. We also discussed how Friends are ideally not holders of Truth, but Seekers of Truth, and seeking is a journey of continuing revelation.

One of the topics we discussed was the role that Quaker process plays in both our faith and practice. We talked about how the practice at its best works well, as God moves in all of us. We also acknowledged the Quaker process can be misused to the point that it creates paralysis, such as when lengthy Meetings for Worship with a Concern for Business are tied up with wordsmithing minutes and epistles for hours without perhaps a healthy discussion of whether this effort will ultimately make a difference. I questioned whether, sometimes, we are more committed to seeing that we do our process right so that we sometimes are hindered from doing the right thing. Other side conversations included the role that service can play in helping us to go out and explore the world, recognizing that it is important that service be truly transformational not just for those who serve, but for those being served and the world, and that, for some, service and Workcamp experiences can help ground and deepen people in their faith. All in all, it was a very rich and rewarding time together.

Then, the next day, as I was graciously being given a ride to Shady Grove Metro (I had ridden my bike up on Friday, and the rain Saturday gave me an easy way to accept the ride offer, as I was whipped from the hilly humid ride), we drove through Union Bridge. My hosts had never been to Pipe Creek Meeting, and had been wanting to. Just when we thought we might be on the wrong road, there was the Meetinghouse and, after a tour of the wonderful cemetery, we saw the welcoming sign that included citations that Quakers do not have credes, but that we are seekers of Truth. But it was the statement “We believe that Peace is Better than War” that really struck us and has stuck with me. I find this so much more open and engaging than “War is not the Answer”. While I truly believe war is not the answer, I also know that this is truly my belief. By holding it as that, rather than as a definitive statement, I think there may be more openings for conversation. By also believing that peace is better than war, I suspect many people who may at times see war as an answer will also agree with our this statement, and from this common ground, who knows what might come. As many of us who gathered Friday evening can attest, if we hold true to our core faith, and trust in continuing revelation, wonderful things will come.

Friends' Gatherings: Exercises in High-Mindedness or Humility?

2010-06-30T07:26:00.000-07:00

“Originally the Lincolns were Quakers, but gradually they fell away from the beliefs and habits of those high-minded folk.” This sentence comes from “With Malice Toward None: A Life of Abraham Lincoln” by Stephen Oates, a book I started reading yesterday. As we enter the high season for big Quaker gatherings (Yearly Meetings, FGC), I sometimes wonder how sentiments such as this should be held up as challenges for us at these gatherings. Do gatherings nurture humility or high-mindedness? Do they support our ability to live in the world as one of many, with an ability to engage diverse ideas and theologies, celebrating each others truths? Or do they reinforce in us what we believe to be true in such a way that we are condescending to others?

At various things I have attended, I have often been struck by the “segregationist” tendencies that can arise. Interactions with “others” are minimal – whether it is among people sharing conference spaces, or venturing into nearby towns. I understand that these gatherings are for fellowship, and it is important to spend time among ourselves, but I wonder sometimes how much of this fellowship is about deepening the faith that grounds us, or how much is about nurturing a sense of righteousness that contradicts the core value of our faith. I have heard young Friends at gatherings talk in condescending tones about others in their schools not because of any acts but because they are “Christians” or “Republicans”. These sentiments are often received with agreement and therefore reinforced. Likewise, at a workshop I was running at one gathering last year, participants expressed that they never have an opportunity to interact with more conservative folks despite the fact that the Annual Sessions were held in a conservative town. It’s not that the opportunities are not there; it’s that at these gatherings, we have not nurtured the ability to see them. This plays out far beyond our gatherings. Throughout the year, I hear liberal Friends condescend “Christians”, “Evangelicals” and “Republicans” but perhaps not really having relationships. It’s a process that keeps us blinded to seeing their goodness.

Juxtapose this with this Chinese Proverb I saw yesterday: “The broad-minded see the truth in differences: the narrow-minded see only differences.” To be broad-minded does not mean being uncertain, but it does challenge us to see the limits of our certainty, and to be willing to look at ethical and moral dilemmas that confront us as we strive to live our values with integrity in community. As we move forward, can these gatherings influence be places that broaden our minds while deepening our faith? Can they be places where we spend more time looking at what our core unshakable values are, and where we practice living these among ourselves and in the world?

Love, Authority, and Effectiveness

2010-06-22T05:41:00.001-07:00

This past weekend, an announcement was made at the end of the Meeting for Worship I was attending. After a series of ministry messages about love, authority and effectiveness, an elderly woman rose to say that the next day, Monday, she and another woman were going do camp themselves outside of a bank in town and hand out flyers denouncing this bank’s continued investment in coal companies that do mountain-top removal. Why were they choosing this bank in particular? Because the bank had just recently completed construction of a new, green building in town. I find it a bit ironic that this bank was being targeted not because it doesn’t care about the environment, but because it does, but perhaps not enough. When I related this story to my sister, she said that this bank has also been a big backer of a lot of community programs including support of affordable housing.

My gnawing question has been: Is this an effective strategy for change? Because this bank has taken action and gotten some good publicity on environmental issues, should they be in line for a protest because they lack full integrity by continuing to profit from mountain-top mining? Do we leave other banks and companies who have more integrity – they don’t care about the environment at all? And what about our own integrity? Really, don’t we all benefit from the destructive but cheap mining of coal that helps keep energy costs down? And what about the printing up and handing out of flyers – the majority of which would end up in the garbage?

All of this creates a dilemma for me. I definitely think that we need to address issues such as mountain-top removal for coal. It’s a horribly destructive way to get energy. But I’m not sure that alienating a company that has made some environmental strides and has been a fairly responsible community partner is effective. This also has me wondering about the effectiveness of protests in general. Perhaps early in movements, when no one seems to be caring or taking action, these are effective ways of getting people to just pay attention. But as we get to the root causes and the challenges of community transformation, the work of change becomes more complex.

One of the ministry messages in Meeting that morning had been that Love is our ultimate authority, and our effectiveness increases not when we use love to manipulate people to what we want, but when we engage in people and situations so that we can be more loving. With this bank, I wonder how we can be more loving in expressing our gratitude for what they have done and concerns for what they continue to do. I know we will also have to look at our own complicitness if we want to truly be effective.

Quaker Universalist

2010-06-04T11:43:00.000-07:00

I am reticent to voice views on religion because the true believers seldom listen and if they do it is for the gotcha moments. But here goes. I think that the bible and other tomes of faith are superb marketing manuals. They sell their products primarily to the choir and make their arguments to the skeptics as if there is but one path and the skeptics already know that but just need to be reminded. And the warranty is eternal life. No proof, no documentation, no buy back. And if you missed the first boarding you can be born again and get a free pass.

And none of this has anything to do with how you live your life, how you treat your fellow humans and even less how well you steward your corner of creation. And then, if you don’t subscribe to the sales pitch, your warranty is voided even if you are Ghandi, Buddha or Moses. So individuals who live exemplary lives, caring for others, for the earth are excluded not because they have not met all of the requirements but because they have not met the litmus test based on interpretations of a book that was written decades or centuries after the death of the prophet.

We tend to overlook the history of Christianity. The state religion of Rome, of the Spanish, the British, the Portuguese, the Dutch and the Flemish and their roles in conquering Indian and African peoples. In the US there is the legacy of slavery, segregation, genocide and now homophobia. The history of the bible justifying hatred continues and this from a church founded in the name of a man of great love, caring, concern and selflessness.

How have these sins of the past affected people who were colonized by these Christian nations? And has the church or the churches owned up to this horrid legacy and made amends?

When I hear or see evidence that current Christians are serious about righting their wrongs, then I will be interested in a dialogue. With this legacy, it is understandable why the true believers talk about Their faith but are closed to the messages of others.

The Religious Society of Friends has been enriched by other faiths and by the moral leadership of non-Christian leaders such as the Dalai Lama. How long has it been since there was a Christian of his stature? To restrict our faith to one path is counter intuitive and deepens the divides that we already share.

I am not a Christian but I am a Quaker.

"You have faith; I have deeds." Show me your faith without deeds, and I will show you my faith by what I do.” Book of James

If I wanted to live by 1600s standards, I would be Amish

2010-05-23T10:04:00.000-07:00

Recently I have read several contemporary Friends' writings that tries to align themselves with early Friends. I also have witnessed numerous occasions during discussions early Friends being brought up and used against others to bolster claims of un-Quakerly acts and thoughts. Are we listening to God or to our egos when we enlist early Friends to support our claims? These holier-than-thou statements help to reinforce deep divisions within Quakerism and drive people away.

For a long while, I have been frustrated with this problem of Holier-than-thou stances made by some Friends, but I have not been able to articulate my concern. As I have thought about this more, I realized that I had this same frustration for a long time with Christianity in general. I believe that the roots of Quakerism are fundamental to our faith, but Quakerism should not be fundamental towards the roots, because we are a faith of continuing revelations, which is a similar view I currently hold of Christianity. This is why we as Friends still gather each week in our communities to hear the continuing revelations from God. If we believe that early Friends really figured it all out, why should we still gather for waiting worship? Maybe we should then just study early Friends' writings for an hour, instead of having meeting for worship.

Personally I don't want to be an early Friend. I am a 21st Century Friend. I do indulge responsibly in the tavern culture, I like to date non-Quaker women, I enjoy listening to sermons at other churches on Sunday and several other things that early Friends frown upon.

Even with that statement, I do recognize the roots of Quakerism came from these valiant Friends, who under threats of jail and death, continue to speak out their convictions. They carried forth a powerful, revolutionary messages of peace, of continuing revelations, and of being able to have a personal relationship with the Lord without the need for an intermediary, all of which are still very relevant in today's world. They successfully sought to have equality in spoken language. I am grateful that I can trace my beliefs back to these roots, but my beliefs are updated to current day. I do not have to reconcile if I am willing to be hung in Boston Commons for what I believe, like Friends who first came to the New World, but I do consider how to maintain integrity while I am on the internet.

Quakerism today is very diverse and looks different than it did in 1660 or even 1850, just like the whole world has changed in the last 350 years. Quakerism has changed as the world has changed. As I look at the branches of Quakerism and reflect on my vast experiences with the different branches, I am amazed at how diverse our faith is and how thankful I have been to be able to worship with fellow Friends from all of the branches. Each branch have retained the essence of the roots, but each branch chooses different ways to live out the Quaker faith. We may disagree, but lets not forget that we are all related in this continued discernment.

These debates about who is truer to Early Friends turn people off to Quakerism and they are not relevant. For me, I am more interested in questions, like: What is God calling us to do today in this time? Our religion does have standards for accountability within the community by using Faith and Practice and the Bible as guides, so we do not need to hold ourselves accountable to people who died 300 years ago. For myself, I am attracted to monthly meetings and churches that are alive with the Holy Spirit, not ones trying to live according by 1600s standards. If I was, I would be Amish.

-Greg Woods

Musings on Radical Hospitality

2010-05-17T14:49:00.000-07:00

Last fall at William Penn House, we were called to respond to why we were hosting Navy Midshipman for an evening conversation and allowing them to call what they do “service”. Among the sentiments that challenged us included: 1) being in the military is less about “service” and more about “murder”, and 2) that these young men and their peers were nothing more than pawns in the military industrial complex. During the evening, while people were civil (for the most part), what became clear was this: these young men were articulate and thoughtful. They could talk about their vision for the world and how they see what they do as serving that vision. They could articulate some of the ethical and moral dilemmas of serving. They talked about how the military community has, over the last decade, recognized that humanitarian work is vital to preventing unnecessary violence and casualties, citing the examples of the shift in strategy in Iraq and the creation of floating Navy hospitals that respond to such things as earthquakes and tsunamis.

What also happened that night was this: while these young men were calm and easily answered any and all questions, the questions from the people in the room were not up to the task. There were certainly some questions about specific acts of war and what these young men do when they don’t agree with the orders that come to them, but there was a lack of articulate questions grounded in the philosophy and practice of pacifism. There were passions and emotions, and there was a desire to ask good questions, but the ability to clearly state these questions was not there. What I saw was that the reactivity drowned out the peaceful messages that we seek to bring forth. So what can we do?

This brings me to Radical Hospitality. As we at William Penn House have adapted it and strive to practice (notice "strive"), it means “welcoming everyone as if he/she were Christ”, or in Quaker-speak, “seeing that of God in all”, or for the more secular among us, recognizing the goodness in people. To live this way takes a leap of faith – a leap that can take us right out of our comfort zone about what we have been taught to believe about good and bad in the world. But it does not at all mean being soft or wishy-washy. In fact it is quite the opposite: To me it means that if I really believe there is that of God in all, I want to see it in others and while I share mine with them. In order to do this, I have to do what I can to create a safe and respectful place. My experience is that this actually works in making the world a better place. One of the basic tenets is this, I’ve learned: we have to be fully willing to be wrong. It’s hard in our polarized work, but take gay rights, for example: if you ask people how they feel about laws supporting gay marriage, you’ll often get a “yes” or a “no”. But if you can hold a real conversation beyond the legislation, you often find a much more enriching conversation about the rights and responsibilities of legal couples. As a bonus, I’ve often found, people become more gay-affirming. They may not be where I am on the spectrum, but the gap between us has decreased when we see that, really, we want much of the same thing in the world. Just yesterday, in an almost "comedy of errors" way, when I was stopped by CIA security in Langley Hill VA, the ability to consciously practice this rather than get fearful or angry led to a positive experience where I saw a good person doing his job and, hopefully, a CIA policeman has another example of Quakers being good people, not just reactionary "peaceniks".

What are the keys to living this kind of spiritual and disciplined life? First, I readily acknowledge that I more often fail than succeed in accomplishing this, but I am doing better. I recently read a book called “In Praise of Doubt: How to hold convictions without being a fanatic”. It’s a great read, and really reassured me that there is a great need in our multicultural, multi-religious society for people to commit to the spiritual discipline of bridge-building for peace-making. It’s a calling that I think easily fits with Friends testimony when we can really push ourselves to put ego and self to the side, and consider that we are part of a much bigger societal fabric. It is a life practice that calls for curiosity (“seeking”), and realizing that there really is no “other”, there is just “us” in this world. Even for the military, it is not the alternative to peace. It’s there for those times when pacifism is just not up to the trick. When we can share in this, it’s a wonderful feeling.

Now the hard part for Friends: to learn to really do this often means that we be experts in listening – “bearing silent witness”. Just like running a marathon, however, we actually have to practice, not just think about it. So how well-trained are we at the art of listening? What can we do? Just as “there is no way to peace; peace is the way”, I would say “there is no way to listening; listening is the way.” Let’s get out there and practice it. Let’s step up our commitment to congregate with people of other faiths – and do the real hard work, congregate with those who not only have a different faith tradition but more importantly with those of the same faith but different interpretations and who may disagree with us on some of the issues of our times. When we feel the need to respond, let’s try and sit in appreciative silence. If we really believe in our faith, let’s put it into practice.

Demands and Petitions: Is this all we have?

2010-05-06T13:03:00.000-07:00

The recent oil spill in the Gulf is awful. The impact of this environmental catastrophe is still to be told, but no doubt it is going to have a lasting effect on all of us. For this, my heart aches. I hate to see the wildlife that suffers so much because of our complacency, greed, and desires for comforts. I can't help but think during these times that we really seem to give little thought for the future generations, despite all the signs and opportunities to learn.

At the same time, I am pretty disgusted with the internet campaigns that are spreading from environmental and environmentally-minded groups right now. Take 350.org. Their mission is to inspire the world to rise to the challenge of the climate crisis—to create a new sense of urgency and of possibility for our planet. So what is their message regarding this oil spill? It's "a moment when we can help the US and its leaders understand the depth of their addiction to fossil fuel, and the real need to get off dirty energy now." What are their action steps? Sign a petition demanding clean energy now and no more drilling, join a facebook group, donate money, and then click through about how to build momentum in your community. Now look at 1Sky.org. They want you to print up a sign that says "No More Drilling/Clean Energy Now" - with the 1Sky logo on it; take it to the local BP station and protest them, demanding that BP be held responsible, take a picture of yourself, and send the picture to 1Sky.

Is this the best we can do? When 350.org talks about "their" addiction to fossil fuels, don't they really mean "our" addiction? When it comes to demands for energy, how about raising a stink among ourselves that we consume less? That we commit to driving less, and significantly changing our daily habits? That we stop using so many plastic bottles? (To see the impact of plastic water bottles, see http://www.williampennhouse.org/sites/default/files/Water%20and%20Bottles.pdf). If all we can do is make demands and shame people for "their" addictions, it's a bit hypocritical, I think. All that is going on is really a reflection of all of us, and until we decide to stop being victims to it and take proactive action in our daily lives, I suspect very little will change.

What Should I Eat? Community and the Individual

2010-04-23T09:12:00.000-07:00

As Quakers, we talk a lot about community, one part of the handy SPICE testimony acronym. And in a world that often isolates and estranges us one from another, the idea of a real community gives us all sorts of warm fuzzies. As part of a true community we receive support, nurture and love. We find meaning in providing that same care to others and in identifying as a member of something bigger than ourselves. But as just one of many members in a community, these connections with others sometimes rub against, or even clash with, the individual. The group as a whole may have different needs or expectations than I, as an individual, do. Some other individuals in the community may feel strongly convicted about something in a way I do not. Greater society tells us when this happens that it is always the rights of the individual that override the constraints of the group. I, the individual, am the ultimate authority on all things pertaining to me.

But, is this the way that we, as Christians and Quakers, are called to live? Does this reflect the kingdom of God? Can I be part of a community and do whatever I want? To me, the answer seems clearly no. Jesus calls us to love one another, be in community with one another, and be members of a body. And sometimes this will mean that I will give up some of my individual agenda in order to be caring for others in the community.

As a newlywed committed to living her life jointly with another individual, this situation is often before me. In a somewhat mundane example, I like boxed macaroni and cheese, especially with tuna in it. My husband, Micah, is not a fan. And so, I choose to not eat boxed mac and cheese when we have dinner together, instead eating something we both will enjoy. Of course, I could say “I want macaroni and cheese and that’s what we’re having. So there.” I would then get what I want to eat, but I also would be selfish and choosing my own needs over those of a person I love. The beautiful thing about this situation is that I know that Micah would eat boxed mac and cheese for dinner because he knows I like it. He too would surrender his own agenda so that I could enjoy my cheesy noodles.

This surrender of our own demands so that others might be welcome and a full part of the community is part of being a family of faith. A youth pastor I knew growing up once told a story of a kid he had in his youth group who had been previously involved in some really dark satanic stuff. One day, the guy came over to the pastor’s house and his kids were watching a movie. The movie deeply disturbed the teenager as it reminded him of the satanic things he had been involved with and struggled to leave behind. The pastor turned the movie off and from then on when the guy came over the family made certain that movie and any related toys and games were put away. They themselves did not feel convicted about stopping watching and enjoying the movie, but they choose to not put a stumbling block in front of a brother.

For a third example of this balance between individual freedom and community, there are those among my friends who choose not to drink out of religious conviction. I personally do not feel convicted in this way. But when I am with these friends, I do not drink and a certainly do not suggest that we go out to a bar during our time together. It is the kind and understanding thing to do. I choose to abstain from behavior I would usually take part in so that I can be in fellowship with them.

That in one community there would be people who have different convictions on how we live out our life is nothing new. Paul felt the need to write in Romans advice on how to proceed when we differ on such things.

Accept other believers who are weak in faith, and don’t argue with them about what they think is right or wrong. For instance, one person believes it’s all right to eat anything. But another believer with a sensitive conscience will eat only vegetables. Those who feel free to eat anything must not look down on those who don’t. And those who don’t eat certain foods must not condemn those who do, for God has accepted them. Who are you to condemn someone else’s servants? Their own master will judge whether they stand or fall. And with the Lord’s help, they will stand and receive his approval. (Romans 14:1-4)

Paul goes on saying:

Don’t tear apart the work of God over what you eat. Remember, all foods are acceptable, but it is wrong to eat something if it makes another person stumble. It is better not to eat meat or drink wine or do anything else if it might cause another believer to stumble. You may believe there’s nothing wrong with what you are doing, but keep it between yourself and God. (Romans 14: 20-22)

And what is more loving for a community than that? I show I care for other’s by putting their needs above my own. By loving their spiritual health more than I love my freedom to do whatever I want. And as a reward for such a sacrifice, I also have my spirit cared for and am in communion with my brothers and sisters.

-Faith Kelley

Sacred Space

2010-04-12T11:20:00.000-07:00

Yesterday afternoon a guest asked me, in tentative English, if there is a church here at the William Penn House. I told her yes, we have worship here every morning from 7:30 to 8. She then asked me where it was and if it was open now. I was confused for a moment and then realized that she when she asked about a “church” she was wondering about a physical space. I explained that we met for worship in the very unassuming conference room that she had been store her luggage in all day. She too was confused for a moment, but then realized what I was trying to tell her.

In this misunderstanding I was, once again, reminded of the very real temptation to view a certain space as being more sacred, more full of God’s presence, than other spaces. But of course, we’re all good Quakers here and never make that mistake. We point to it with the language we use, not calling our buildings “churches” but rather “meeting houses,” not wanting to blur the line between the community that is body of Christ and some drywall and bricks. We often explain to non-Quakers that we think that all of life is sacred. No one day of the week, no one space, no one physical object is more blessed then the rest. God created everything and continues to be among us and in us, making everything hallowed. The physical space is irrelevant. Only our openness to the Spirit’s moving in us in a particular moment matters.

When in town, I often attend Sunday morning worship at Takoma Park Preparative Meeting, which holds worship in a dance studio. We all have to take our shoes off so as not to scuff or dirty the floor and we sit in medal folding chairs. There’s only a small window high on the wall and the rest of the lighting is florescent bulbs. This is nothing about the space the cries, “Communion with the Creator of the Universe going on here!” But God is there making the space sacred, when we are attentive enough to notice and respond.

But do I really live my life this way? Certainly I enter the National Cathedral here in Washington with more reverence and awe than, say, I enter my bathroom, for example. The cathedral is large and grand. It has an altar, stain glass and stone. My bathroom is small and normal. It has an old tub, linoleum and a leaky skylight. (Part of difference in attitude might also have to do with how often one space gets cleaned versus the other too.) The beauty of the National Cathedral makes me feel like I am closer to God there than my bathroom; even though I claim to know God that exists and can make himself known in both spaces equally.

If I was to live my life really in the truth that God has made all and is present always, what would it look like? Would I be more centered and aware? Would I notice God’s working in the suburban sprawl as much as in a forest? Would I be closer to living my life as one continuous act of worship? I am not making an argument that everything is beautiful- certainly a Wendy’s parking lot is less beautiful then Sequoia National Forest. But God is there in both those spaces. Miracles and epiphanies can happen in both those places. God calls us to be part of his work in the world in both places. The parking lot and the forest, the cathedral and the conference room are all part of the sacred space that makes up our lives.

-Faith Kelley

2010-04-02T15:36:00.000-07:00

Middle school students participating in an after school music/theater program in DC
Women from Kenya, Tanzania, Cameroon and Uganda working in HIV/AIDS here in the states while supporting children in their home countries
A DC resident artist from Cameroon
8 exchange students from China
8 students from a PA private school
3 high school students from Hiroshima
1 Holocaust survivor

This is just a sampling of the range of people I have had the honor of crossing paths with, working with and sharing meals with over the past 6 weeks.

One of the things I am really learning to appreciate about working at William Penn House is the amazing diversity of people that we get to meet, and how, in meeting all these people, we see not how different we are, but how similar we are.

What is so incredibly moving to me is that people really do want to be a part of making the world a better place despite, in some cases, incredible adversity. The adversity of each person also brings a different level of gift to the world. The students from Hiroshima and the Holocaust survivor are/were visiting DC as part of telling stories of reconciliation and healing. The artist and the music/theater students are using the opportunities of the creative arts to tell stories and to bring their voices to the world - stories not of gloom and doom, but of hope and love.

In our most recent newsletter, Faith Kelley wrote that what we do at William Penn House is provide a space for conversation and a place of welcomeness, and then get out of the way so that new things can happen. I am really learning to appreciate this as a means of making the world a more peaceful and hopeful place. It means making a conscious effort and commitment to being open to the possibilities - not an easy task and not always achievable, but as the past few months have shown me, well worth the effort.

In Praise of Doubt

2010-03-20T08:00:00.000-07:00

I just finished a book called "In Praise of Doubt: How to Have Convictions Without Becoming a Fanatic" by Peter Berger and Anton Zijderveld. I had first heard of this book when I heard Berger on the Public Radio program "Speaking of Faith" in the fall, and then I hear him speak at the National Cathedral's Sunday forum a few weeks ago.

I knew from the very first minute that this book might very much "speak my mind" and know that I've finished it, I know this is so. I can also say that I suspect there is much in these pages that could benefit the Religious Society of Friends.

Increasingly, I am seeing myself as a 'bridge-builder'. Going back to my "coming out" days, when the conservative/military side of my family stunned me by being the only part of the family to unconditionally accept me, and continuing through my days of working with evangelical Christians on HIV and subsequently gay issues, and now in DC building bridges across the economic and geographic parts of this city, I see that this is something that, while not always easy or successful, comes natural. What I am clear about, however, is that I am not wishy-washy on issues. I am convinced that we need to have a cleaner environment, a less-consumer/greed driven society, and more equal footing from which all people start this journey of life. I also know that most people have the same basic values I have, but they may have different ideas of how to get there, where authority lies, who should call the shots, etc.

I am also convinced of this: no matter what a person believes, his/her intentions are good, he/she is intelligent, and love is some part of the equation. To be sure, there are fanatics, as Berger and Zijderveld write. "Fanatics" are those extremists who exist at the ends of any spectrum, and are convinced that their world view and their way is the only right way and, often, those who don't see it their way are clueless, amoral, unChristian, unAmerican, or some other demonized being. I try to not let that be me. I have run into my fair share of fanatics - both left and right - and what I find is that there is little room for dialogue, so really there is not much to be said, even though they, too, are often motivated by love (usually with a mix of fear and power). It is between the margins that I am convinced that the real possibility for transformation exists, for creating a more peaceful and just world.

In our modern society, it seems that we could use more civility as we deal with the problems that face us. No matter what the issue, leaders of the causes of these issues tend to push a "with us/against us" paradigm. For Quakers, this creates a dilemma: are we going to choose sides on issues, or are we going to try and bring greater civility (peace) to the discussion by committing to see the "others" perspective? To what extent do we achieve our aims by making the other "wrong", vs. being open to possibly being wrong ourselves? In a pluralist society, these are inherent challenges, and I truly believe that it is the Peace congregations and pacifists who could really take up this mantel of finding common ground. It is going to take a disciplined life, but it is something we can do. "In Praise of Doubt", similar to another book called "Blind Spots: Why Smart People Do Dumb Things", are great resources for grounding us in this without sacrificing what we believe.

As a tangent: "In Praise of Doubt" also raised a question of how we reactively respond to and adopt understanding of things without thinking more deeply. An example of this was in the discussion of liberalism, conservatism and socialism as the 3 points of the "democratic" triangle. Taken to extremes, liberalism goes to absolutist understanding of the market (libertarian), socialism goes toward a totalitarian control of institutions, and conservatism is a reactionary project of going back to some traditional sense of society. As moderating forces (basically bringing the best of each together), conservatism glorifies civil society (in modern day this means a democratic state and market economy), whereas liberalism and socialism understand the limits of both state (socialism) and market (liberalism). This understanding of liberalism is not one I had heard, but does raise the question: what do we really mean when we use the terms "liberal" and "conservative" to either define ourselves or the other?

The De-Institutionalization of HIV/AIDS

2010-03-05T08:31:00.000-08:00

Part 1

1996 was a critical year. I had dealt with my own personal crisis of finding out in 1992 I had fairly advanced HIV (my t-cells were around 200 at initial diagnosis). I had come to grips that the "fact" that I would most likely not see my 40th birthday in 2001. I had finally gotten a full-time job working in HIV/AIDS services after spending a few years volunteering in various capacities while biding my time in more arduous social service jobs. I was going to be doing counseling at a holistic health clinic for people with HIV/AIDS. I had also been a client at this clinic. The pay was not great, but I didn’t care. I was doing something fulfilling – providing support for people who were on a fast-track to death, as I was. As a group (as people living with HIV, and as organizations committed to supporting people with HIV), we were resigned to a fate where HIV=death. Just two years before, the news about HIV-treatment was not good. Treatments were minimally effective and highly toxic. Weekly gay newspapers were full of obituaries of young men. Increasingly at this clinic, the demographic of clients also included people of color, especially black women. It was a real community of love for those of us who had only that to hold onto.

Then, the world changed. Protease Inhibitors were introduced, and I remember one of my first thoughts was “Uh, Oh”. If these new medications were as good as promised, the landscape had just dramatically shifted. I remember running support groups, and seeing people almost magically becoming healthy – in one case literally rising from his wheelchair. Andrew Sullivan, senior editor for The New Republic at that time, wrote a cover story for the New York Times Magazine called “When Plagues End”. He observed how skeptics were challenged to hold on to their skepticism in the face of such news, and how the big shift was that AIDS was no longer a death sentence, but a chronic condition (the entire article can be seen on-line at http://www.nytimes.com/1996/11/10/magazine/when-plagues-end.html?pagewanted=1). Sullivan took a beating over time from the skeptics. He was proved wrong, as AIDS remained a permanent fixture in the world. But was he really wrong? I think he was right, but he underestimated the power of the skeptics – many of whom had a career investment in him being wrong.

"Every great cause begins as a movement, becomes a business, and eventually degenerates into a racket” - Pat Buchanan, May 2008

So here we are, 2010. HIV is still vibrantly with us. We stand on the verge of another turning point. This time, the turning point is funds are drying up for treatment, and waiting lists are starting to emerge and grow. Despite advancements in treatment and testing technology, and significant advancements in communications (cell-phones, internet, texting, social networking), we continue to lose. But, despite the pleas that are heard for more money, none of this is a crisis. It is the course we have been on and as a society – a global society – we have no one to blame for this but ourselves. To be sure, “AIDS, Inc” has done little to encourage us to truly be different, or to seriously think about what should be done. From the beginning of the pandemic to the present day, we have not been encouraged to be reflective, only reactive and to obey the orders of the Institutions of AIDS. These include:
• “Spend it or lose it” policies that have resulted in keeping case loads full (this is not simply a problem is AIDS services, but of our whole sick-care approach). Since 2000, the real message should have been “Spend it and lose it, so spend wisely”.
• AIDS = poverty, women and children in Africa. This is a favorite among the evangelical world, as many can deny that HIV is primarily a sexually-transmitted disease. Thanks, Bono, for that one.
• Advocacy groups hold workshops (often made up of a mix of energized college students, people living with HIV), and immerse them in information about what to say and what to do. I even heard at one such training that people receiving HIV-services were actually told not to mention any complaints he/she might have about services. The message is never about systemic change, just money.
• Countless people talk about HIV/AIDS in countless arenas without covering and in many cases even knowing the basic (such as the four body fluids that can spread HIV).
• The Gay/HIV organizations do not speak at all to the fact that anal sex is the easiest means of sexually transmitting HIV. This is not a judgment, just a fact.
• More money, but maintain the cultural status quo.
• When it comes to HIV-testing, you have nothing to fear but you really NEED Counseling. The kicker is that the training to be a counselor is only three days, certainly not enough time if giving one an HIV+ diagnosis is so devastating.

On the surface, these all may make sense. But upon reflection, they are not going to get the job done or, more accurately, based on where we are now, they certainly haven’t gotten the job done. Given that state and national governments throughout the world are simply running out of funds (in Illinois, for example, the entire annual state budget is going to be spent by the end of the 6th month), we are once again at a turning point.

Crisis – a crucial or decisive point or situation; a turning point; a stage in a sequence of events at which the trend of all future events, esp. for better or for worse, is determined.

This time, the turning point is not the result of a new condition such as when HIV first emerged. The word “crisis” will be thrown about as if this was unforeseen, but this turning point has been long-coming, ever since “AIDS, Inc.” (this encompasses not just organizations, but the collective groupthink that pervades much of our global community) did not make the adjustments necessary after the second HIV/AIDS crisis – the introduction of protease inhibitors as effective treatment. That was a major turning point that, partnered with technology that allows for all people to self-administer an HIV-test (but remains unavailable to the general public) should have greatly altered our course. Unfortunately, despite so many accolades to people like Bush, Bono, Gates, Clinton, and the countless local, regional and global people and organizations who have played along, we have remained on the same course of chasing the virus – always remaining a few years behind.

What we need to do now is to take time to reflect while also taking action. In a very uncomfortable way, the current financial crisis may make this work easier. In his most recent book In Praise of Doubt, sociologist Peter Berger and philosopher Anton Zijderveld write that “a society’s taken-for-granted programs of action are called ‘institutions’…Individuals follow the institutional programs automatically, without having to stop and reflect” (pg. 15). Many of these institutions – public and private – are drastically reducing and eliminating programs, with more to come. But rather than fall into chaos, I would like to propose that through reflection – not lengthy reflection, but a few minutes of reflection – we can see that we have many choices at our finger tips and that, through these choices, we may actually be able to do some things more effectively. Our collective pluralist voices, rather than the singular voice of institutions, might be our saving grace.

Over the next few weeks, I will be writing some reflective pieces on what the institutional approaches have done and trained us to believe, and how we can help de-institutionalize some of the tasks and explore and create new ways of moving forward. There are no quick fixes, or easy answers. But we can do much to avoid the chaos as we come together.

Enough with Urgent Calls for the Status Quo

2010-02-17T12:01:00.000-08:00

Over the past week, AIDS organizations and workers around the world have been experiencing wake-up calls. Out of Uganda was the article in The Wall Street Journal that the rate of people getting tested is slowing down because treatment programs are less available and, without that incentive, what’s the point of getting tested? In Washington DC, GOP House members are calling for a more thorough vetting of federal dollars spent on AIDS programs in the District in light of the report in the Washington Post last fall about waste and corruption. No doubt, these House members are looking to score political points, and shame on Democrats for not also calling for greater program accountability thus allowing this to degrade into another partisan issue. The predictable reaction among AIDS advocates in DC has been silence or added layers of blame and denial, stating that the corruption occurred under the Bush Administration (forgetting the fact that the Bush Administration did not commit the corrupt acts, at least in this case). Then, this morning I received an e-mail from the AIDS Foundation of Chicago about the Illinois fiscal crisis. The writer of the e-mail stated that this is “the most serious state fiscal crisis (he has) seen in … 12 years”. You would think that all of these, clearly illustrating that the challenges are not restricted to any one area, would lead to urgent calls for community action. They are all indications that we are on a slippery slope to losing many of the gains that had been made in the fight against AIDS, and perhaps it is time to shake everything up so we can get back on a positive trajectory. But no. Instead, the calls to action are to sign petitions and lobby to get more dollars back into the same system.

Personally, I cannot get excited about any of this. Waste and corruption has been rampant in AIDS work for well-over a decade pretty much throughout the world as organizations have stubbornly refused to commit to getting ahead of the HIV-curve. For almost a decade now, I have been convinced that a vital piece to stopping the spread of HIV is that everyone – E-V-E-R-Y-O-N-E – knows his/her status through testing. The constant message I have said is that testing includes education and compassion, and that this is a community responsibility, not a government-funded program. Routinely, people have responded by twisting and contorting almost everything in order to keep HIV-testing and education the purview of “AIDS Inc.”, with comments like people can’t be trusted to do this right, or people will find out they are positive and then kill themselves. Data does not support this, but the very same people that demand factual, proven-effective education create myths about testing with no facts to back them up and no desire to test the theories.

I have seen the waste first-hand. I have not seen, perhaps, the blatant corruption of stealing and pilfering as has been reported in places such as Washington, DC, but I was not surprised by it, either. I have seen the corruption of greed and the waste of unnecessary expenditures, “needs assessments” and other kinds of delay-tactics that take time and money but by the time they lead to action, we are even further behind the curve. Some examples:
• Executive Directors blithely saying they only come to “partnership” meetings because they get money from the partnership and not being challenged to really collaborate.
• I have been recruited to be a participant in HIV-education presentations in order to meet a monthly funding quota, not because I needed the education.
• In the mid-1990’s, I was kept as an active caseload while not receiving any services, effectively being a statistic for funding.
• When I ran an AIDS Housing organization, the greatest pressure was to keep the apartments full regardless of whether the prospective resident was appropriate for that kind of housing. I resisted often. During this same time, many residents received travel vouchers to get cab rides for MD appointments at over $100 roundtrip. Public transportation could do it for under $15. Clients were given this independent of any physical-needs consideration; it was simply because the funds were available.
• One year in Kenya, I was told by a British worker that the US dollars are plentiful, but not very effective if spending must be done by the guidelines (Abstinence-only education), as they do not meet the community’s reality.
• I co-chaired a housing needs assessment in Chicago from 2000 to 2002. Despite my concerns about the waste of time and money put into the process (including bringing in out-of-state consultants), the project went on. The report provided no new information. The ultimate was this: the overwhelming majority of people with HIV/AIDS did not want AIDS-segregated housing. This was ignored because an AIDS housing organization had already made plans to build one. The ground had not been broken yet, but they proceeded anyway.
• As funding started to decrease, already-funded programs were forced to collaborate more. Prospective applications for grants are now often restricted to previously-funded programs, thereby decreasing the opportunities for truly innovative new ideas to emerge.
• Most recently, I have been participating on a committee to develop community-wide test and treat programs (under the purview of NIH and CDC). It is an expensive proposition that does not alter the current system at all, relying on even more funds in the future to be successful.

Throughout much of the 1990’s and into the new century, the mantra was “spend it or lose it”. I remember thinking to myself that the day will come when it will be “spend it AND lose it”. I always felt strongly that it is better to spend wisely and return funds if necessary rather than foster dependency on an impermanent system. It seems like that day has finally come. Sadly, what seems inevitable is that people all over the world – including in Illinois – with HIV are going to increasingly not be able to access funded treatment programs, HIV-prevention programs are going to be reaching less people, and HIV-testing will be increasingly limited to the highest-risk groups, always the most difficult to cherry-pick out of the fabric of society.

Instead of any innovative calls for community action, we are left with the same players putting out calls for people to advocate for the government to come up with more funds for these very same systems that, when the money was flowing, had no qualms about spending wildly and often unnecessarily. From city halls, to state capitals, to Washington, DC, people are converging (at no cheap cost) to learn how to lobby for dollars for the status-quo system both here in the US and in Africa, and they will be lobbying to systems that are flat broke and not going to be sympathetic.

If our AIDS leaders can come up with nothing better than “we need more dollars”, I say “enough”. It's been over two decades since AIDS, Inc. has come up with anything new or innovative, despite the fact that technological development now offers effective treatments, and we have the capacity to self-administer HIV-screening with results in 5 minutes. It’s been 8 years since I met with Senator Durbin and asked him to help us lead a campaign to have every resident in Illinois know his/her status. His response: “We can’t afford to do that”. I said at the time, "we can't afford not to do it", and every day, the cost goes up. Since then, I’ve kept to the same message – a message that the CDC now says is vital to stopping the spread of HIV. I know people get tired of hearing it but, just as over the past week many of us got tired of shoveling snow, the task remains, and won’t go away simply because we are tired of it or hearing about it. It will only go away when we take action. It is a simple fact – when we all know our status, our collective education as a society will rise dramatically, and as individuals armed with this education, we can be effective agents for taking this forward. The technology exists that we could do this on the cheap. We just need to change the policies around disbursement of self-administered HIV-screening and stop scaring people with the belief that they need "AIDS, Inc." to survive, and we can start moving.

So, until these urgent calls for action and demands for more funds start to include a strong message for community action to get everyone to know his or her status, and include as a part of their gatherings opportunities for people to learn how to administer and talk to people about these tests, I’m out. Enough chasing the virus. Too much money has been wasted, and too much time has passed. It’s time for the current system to collapse, and let something else emerge.

Recent Lessons in Humility

2010-02-08T12:46:00.000-08:00

“The life that intends to be wholly obedient, wholly submissive, wholly listening, is astonishing in its completeness. Its joys are ravishing, its peace profound, its humility the deepest, its power world-shaking, its love enveloping, its simplicity that of a trusting child.” - Thomas Kelley

“What does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?” - Micah 6:8

During the past week, I have thought a lot about humility and what it means, because in the last week, several friends have canceled prearranged plans due to either snow or personal emergencies. None of this has bothered me. Life happens, yeah some of the plan changes threw off my schedule a little, but all of the cancellations actually gave me more time to breathe, so they were gifts in disguise.

One friend has repeatedly apologized for her not showing up at an event that we planned together. She had let me know before the event, so I knew about it as soon as she knew she couldn't make it. I have been in her shoes several times feeling like I have let people down when stuff happen to me. But life happens no matter if my calendar had something else planned.

Then this past weekend, a major snowstorm hit DC hard. It snowed straight for more than 24 hours and dumped more than two feet of snow. I was supposed to attend a retreat this weekend, but it was canceled the day before due to the weather forecast. One of the organizers was upset at this; a feeling which I totally understand. Similar things have happen to me and I have felt that same feeling of being upset that I just spent so much time planning something that will never happen and I have felt defeated like I had spent all that time for nothing.

Now I see all of these times during the past week and beyond as ways to keep myself humble, because it just reminds me that no matter how much I plan or try to control my life, something bigger than me is always in control. I believe that God has plans for me and God will reveal them to me little by little. Living on God's time is not easy and being humble is not always simple. It requires putting aside my ego and fully submitting to a greater power. When I have, amazing things have happen, like finding my dream job. Thomas Kelly's quote resonates with my few experiences when I obeyed and submitted. I have felt more alive during these times, because I had been fully present during these times.

Part of the weekend, I was unexpectedly snowed in at a friend's house a couple miles away. I had wanted to weather the storm in my house where I had stocked up on food, but the snow came down faster than I had thought and I was stuck. That night, as I was snowed in, I watched the Bill Maher's documentary, Religulous that my friends had from Netflix. For much of the film, he mocks organized religion. Several times he asks hard questions and the interviewee cannot answer, such as Couldn't the writers of The Bible made everything up? He uses this as proof that organized religion is a clutch for the week-minded.

As I watched the film, I felt like I had no answers to many of the questions he asked. I started to think, maybe I am weak in my faith and Bill has a good point. But I realized faith isn't about answering questions, but about believing in something far greater than myself. I have known God experientially, not through answering questions.

Part of humility for me is knowing that I do not always have quick and ready answers to questions about my faith and I should not pretend that I do. I continue to ask myself many hard questions daily: Was it in God's plans to have a snow storm this weekend or does God control the weather really? Or why did the earthquake hit Haiti and kill 100,000 people while I am living safely in a warm house in the richest country with a nice job? Are these events really part of God's plans? Like I said before, I do not know any answers to these hard questions and I won't attempt to answer these questions, but what I do know is that I have felt God working in my life before and I know that God is still working in my life, so I will continue everyday trying, as Micah suggested thousands years ago, 'to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God'.

When was the last time we tackled a major problem?

2010-02-03T11:56:00.000-08:00

This past Sunday in The New York Times, Frank Rich wrote a column called “The State of the Union is Comatose”. He cited historian Alan Brinkley’s observation “that we will soon enter the fourth decade in which Congress — and therefore government as a whole — has failed to deal with any major national problem, from infrastructure to education.” This statement really jarred me, and has me thinking that it’s not just government that has failed to deal with any major national problem in a proactive manner, its our whole society.

I have been spending the past few months working with colleagues at William Penn House and Washington Quaker Workcamps on ways to move Workcamps into the 21st century. In doing this, I have been doing some reading about the history of Quaker Workcamps and Service Learning. The origins of both of these can be traced back to the early 1900’s, and both grew out of the pacifist movement. At the time, given the new technologies of transportation and communication (as well as of warfare), they were very innovative. But now, a century later we continue to experience wars, environmental and economic violence and injustice that include poverty, hunger, homelessness, and preventable disease.

At the same time, I have been continuing my efforts to being a part of stopping the spread of HIV. This week has been interesting on this front as well. There was an article in the Wall Street Journal last week about the pace of funding for HIV-treatment in Africa is falling far behind the needs. In Illinois, the word has come down that prevention programs are being eliminated so that current dollars can be allocated to treatment programs. I have continued to be a part of a consulting group for the CDC and NIH to develop protocols for community-wide test-and-treat of HIV, and continue to be amazed at the slow pace of implementation as HIV enters, ironically, its 4th decade as well. Meanwhile, waiting lists are starting to emerge for treatment.

Meanwhile, the earthquake in Haiti has awakened the general public to the fact that there is this poor nation with a history of corruption and neglect in our hemisphere of the world. As we have seen with tsunamis, AIDS, and hurricanes, these events are not what seem to shock us, but the devastation these things have on the poor that really wake us up. In general, this is where Workcamps and many Service Learning programs, as well as faith –based mission trips, tend to go – places where the devastation is clear, and there are some quick fixes that require short-term sacrifices, but not transformative changes in how one lives his/her life. They have the potential to ingrain in people that we should always be chasing the devastation, not doing the hard work to minimize the harm of the next one – whether it is disease prevention, or addressing the despair and injustices that are the fertile ground for natural and man-made disasters to do their worst.

The big question I have with all of this rattling around the brain is: when was the last time social services/social justice movements have tackled anything new or tackled things in new, innovative ways. We for the most part have become a society that works at the margins – we will rise somewhat to the occasion when people have been devastated by a disaster, and we will advocate/blame the government for doing the rest (such as not giving enough money). These are just tweaking the societal system that needs a major overhaul. If ever there were a wake-up call for community action that is responsibility-driven, it is now. But I think the harsh reality is that social services has become an industrial complex as much as the military has, and we have become too complacent and dependent on these institutions to do our work. How else to explain that people cannot fathom spending $10 for an HIV-test as part of a “greater good” effort.

No doubt that technological advances have carried their weight. We have cars that are lighter, get more miles per gallon than ever. We have communication systems that make connecting easier than ever. We have had advances in medical testing and treatment. Unfortunately we often use these technologies to make our life easier and more of the same. When was the last time you heard someone talk about how their hybrid car has made them more conscious about driving, and they are actually driving less and walking more?

Another reality is that I am not sure Workcamps/Service Learning has had a new, innovative idea to breaking the cycles of violence and injustice. But with a century of being under our belts, perhaps it’s time; in fact, there is no better time than now. We have the means to connect with others, to share ideas, and to have voices heard far more than ever before. I know that here at William Penn House, and in conversations with folks in the community, we have started to really consider what this might look like, including that service is much more than physical labor; it’s community-building in a way that the health of the community comes before the needs of the individual, and is accomplished with community members as equal partners, not volunteers/recipients.

I can say the same for HIV/AIDS services: outside of technological advances, when was the last innovative thing created? The same funding boxes for the most part are there, and there is an institutional rigidity to maintain turf. But with the cuts in prevention, all of a sudden we in the community are going to need to step up. AIDS organizations will inevitably say we need to advocate for more dollars: I’m not so sure. I think we need to stop advocating so much, and start doing more. I also think that some of the basic testimonies of Quakerism can help lead the way, if we can only get the institutions out of our way.

Are we going to lose the fight against HIV?

2010-01-31T15:56:00.000-08:00

It was with sadness and disappointment, but not surprise, to read the Wall Street Journal article published January 30 titled “War on AIDS Hangs in Balance as U.S. Curbs Help for Africa”. The gist of the article is this: “Seven years after the U.S. launched its widely hailed program to fight AIDS in the developing world, the battle is reaching a critical turning point. The growth in U.S. funding, which underwrites nearly half the world's AIDS relief, has slowed dramatically. At the same time, the number of people requiring treatment has skyrocketed.” The article goes on to point out that the global effort to prevent new infections has suffered some reversals due to a combination of factors such as complacency because of effective treatments, abstinence-only education, and testing that continues to suffer from the oppressive burdens of prejudice and homophobia.

As I sit and write this, it is a quiet Sunday afternoon and I am reflecting on, among other things:
• The radio program presently airing about being gay in Africa (in Namibia in particular), and how policies that outlaw homosexuality devastate HIV-prevention efforts. American Family Association radio host here in the US also thinks gays should be put in prison.
• The sermon at the National Cathedral this morning that talked about how Love, not our love, but God’s Love, is everywhere
• The Sunday forum at the Cathedral, with Congressman Tom Perriello (D-VA) talking about faith and politics. He mentioned how the financial bailout rewarded failure, and it had me thinking that when huge dollars are given to the big players in HIV/AIDS work (“AIDS, Inc”), are we not doing the same thing?
• In 2003, I pitched the idea to Senator Durbin that Illinois be the first state in the country to commit to getting all residents tested as part of the effort to get ahead of the HIV-transmission curve. He said “we can’t afford to do that”.
• This Wall Street Journal article, while certainly ringing an alarm that we all need to pay attention to, also perpetuates the misconception that “global HIV” is “Africa-only”. We are starting to see waiting lists for HIV-treatment in this country. If we cannot offer people who test positive some treatment options, we have lost a major selling point for testing. This is not an African truth, it’s a global truth that exists here as well.
• The two written comments to the WSj article include these comments: “This is a classic case of trying to fix problems in a retarded society using modern technology…AIDS isn’t the problem, it’s only one of the many symptoms…Until a people decide they want to join civilization, no amount of money will save them…” and “maybe what we are seeing is nature (gods) way of population control?”. Gotta love the compassion of ethno-centric Americans.

The nice thing about blogs vs. publications is that there is wiggle-room for venting, and that’s what the combination of the above drives me to. Are there no adults anywhere that can sit people down and say, ok, let’s be serious here: this is a deadly disease that is very treatable, preventable not curable, costly to treat, and the sooner we contain it, the cheaper the collective treatment costs will be. I’m not a public health expert, theologist, politician, financial whiz, prophet etc, but it just seems increasingly clear to me that we are a society that is trying to tinker with a system that needs a major overhaul. HIV/AIDS is both an example of this in action and an opportunity to learn what it takes to make a major overhaul. Funny thing is that this overhaul is not one of bricks and mortar, but of mindset. The image that comes to mind of our current state is this: the best mechanics in the world have been asked to work on the engine of an old car. They are all looking at the parts of the engine, talking about a new air filter, an oil change, perhaps some spark plugs. Then a kid walks by and points out to them that the car has rust, torn seats, no tires, smashed trunk, broken windows, and is basically beyond repair. By focusing on the engine, they did not see the big picture. That’s what we seem to have with HIV/AIDS work; no one in a position of authority seems to be willing to connect the dots. For example:
• The need for treatment will go up no matter what we do. Ideally, if we can quickly implement community-wide, compassionate, non-judgmental HIV-testing, the need will spike dramatically as we quickly decrease the collective “undiagnosed”, and then the needs for testing and will decrease over time. Under the current testing system, however, that tries to “cherry-pick” the most at-risk from society (basically the approach of the last 30 years), we will stay on the same course of ever-increasing needs for treatment.
• We cannot effectively stop the spread by saying everyone should be tested, and then focus on “them”.
• It is not possible to encourage the openness needed to have everyone know their status while condemning and judging the people most at-risk.

I could go on, and have for years. The point is, this WSJ article should be our wake-up call. I remember saying to a friend in Wheaton, IL, perhaps 4 years ago that the reason we were so insistent on community-wide testing in Wheaton is that’s where we were, we have to start where we are, and if we can’t do it here, is it realistic to expect places like Africa to take the lead? Most importantly, I felt then that if we do not implement a program like this locally, regionally, nationally, and internationally, we will see HIV become worse. I fear that that day has now come. We humans think we are so smart, but this simple virus has exposed a dark side of us that we need to overcome: greedy, arrogant, judgmental, afraid, and very short-sighted.

What I Did During the State of the Union Address

2010-01-28T13:19:00.000-08:00

While President Obama started his first State of Union address last night, about 100 volunteers and I were gathering at the United Planning Office (UPO) to go out in teams for the Point in Time census to count the number of people sleeping on the DC streets. Even though we were only two miles away from where the President was speaking, I felt like I was a lot farther away and in many respects, I was.

As I started out on the census with another volunteer, I saw President Obama speaking on many TVs as I walked around a nearby neighborhood. As I saw him speaking on TV, I wondered if he would mention homelessness once in his speech, but I found out later that he didn't and I wasn't surprised. This year alone, according to National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty, three million people will experience some kind of homelessness, whether it is sleeping on a friend's couch after an eviction for a couple days or a prolonged period of homelessness.

The topic of homelessness has been on my mind constantly for a couple weeks, after I decided to volunteer for this census. In between signing up and last night, a fellow Quaker brought to my attention an article in Street Sense, a publication by homeless advocates, about violence on homeless people by other homeless people and made the point that the homeless are not always innocent victims.

I already knew this from my own personal experience. Once several years ago, in Chicago, two homeless men accosted me as I was walking around downtown and I had escaped by walking frantically into a nearby store. Also during the past two years in my job as a coordinator of a service learning program, I have heard about numerous people speak about their experiences being homeless. I have heard stories of drug/alcohol abuse, depression, and health issues as causes of chronic homelessness.

Just because someone isn't entirely innocent of the situation they are in, does that mean we shouldn't help? But is that really an issue: Their innocence? They need help. No one is really benefiting from people sleeping on the streets. When a natural disaster or a fire hit, does the Red Cross not help people who didn't have any insurance?

I have done several risky things in my life that could have easily led me to be homeless, like moving to an unfamiliar city with no job prospects, passing up good paying jobs in the hope of a better job opportunity, and spending money that I don't have by using my credit card. But I have always been lucky to have a bed to sleep on and food to eat, because I have a strong support net and a family and many friends who loves me unconditionally. Every time I messed up, I knew I had a fallback plan. For many people who experience homelessness, they don't usually have that kind of support net, like Joe, who I met last night.

My volunteer partner and I encountered Joe outside a pharmacy panhandling. He was reluctant to admit that he was homeless. As he was telling his story, he told about his mother, who told him constantly that he wouldn't amount to anything. In contrast to my life, where each time I messed up, my parents were there to encourage me to try again and not give up. I know that there are stories of people who grow up fine with messed up parents, but there are still a lot of stories, like Joe. When the budget gets cut, social services to help people get off the streets are usually the first ones to go, not salaries of elected officials or the military budget. For example, here in Washington DC, people rallied together to save potential budget cuts to social services in order to save vital programs that help the homeless and low income people from becoming homeless.

Obama's theme last night was about how America needs to move forward together to build a better economy. As we work towards that goal, we need to see how as a community we can better meet the needs of the most vulnerable in our midst, instead of just continuing to turn a blind eye to them.

PS: Point in Time Surveys happen all over the United States during late January. Check with your local social services if you are interested in volunteering in your community.

Two Wolves

2010-01-18T05:38:00.000-08:00

An elder Cherokee Native American was teaching his Grandchildren about life. He said to them, “A fight is going on inside me… it is a terrible fight and it is between two wolves.

“One wolf represents fear, anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego.

“The other stands for joy, peace, love, hope, sharing, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, friendship, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion, and faith.

“This same fight is going on inside you, and inside every other person, too.”
They thought about it for a minute and then one child asked his grandfather, “Which wolf will win?”

The old Cherokee simply replied, “The one you feed.”

This parable was part of the sermon yesterday morning at the National Cathedral, where I started my day. It has resonated with me for the past 24 hours. I think it speaks to many aspects of not only my own life, but also the times in which we live. For much of my work at William Penn House and with The Mosaic Initiative, what I hope we are doing is not just educating people about social justice issues, but feeding the latter wolf in this parable. It is a challenge these days in our media-driven partisan world. Media, almost by definition (at least the 24-hour news networks and many of the Olberman/Maddow/Limbaugh/O’Reilly/Beck/Palin world) succeed by feeding the first wolf in the parable. The “Tea Party” movement is definitely a product of this first wolf. I have a friend on facebook who claims to speak for the “vast middle” of America, and claims to look at things not optimistically, but realistically. What I suspect he doesn’t get is that we are both looking at things realistically – our differences are which wolf is being fed. I don’t know that he is conscious of his own internal mechanisms.

So I carried these thoughts with me through much of the day. I attended a kick-off celebration for an Arts and Cultural networking organization that is primarily a grassroots community group inspired by Kymone Freeman, a man of great passion and fire who clearly has both of these wolves fully energized within him. He sees the great injustices, has experienced them first hand, sees the waste and corruption of bureaucracy, but he pours the energy into the second wolf – dedicating his life to so much of what the second wolf represents. It is a life of service – he truly walks the walk.

As I was walking to the Metro to attend this event, I walked by a car parked on Nebraska Ave. near embassies and churches. On the back of this car were three bumper stickers. Two of the bumper stickers had the “O” symbol from the Obama campaign, but were the “O’s” in “Oshit”, and “Commie”. The third bumper sticker, playing on the campaign slogan “Got Hope”, said “Got Ammo” (calling for the assassination of Obama). Clearly, the owner of this car is feeding the wolf of anger, fear and lies, and wants to feed ours as well.

Herein lies the challenge: how do we respond? For me, I want to stand for joy, peace, love, hope, sharing, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, friendship, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion, and faith in the face of these things. But I am also human – I get angry when I see these things. I know that to respond in-kind is not helpful in bringing us together to deal with all the challenges of the world. I also know that if I react angrily, I am feeding the first wolf as well. Perhaps the best I can do is just be aware that both wolves reside within me, and that awareness alone can help me tame one side while feeding the other.

Recent Identity Crisis

2009-12-16T23:03:00.000-08:00

While I was traveling in Mexico earlier this month, I lost my wallet. For the first few hours, I was devastated and angry with myself for not putting my wallet in my front pants pocket. My wallet contained about 700 pesos (around $55 US), credit cards, drivers license, ATM card, and health insurance cards. Luckily I had just put my passport and 1000 pesos in my money belt and I was traveling with a friend who spotted me money during the rest of the trip.

For a moment, I felt like I lost everything that said who I was, except for my passport. But after a short time, I developed a clearer thinking pattern and was able to cancel my credit cards and my ATM card. It seems amazing that the smallest object I was carrying on the trip, was the most head-aching thing to replace. During this time, I realized that my wallet doesn't define who I am. I do know who I am. I am Greg Woods, a son, a brother, a friend, a Quaker, a Follower of Jesus, an American, a resident of the District of Columbia, Coordinator of Washington Quaker Workcamps, Co-Coordinator of Project Lakota, a writer, a joke-teller and a traveler. These are the ways I connect with people across the world and how people know me. No wallet can or will ever be able to entirely hold all the aspects of my identity (Yes, I have cards that say I am an American and a DC resident, but these cards will never hold my experiences as an American and a DC resident.), because you cannot really ever quantify these parts. Actually none of my possessions define my identity. If I were to lose every material possession I own, I am still the same Greg Woods albeit a materially poorer Greg Woods. Surely some of the aspects of my identity will change over time, if I move or change jobs and also I hope to add some more aspects like husband and father, in the future.

The next weekend, I was talking with two non Quaker friends in La Casa de Los Amigos in Mexico City about what Quakers believe. I cited the peace testimony, the belief that God can speak directly to us without the need for an intermediary, having silence mediation in some form in many of the Friends meetings, among other things. While I was talking, I thought to myself this religion can sound very weird out loud, but I still want to be a Quaker and follow in the path of George Fox,Elizabeth Fry, and other early Quakers. This radical religion is still very much needed in a troubled, violent world. Even though my friends seem satisfied with my answers, I wasn't. The conversation opened up the question: What keeps me in Quakerism, beside the legacy? This question reminded me of the panic I felt a week earlier when I lost my wallet. Like am I tired of Quakers? Does Quakerism still inspire me?

The next day, during the meeting of worship with Mexico City Meeting, I continued praying about my connection with Quakers. Near the end of meeting, the clerk read queries about environmental stewardship from the Pacific Yearly Meeting Faith & Practice in connection with the ongoing climate change discussions in Copenhagen. While sitting with the queries about being conscious about individuals' impact on the environment, I realized again why I am Quaker.

Having growing up in the Friends tradition, I have become a conscientious person about how my actions affect the community around me, whether it is thinking about where I shop or whether I am being faithful to my leadings. For me, Quakerism isn't just a religion that is just practiced on First Day mornings, but a religion to be practiced in every part of my life everyday and this is expected of me by my fellow Friends.

For this reason, I am a Quaker.

Evangelizing Quakerism

2009-11-29T05:44:00.000-08:00

As 2009 starts winding down, I have been reflecting on the events of the past year. I have had the amazingly good fortune to work at a place like William Penn House where we are given the opportunity to meet people from all walks of life - not only those who come through our doors, but the countless people we meet at Monthly and Yearly Meetings and other gatherings. 2009 in particular has been a good year to do this work, as it is a year of great change that has been running head-long into resistance to change, the natural reaction that most of us have to true transformative change. I think there is a huge opportunity for Quakerism to step forward and help our communities through this process, but I also think that for this to happen, Quakers may need to step out of the way.

Let me explain. I think that the greatest gift of Quakerism is not the stance we take on issues, but the process we go through (consensus, discernment). Unfortunately, to our detriment, we too often bring like-minded people together, discern what the "sense" of the meeting or gathering is, and then we roll out into the world in a righteous fashion, with a judgment of others (Republicans, conservatives, military). We hold gatherings where we talk about our concerns and how we can serve ourselves and get what we want. We have threshing sessions but not enough fact-finding sessions. It often feels to me like "navel-gazing".

If we could instead appreciate that it is not what we have reached consensus on that matters, but our ability to go into any arena with the skill of building consensus (or finding the sense of the group) that really matters. For example, if I, a liberal/progressive pacifist gay man, sit with a group of conservative military heterosexuals, the sense of our gathering is more to my liking simply because I am at the table. For me, it is trusting that there really is "that of God" in all, not just those with whom we agree. I have also been repeatedly and amazingly surprised to find goodness and agreement where I had been taught to least expect it.

I also believe that now, more than any time in our recent history, the world needs this kind of work. Many of the institutions and organizations that we have become dependent (co-dependent?) on are facing financial crises, and are bunkering down. Our political system is as divisive and partisan as ever. Despite what I believe are the good intentions of President Obama, the system itself is made up of a two-party system that seeks nothing but power - a power that can only be gained through a "divide and conquer" mentality. Even Quaker organizations, as they struggle financially, tend to reduce collective energy and spirit to less than the sum of its parts. What we need is to start turning to each other - not in our Meetings, but in the broader world - and finding the common ground ("sense") of our communities. We need each other, and most people want the same thing. We just have to open the space to allow for this to happen. This, I believe, is the real gift that Quakerism can bring to the world.

Listening and Dialog

2009-11-24T06:39:00.000-08:00

What is the difference between listening to listen and listening as part of dialog? I had not given much thought to this, other than intuitively knowing there's a difference, until recently. At William Penn House a few weeks ago, we hosted two Navy Midshipmen. In announcing this event, it was stated that "these students will be here to talk about their dreams for the world, selection of service as a vehicle for pursuing this dream, and what it means to be of service. We look forward to this being an evening for pacifists and people committed to a world without war to listen with appreciative ears and to find common ground."

By referring to their commitment as "service", a listserve became energetically engaged in questioning why we were doing this event, that what these young men do is not "service" but "murder", and that we should give equal time to real service (neglecting to notice that just about all we do at William Penn House is service). It was interesting to see "pacifists" going after like-minded people, and to observe that, while these Navy Midshipmen were able to answer questions clearly about why they have made the commitments they have made and the struggles and dilemmas of these choices, the pacifists struggled with articulating their "hard" questions and making connections between what they/we are against and what we are for. I could go on about many things, but perhaps most simplistically, I have been pondering what it is to listen as an exercise vs. listening as part of a dialog.

Here are some thoughts:
Neurologically, listening/observing is what some call an "alpha" brain activity, where the rear hemisphere of the brain is engaged, but what is going on is just letting things enter. Imagine walking through the woods as part of a meditative exercise in noticing what is going on, vs. thinking about work, what is around the corner, or some other mental activity that takes one out of the moment. This is the alpha activity, whereas "beta" activity is that latter part - thinking of something next. To just be present, to listen, is really a discipline in being in the moment. It does not mean to not think, but to instead let information fully enter for discernment, rather than discern what is allowed in. The blocks to this are emotions - anger, fear, etc. - and too much thinking that looks for where the speaker is "wrong" (or a fear that I am wrong).

In dialog, I suspect that we are always listening with one foot in the moment, and the other in "what am I going to say next?", which interferes with being fully present to the other. This can be especially challenging when we have firmly held beliefs (in this case, about the military). Unfortunately, when we demonize things like the military, we tend to develop blindspots about many things, including that we might be complicit in the need for the military to protect us.

Are there things we can do to handle this better? In my experience, Appreciative Inquiry has been a good tool. Quite simply, to learn to listen fully, with appreciative ears, has been helpful. It does not mean that I simply accept all that is being said, but for the moment my job is to listen and to appreciate. I can later go back, more fully informed, and look at things more deeply, exploring where my own values lie on issues. I think it adds to integrity. It certainly beats "pacifists" creating conflict among like-minded people.

FDA and OTC Tests

2009-11-18T09:11:00.000-08:00

I attended a part of an FDA Blood Control conference yesterday, and was one of 7 people to have 3 minutes to present my opinions on whether FDA should approve over-the-counter (otc) rapid, self-administered HIV tests. In partnership with RJ Hadley in Chicago and Christine Harris in Austin, TX, we had submitted a written statement the week before.

Here’s how things went yesterday: I arrived at 11:30 with Amanda Haase, a William Penn House intern. We went to the lunch that was hosted by OraSure. At the table, we had some great conversations about how entrenched “AIDS, Inc.” is, and how it is only money that is asked for. We shared the same passions that bureaucracy and institutionalization of services is as much if not more of a problem than the lack of funding. Amen to all that. It’s always nice and affirming to connect with someone that shares sentiments, especially someone in her position. We will certainly continue this dialog.

Then it was on to the committee hearing about the approval of otc tests. The first part of the afternoon was 20-30 minute presentations on the science/technology of rapid tests, and the hoops that have been jumped through so far. While all of these people are clearly smart and dedicated people, what I noticed was how, as is so often the case, they seem to have developed a myopic approach to stopping the spread of HIV that is reliant on the status quo, institutionally. It was the same song and dance about high-risk groups (labels, labels, labels), and a limited appreciation of how otc tests could fundamentally change the landscape. One guy even presented detailed stats and graphs of a model – not even real numbers. I think we would all get more for our money if he were paid to study something that is happening, rather than what could happen.

They were looking at the challenge of marketing and packaging otc tests so that people the highest risk individuals could buy them and use them properly, but never mentioned the power of facebook and youtube to play a role in this, let alone that there are many of us out here who in no way will mark the shift in the landscape of HIV-testing by just letting them sit on the shelves. One epidemiologist, in particular, who kept insisting that “hard science” is needed to prove that these tests can be used effectively before approval can be given, but seemed to be relying on physical science, not social science which is needed here. He even made an analogy between these rapid tests and the development of a vaccine as holding out false hopes, even though these are two very clearly different beasts. Again, the myopia of one’s profession interfering with the big picture.

One option they are considering is buying these tests with a pharmaceutical consultation. It’s a step in the right direction, but I don’t think it will make much of a difference. There was also a healthy discussion of concerns over false-negatives and false-positives. Clearly the latter is more anxiety-producing. Their concern was that false negatives were terrible because of the erroneous security. One panelist, however, felt that in the entirety of all people getting tested, false positives among a few are better than not getting tested at all. I agree with this, especially if there is solid education about all of this that includes that false positives are a distinct possibility, so the person taking the test is more educated regardless of the results.

During the open comment time, every single speaker read statements supporting otc approval. They cited that rapid tests have helped dramatically improve test access, and otc could improve that. Some talked anecdotally; some talked with numbers. One presenter, a rep from a test manufacturer, showed stats from Europe that clearly indicate this can be done well.

As I got ready to speak, I decided to trash what I had prepared, as it was all being said by others, and went from the heart. I talked about how these tests in and of themselves won’t make a difference – that there are entire armies of us that will be the vehicles of change. I mentioned that I have sat around similar tables as they are, and seen great energy and intelligence wasted while ultimately maintaining the status quo. I observed that we are all pieces of a puzzle, and that community efforts are a piece of this puzzle (including the social networking) that they are missing but I know stands ready. I said that it has been over a decade since there has been any big shift in the HIV/AIDS landscape, and that approval of otc tests could be just the ticket. I also held up a sample of the tests we have bought, and said that I already know that these are being used by people who don’t feel comfortable or need the present testing system, and it makes a difference. I challenged the committee to see for themselves what the present HIV-testing experience is like. Go to an MD in Kansas; go to a clinic in Elgin, IL, Salt Lake City, or Washington DC, and do it without fanfare. Experience first-hand the questions, the time limitations, and the costs, and then come back and consider the issue of this option.

We’ll see how far they go with this and how quickly, but without a doubt, the public support and willingness is there. Interestingly, that afternoon, I received an e-mail of a study out of Johns Hopkins that self-administered testing is safe, effective and desired, so now the stats are coming out to.

I think it is really going to take a rise-up in activism akin to what ACT-UP did in the 80’s and 90’s to get medications and research going. There were some on the committee who did react to and seemed to be moved by the passion of the public comments. We need to increase the volume of this ten-fold, a hundred-fold, a thousand-fold. It will make a difference.

On a related note, I also saw that POZ magazine has an article about how youth are not talking enough about HIV. As I observed from this FDA meeting, I don’t think it’s that they are not talking enough; it’s that we have not adapted our communications and our relationships enough to keep the issue present. Heck, we are barely doing it among our peers. As always, it is easier to blame the youth rather than ask what we can do about it. I much prefer to be open to what I can do.

Faith and Hospitality

2009-11-17T13:52:00.000-08:00

I have now been here at the William Penn House for two years. First as an intern and for six months as the “hospitality coordinator.” My job description contains what you would expect- check guests in and out, do laundry, make the House a welcoming place. Hospitality is an integral part of what we do here at the William Penn House and has been the main focus of our mission since the Corys opened their home to young peace protesters in 1968. But as I approach my two year anniversary with the House, I find myself wondering what exactly hospitality is and why it matters.

If hospitality is just giving people a bed and a meal, then it is easy and requires little of me or the rest of the staff besides showing up on time in the morning with a service-industry-required smile. And many hotels and hostels work on that level. But the William Penn House is a special place. Here we try to answer the question of what does God require of us in response to the stranger, the other, the traveler. At first the answer seems clear and easy. Jesus told a parable in which the faithful are commended by the King because “I was a stranger and you invited me in.” When we welcome others, we welcome God.

But the truth is it is hard to welcome the stranger who is demanding and angry, the guest who is needy and always seems to want more, and the guy who creeps you out just a little. It is hard to see that of God in those who are not grateful or treat me poorly. Also, in the day to day running of a hostel I tend to get caught up in the details and tasks. I can easily lose sight of the moment and brush the guest aside so that I can get my “work” done. But in fact, my work is in welcoming that stranger in, not in giving them a bed and breakfast, but by engaging with them, listening to their story and not just going through the motions of reception.

Every day here I am challenged to take what I believe to be true, that God calls us to reach out to the other, and practice it in my interactions with guests. I need to slow down and be willing to hear from a lonely traveler about where he’s been. I need to be patient in explaining six times where the bathroom is to the guest who doesn’t speak English well. And I need to be willing to give grace to the grouchy and rude guest who doesn’t seem to appreciate that I am bending over backwards to help her. In this, I hopefully grow closer to the individual that God calls me to be and our guests receive a tangible example of God’s love in their lives. This is hospitality.

Faith Kelley, Hospitality Coordinator

Uganda and anti-homosexuality laws

2009-11-04T04:41:00.001-08:00

Dave Zarembka is a member of the Bethesda Friends Monthly Meeting, and is the head of the Africa Great Lakes Initiative. Like me, he has been pretty passionate that we maintain open relations with Friends United Meeting despite its hiring policy that does not allow for the hiring of anyone in a relationship that is not recognized by law (meaning any gay couple, or a hetero couple not legally married). It is with this in mind that I think serious consideration needs to be given to this letter sent out by Dave:

Dear Friends,

The Uganda legislature is considering one of the most repressive laws
that I have ever heard of. This law is geared against homosexuals, their
parents, teachers, counselors, landlord/lady, medical practioners, etc.
Punishment for homosexuality includes life imprisonment or the death
penalty. In addition everyone in the society will be an informant. Here
are some of the provisions:

- any parent who does not denounce their lesbian daughter or gay son to
the authorities will be fined Ush 5,000,000/= (about $250 in a country
where many live on $1 per day) or put away for three years.
- any teacher who does not report a lesbian or gay pupil to the
authorities within 24 hours will be fined Ush 5,000,000/= ($250) or put
away for three years in prison.
- any landlord or landlady who happens to give housing to a suspected
homosexual risks seven years of imprisonment.
The Ugandan Civil Society Coalition on Human Rights and Constitutional
Law concludes, "In short, this bill targets everybody, and involves
everybody: it cannot be implemented without making every citizen spy on
his or her neighbours."
It is time for folks to organize like the anti-aparteid movement in South
Africa. Boycott visitng Uganda, no investment, withdraw current
investment, ban on visas for politicans and atheletes, etc. Pressure the
US Government to confront President Museveni of Uganda who is reported to
be supporting the bill. Uganda is one of the US's stongest allies in
Africa so the US Government can put a lot of good pressure on Uganda.
(Uganda supports the US against those "bad guys" in Sudan, has AU troops
in Somalia). There is lots of potential for action and should include
both North America and Europe. Campaign to get them kicked out of the
Commonwealth.

I suggest that these actions begin immediately before the bill is enacted
into law.

Peace,
David Zarembka
Lumakanda, Kenya

I will get in touch with some folks about what actions we might be able to put
together on this.  I am pretty sure that Bishop Akinola's Anglican church, which
has strong moral and financial support here in the US, is a part of this, so action
may not only be about Uganda, but some of the congregations here that have
left the Episcopal church to join Akinola's church.

Beware the Common Enemy

2009-09-15T05:31:00.000-07:00

What do Stalin, Saddam Hossein, and the Taliban all have in common? Each one, at one point in our history, was an ally of the US. It was not that these people were at one time fundamentally different in character than what we now know them to be, but it was that we shared a common enemy; with Stalin, it was Hitler; with Hossein it was Iran, and with the Taliban in Afghanistan, it was Russia. In the latter two cases, there was much more to it than just the common enemy. There were also issues of corporate greed, and the desire to control oil that was the underpinnings of the US economy that was dependent on the auto and housing industry. As Franklin Roosevelt said about a mid-20th century Nicaraguan ruthless dictator, "Somoza may be a son-of-a-bitch, but he's our son-of-a-bitch". (Note: there is some question about whether Roosevelt said this, but there is no doubt that he was a strong supporter of this corrupt, greed-driven dictator because he was against communism)

What does all this have to do with current events? Beyond international policy practices that still continue, this phenomenon of "my enemy's enemy is my friend" has reared its head in the healthcare debate as well. The "enemy", in this case, is Obama. For some, it is his policies, including a proposal for a single-payer option in healthcare. There is certainly room for debate here, as there are legitimate concerns about funding a program like this. (I personally have two concerns about the healthcare issue: the first is that we expect too much from healthcare, and the second is that government is an institution that is way too slow and bureaucratic to really get anything done, but I welcome the discussion).

For the fiscal conservatives who have legitimate concerns about either the financing of a program or merely have concerns about the role that government might play in healthcare (keeping in mind that Medicare, Medicaid, and the VA are already in place), having your issues heard is currently being drowned out by other "anti-Obama" allies who have more insidious motivations. Among the allies include a colllusion of: corporate greed folks, the Republican leadership that is looking for any opening to regain some power, a right-leaning media looking for viewership, and blatant racists who simply cannot believe that a black man is President. Here's how, to me, it seems to be playing out: The more corporate folks (Dick Armey, healthcare corporations, Fox News) whip people into an emotional frenzy that then comes out in the form of fear of communism, fascism, government killing old people, loss of gun rights. The racism gets thinly veiled by comments about the country being taken over by Muslims. The success of this movement is dependent on keeping people's fears heightened, and calling these fear "patriotism".

For the benefit of all of us, it would be great if we could all take a deep breath, relax, listen, and re-engage the frontal lobes. If we could open up dialog with real exploratory questions, and seek common solutions, we would all benefit. But for those who really have concerns about any government expansion in the role of healthcare, it is important to pull apart from those who are dependent on polarizing effect of "my enemy's enemy is my friend" approach. The blatant racists, partisans looking merely for power, and corporate greed folks are exploiting you for their personal agenda and care little for your real concerns. In fact, they don't want you to think. They just want you to be angry.

Pigs at the Trough

2009-09-03T18:48:00.000-07:00

I just got back from a presentation at the DC Department of Health's AIDS Administration. Let me start by saying that all the people in the room were caring people who have their hearts in the right place, so this is not about them as individuals. This is, however, an absolute slamming of "AIDS, Inc." - an institution that has completely taken over and has no intention of going away.

Here's why: The presenters gave a lot of data about the sexual behavior of "msm" (men who have sex with men). What the data showed is that msm still make up the highest number of people contracting HIV and that sex and drugs impact behavior. There were lots of slides with numbers, statistics and terms - including one item that showed that 64% of respondents knew the HIV-status of their last sexual partner. The problem with this last issue - which I raised - was whether this information was reliable. The presenters said that it was a good thing that these people think it is, but I would actually say that it may not be good - it could be reinforcing the false sense of security that you could just tell if someone has HIV based on their word and how they look.

There were many other issues I had with the presentation (including the usual - what does any of this tell us that changes what we know? how does this help get people to get tested? How does this change the stigma? etc.). The fact is that this study only reinforces the stigma of HIV as a gay man's disease. But the real kicker is this: these presenters referred to this study as their "baby", that it's only three years old, and that they will be replicating it to two other high risk groups over the next 6 years (3 years each group), and then repeat as they fine-tune their data collection. Meanwhile, there were giggles and chuckles as they talked about the limitations of their work, how they defined msm, and how good they all feel about the data.

ARE YOU KIDDING ME?! We are talking about lives here. Where is the talk about stopping the spread of HIV NOW! Where is the concern that this is not a gay disease, a black disease, a women's disease, but a public health issue?

I did raise the question, with passion. It was heard, and I think registered. I also wonder, however, where is the community outrage?! These people are talking about multi-year studies that tell us what we already know (really, it seemed like what they were studying was a new methodology of epidemiological data collection rather than collection of useful data).

There was some talk about the high levels of support from among people ages 18-34 to make HIV-testing routine in doctor's offices. Two things about this (I mentioned both of these): this is the age group least likely to have a routine around medical care so it's less of a reality, and this is a group that is most amenable to testing, so let's get the tests to them. I made this impassioned plea: the community is ready to take action, to self-administer and make HIV-testing more portable. We either need people like these epidemiologists to help us make the case statistically, or to get out of the way so we can do it.

What is clear, based on all the meetings and conversations now at the highest levels of HIV-administration at both municipal/state (here in DC, sort of the same thing) and federal levels, is this: all people mean well and want well, but the bureaucrats are limited in their power, and the epidemiologists are calling the shots. Unfortunately the shots they are calling are for more studies. We know enough. We need the psychologists, social scientists, sociologists, theologians and artists to now step up and create more options. And, most importantly, the community voice and passion must be raised. This is the only way that change will really happen in any timely matter.

What we did on our summer journey into HIV-testing

2009-08-17T10:15:00.000-07:00

In June, we ventured into a new area with regards to promoting HIV-testing and “KNOW YOUR STATUS”. We joined with people from Washington DC and DuPage County, IL to coordinate and support HIV-testing events, while also handing out materials about testing options (including home-based/portable HIV testing that is available on-line and not FDA-approved). Awareness that we had these tests led to, at first, admonition from the FDA to “cease and desist” with having these test. After receiving a call from FDA and talking further about our desire not to break laws but to give people testing options, while also being clear that the current system is laden with limitations, bureaucracy and wasteful spending, we found some doors opening to promote our ideas and energy flowing in the right direction. Subsequent conversations with FDA and CDC also led to a meeting at the White House Policy Office that took place on Thursday, August 13. Joining this meeting were Byron Sandford, Ex.Dir. of William Penn House, Lois Johnson, a Wheaton resident who lost her son to AIDS in 1995 and has been very passionate about stopping the spread of HIV, and Hannah Kelley, an intern at Penn House. The meeting was very exciting for us, as a grassroots group, to be at this level of conversation. The person we met with, Greg Millett, is an epidemiologist who is new to his White House position (having moved over from the CDC), and is one of only two people in the White House AIDS office (Jeffrey Crowley being the other). They are awaiting clearance of more people to work with them.
Rather than focus on just the White House meeting, I am going to summarize here all that we have learned about HIV-testing, the HIV/AIDS system of testing and treatment, and where we might go from here. Included is some information that was given “off-the-record” which to me means that, as a grassroots person, I can be affirmed in what we have suspected, and we need to exert pressure to bring about change so that fear of knowledge is no longer a deterrent to doing what we need to do.
• There is a lot of agreement from people in all these governmental offices that there is waste, there is frustration, and no one really knows how to implement the best plans. For example, the CDC has been encouraging all people to get tested for HIV, but at the state level, HIV-programs continue to ask discerning and intimidating questions that date back to the time when the only people being tested were people who had discerned a certain level of risk. Routinely, we asked “how do we eliminate these questions from the testing process?” and no one really had a good answer.
• The current HIV-tests in this country are considered a level 3 community risk, meaning a rigorous approval process by the FDA. The current issues have little to do with efficacy or toxicity of tests, but are more a question of whether our society is ready for portable/home-testing. There are also arguments that accurate data cannot be collected, but we already have that problem.
• The current, approved HIV-tests in the US may be inferior to tests that are used overseas.
• It seems like “AIDS, Inc.”’s solution is simply more money for to pay for tests and testers. This is a costly and risky proposition, especially if the current testing protocols remain.
• “HIV-testing is free and easy”, according to one activist. Testing, in fact, is not easy everywhere, nor is it always free. Consider my experience at a testing clinic in Washington: a 4-page intrusive questionnaire, and sitting in a waiting room where any semblance of anonymity is lost. In addition, pragmatically, this clinic is not a place that all people would find comfortable. Going to the MD for testing is an option, but not all MD’s are up-to-date on HIV-testing issues, and there is a cost here. Other anecdotes: in Salt Lake City, clinic hours are from noon to 4, weekdays, and cost $25 (for a $10 test), and in Elgin, IL, because of funding, one clinic is discouraging people from coming to them for testing if they are not in a high-risk group.
• Perhaps one of the biggest problems we face is this: the Obama Administration is committed to following hard facts and stats, not morality, as the guiding principle. This is great, but presents its own challenge: how do we get stats about the community ability to self-administer HIV-testing unless we roll-out self-administered HIV-testing? This seems to be the big catch-22, and perhaps one reason we need an anthropologist, sociologist and psychologist as well as epidemiologists calling the shots.
Ultimately, what I think we take away from this is that within the various departments, all people mean well, are intelligent, passionate and committed, but our biggest challenge is that we need to shift the paradigm in our society of responsibility for prevention and testing from “them” to “us”. It seems like the only way to do this is to just do it. Lengthy multi-year studies will move policies forward, but won’t shift the paradigm of responsibility; meanwhile, HIV will continue to spread.
Here are some specific next steps for us:
• Continuing to work with Bernie Branson (at CDC) on having input on an NIH-led trial to promote and increase testing among gay men.
• Apply for CLIA waivers to be approved as a testing organization (perhaps 2 – one for WPH, one for Mosaic).
• Promoting community participation in White House Office on AIDS town-hall meetings around the country in developing a national strategy to end AIDS.
• Continue to work with developers of HIV-tests to get the FDA to open the doors for “over-the-counter/portable/home HIV tests”. This will also take input from community voices.
• I will also continue to promote that people who do not necessarily want to go to through the current testing process look into buying tests on-line ($10).

After all of this, it seems increasingly clear that we really do have all that we need to stop the spread of HIV – tests, willingness to get tested, desire within the “powers that be” to change the system, etc. What we seem to be missing is that “leap of faith” moment to make it happen, or perhaps more accurately, the paralysis of bureaucracy and comfort within the status quo. In my work at William Penn House and through Mosaic Initiative, as I am able to, I will continue to promote the community change. Outside of these organizations, I will also continue to offer demonstrations and sample of the portable tests. I truly believe that all people can find out their status, and we don’t need to sit around waiting for others. We can make it such that no people ever get turned away or are discouraged from testing. I also believe that you empower by giving options, not limiting them. I’ve learned over the last few months that there are kindred spirits working in this vein in the system, but the real change may need to take place outside the system.

Healthcare, living well and letting go

2009-08-05T15:48:00.000-07:00

Last week I was going through the mail during my few days at home and, among the many pieces were a few bills for a medical appointment I had in the spring. The total out-of-pocket expenses for this one appointment: nearly $1000. Granted, this includes the $750 deductible, but given the salary I make, it's still alot (considering that on top of this there is an additional $60/month for the co-pays of medication). As I perused the bills, I looked through the labwork that was done and it was filled with things I have no clue about.

At the same time, I was listening to the radio and the on-going debate about healthcare. No doubt we have a broken healthcare system and we need to do more to see that people have access to healthcare, especially preventive medicine. But looking through my own bills, and reflecting on my own recent interactions with my doctor (whose biggest concern seemed to be that I was rejecting the idea of pursuing elective cosmetic surgery to fill out my cheeks that have thinned out as a result of the HIV-progression or treatment).

What I am noticing that seems to be completely absent from the debate about healthcare is that not only should all people have access to healthcare, but perhaps we should also be having a national dialog about what we expect from healthcare and why. I suspect, based on my own bills, that my MD is milking me for billable services. I know that he needs to be monitoring certain things because of new medications, but I also know that in some cases, if something were off, the prescribed course of action is more medication. Do I really need to know that certain levels of something are off, if I am going to refuse the treatment?

That very week, the woman (Hilda) whose house I am living in died. She was in a nursing home for the past 2 years and had not been out of bed for that time, but on Sunday night she got out of bed and fell, breaking her leg and hitting her head. My friend Marilyn (the woman's guardian) got a call at 6:30 in the morning asking whether she wanted to have brain surgery performed on Hilda. She was told she needed to make the decision immediately, not for the patient's sake, but because this was when the operating room was available. Marilyn was told that the surgery was to remove a clot (for a woman who had been basically comatose for a few months). Marilyn was not told about the broken leg. It all smacked of a healthcare decision trying to milk this woman's estate before she died.

Basically, I think we need to open up the national dialog to include a frank discussion that, yes, we are all on the same train progressing to one common end result. We want to use healthcare to help us get there as safely, happily, healthily and productively as possible. But we perhaps should depend less on healthcare for the quality of life things, and focus on some of the basics, while we also commit to healthier living. I don't know that statistics, but have heard about the high proportion of healthcare dollars spent on the last month of life. A part of this makes sense - trying to extend lives is costly. But we should know that all we are doing is extending life, not saving it.

Friends and Indians

2009-07-25T15:27:00.000-07:00

Over the centuries in the US, Quakers and Indians have shared a special relationship in the hearts and minds of many people. Artwork and lore have commemorated William Penn’s Peaceable Kingdom efforts in establishing the Pennsylvania colony in the late 1600’s and early 1700’s. Relative to other settlers and landowners of his time, Penn made a concerted effort to demonstrate that settlers and natives could live peaceably together. As we know now, the vision did not hold, but the reputation of Friends as protectors of Indians persists. Is it deserved? How accurate is it? To put it bluntly, Friends have benefited greatly from the relations with Indians, but have Indians benefited?
I recently had the opportunity to join the Joint Service Project/Western Quaker Workcamp to do some service work on Pine Ridge, the Lakota reservation in South Dakota. The group that was on this trip was Young Friends from Downingtown (PA) Monthly Meeting. Among the things we saw and visited was Wounded Knee, and we heard history presentations about the various treaties, broken promises and violence that took place in this region (including that Mount Rushmore was carved on land that had been previously given to Indians). At the same time, coincidentally, I was reading a newly written book called “Peaceable Kingdom Lost: The Paxton Boys and the Destruction of William Penn’s Holy Experiment” by Kevin Kenny. This book had been given to me by Byron at WPH prior to my even knowing about going to South Dakota.
So, here I was, touring new (for me) territory in South Dakota, hearing about the massacres of the late middle to late 1800’s, while at the same time reading about the violation of treaties and subsequent massacres that occurred in eastern Pennsylvania roughly 150 years prior. It was striking me that the template for what occurred to the Indians from the late 1600’s to the late 1800’s (and really continues to this day to some extent) was established in Pennsylvania. Throughout that history, some very familiar names (Washington, Franklin, Jefferson, Penn, Lincoln, among others) can be seen in a variety of lights. But for differences in time, names could be changed (Massacre at Wounded Knee, Massacre of Conestogas, for example) and the same narrative would unfold.

Some of my observations and thoughts, specifically regarding Quakers, are:
• William Penn, while certainly a progressive for his time, was no prophet. He was committed to trying to live peaceably among Indians, but he was also trying to protect his own extensive land-holdings that were granted to him by the King of England.
• Penn established one of the earliest treaties with Indians, but perhaps did not fully appreciate that the relation that Indians had with land ownership was very different than his. This misunderstanding led to future conflicts.
• Penn’s children were greedy.
• Penn’s early treaties were some of the first treaties to be broken, setting the template for making and breaking treaties.
• Pennsylvania and east coast Quakers were not necessarily good community members and leaders. They wanted to take Indian lands, be rulers of the government, but were not willing to really deal with the conflicts that were emerging. This avoidance of conflict in its early stages continues to challenge us.

It seems clear to me that Friends have greatly benefited (and perhaps we pat ourselves on the back as well) for our intentions with regards to Indians over the years, and to be sure we have compassion for all that has happened. But I also think that because we have benefited from this reputation, we have work to do. We cannot turn the clock back, but perhaps we can look forward with a vision of the Peaceable Kingdom once again. One of the things we heard in South Dakota was that the US government has never apologized for the Massacre at Wounded Knee. That has started some of us thinking that if we are going to be a force for creating the Peaceable Kingdom, perhaps we should start with promoting reconciliation and forgiveness, and then following this up not just with our own trips and project on the reservations, but also with our advocacy to keep promises that are currently in-place but not being met. Basically, it seems like a great opportunity for Friends to earn the reputation of being good Friends to the Indians, rather than simply resting on our questionable laurels in this arena.

Portable HIV-Tests: Do we have to break the laws to change them?

2009-06-29T07:31:00.000-07:00

What happens when an entrenched system faces competition?

We found some of this out last week. For years, I have been working with a diverse group of people to promote that all people know their HIV-status as the starting point for stopping the spread of HIV (see www.mosaicinitiative.org for more about this work). We have worked with HIV/AIDS organizations in Illinois, DC and western Kenya. I have seen people who want to volunteer their time to helping stop the spread of HIV, and be told that they can deliver meals once a week. I’ve met with senators, elected officials, and other government folks to see what we can do to make testing more accessible – including making tests more portable, and removing the pre-test history questions from the process. All to no avail, despite conflicting messages and policies between federal and state authorities. There has been a protective nature to tests and testing that borders on territorial. I have seen people turned away because there are not enough tests, while also hearing that testing is being under-utilized in other areas. I’ve seen “Catch-22’s” where there are no laws against distributing HIV-tests, but no access to acquiring tests. And I’ve seen panel discussions where organizations blame everyone else and call for National Strategies, but resist change. No wonder HIV continues to spread – the institutions need it to stay viable.

A chink in all of this took place last week. A few weeks ago, I heard about a home test kit that can be purchased on-line (http://www.anytestkits.com/hiv-aids-test-kit.htm). It’s not FDA-approved, but I ordered some anyway. We started to promote that we were going to be distributing these tests. Out of the blue, last week 8 FDA administrators got on a conference call to tell me to cease and desist. I responded that, unless there could be some kind of movement (speeding up FDA approval of home-test kits or removal of pre-test questions to name two possibilities) that I did not see why I should. Plus, after years of trying to reach people to see how we can make a difference, it took possession of these tests to catch attention. Now, a week later, there has been a meeting with one of these FDA people, plus the head of the White House office on AIDS and an MD within CDC who has done research to support greater access to and portability of tests. In talking with these folks, one thing is clear: the current system is not working. The other thing that is clear is that “AIDS, Inc.” is as entrenched in maintaining the status quo as anything else that is out there. Perhaps what has been most interesting is the extent to which people have been forthcoming with information, although there is tacit agreement that much of this information is “off the record”.

Interestingly, as we promoted and collected signatures for home-based HIV-testing (or, perhaps more appropriately, since we are really looking to promote a creative dialog, we should call it “portable testing”), it has been mostly the white gay community that has been the least receptive to this idea. I think there are two possible theories: the gay community still very much carries the scars and trauma of AIDS, and/or AIDS was the first legitimate social institution to have openly gay people leading. It has also been gay people that have said we have to do testing within the law. I maintain: when did any good laws come about without the bad laws being broken?

So, what to take from this:
• Viable options creates more opportunities for change than simply staying within the status quo.
• There has not been a real new idea regarding HIV-prevention. “Portable testing” might be just the ticket to spur new, creative dialog. Look at the doors possession of such tests opened.
• When you can catch people’s attention, you can take a 30 second conversation and turn it into a 5 minute conversation. For example, when someone says he/she is against home-testing, consider where these might be useful (i.e. for women who take home-pregnancy tests, or for repeat testers, or for couples where one partner is positive). I like to envision doing college classes, with visualizations of testing, and then giving options for testing.
• For HIV-testing organizations that say they want to empower people, I say you don’t empower by limiting options.
• On the sly, I was also told by a reliable source that the US-approved HIV-tests are inferior to what are used in other parts of the world.
• I have also now seen research that shows:
o 93.6% of people who do home-sample collections can do it accurately. 95% of clinics do it accurately. So the issue of poor sampling at home is minimal.
o The majority of people who do home-sample collections (the Home Access mail-in tests) are people who would not go to an MD or clinic for an HIV-test).
o People who have access to testing of any type are 47 times less likely to contract HIV.

Where do we go from here? I’m going to be following up with exerting pressure to speed up and open up approvals for options. I’ll also see how we can help facilitate community dialogs and pilot programs. One of the messages is that we don’t need a multi-million dollar marketing campaign to raise awareness; we need a 2 year campaign to get everyone to know his/her status, and we need to change the starting pronoun from “them” to “us”, including all of us.

Home-based HIV-testing and the AIDS Inc. Racket

2009-06-19T14:01:00.001-07:00

There was a time when people with HIV and those around them were actively banging on and banging down doors of legislators, public health officials, and pharmaceutical companies. If there was even a whiff of a possible treatment there were calls, letters, and protests to get these treatments out to people with HIV even if the treatments had not completed their rigorous trial phases. At the same time, countless alternative and experimental treatments were being done. Some of these at worst were benign (such as massage, acupuncture, meditations, etc.), and for many of us, were instrumental to our need to stay actively engaged in our treatment. There were other types of remedies that were being promoted – such as drinking one’s own urine – that spoke to the desperation of the times. Clearly, the big enemies of the times were the politicians, federal regulators, and the corporate pharmaceutical companies that were slow on investing in the development of products that could help slow the progress of the virus.
At the same time, there emerged a similar fight around means to stop the spread of HIV Condom distribution and needle-exchange programs continue to be political and cultural hot-potatoes, as the liberal left tend to be for full-dissemination of these programs, whereas the conservative right tend to resist such programs, regardless of statistics. The two sides have become so polarized that they often don’t see the emerging new threats out there such as the energized gay porn industry that is increasingly marketing unprotected sex, and the rise in unprotected sex in bath houses, events like the International Male Leather convention in Chicago every Memorial Day, and in solicitations on-line. This, for much of the gay HIV-industry, is like the crazy aunt. We know she’s there and a member of the family, but we don’t dare speak too loudly about it lest our enemies catch wind of what’s going on. Some of this has to do with an AIDS bureaucracy that, to this day, still has not adopted its message about HIV/AIDS to meet the new realities – that HIV is not the deadly disease it was, but is very much something we don’t want to see spreading. This is really a topic for another time.
Despite all of this, however, there is one interesting observation that I have seen over the past few month, that I find both interesting and troubling: home-based testing. For clarity’s sake, home-based testing is simply a test that one can self-administer and get the results within 20 minutes. The technology for doing this has existed for twenty years – it’s a simple assay test that screens for HIV anti-bodies It’s the same test that one gets in a clinic. For many who are afraid to go to clinics to get tested because of the lack of anonymity (you can’t be anonymous if you have to go to a public place, can you?), or for those who live in areas where medical providers may not be warm to the idea of testing their patients, or for those who do home-pregnancy tests and want to also make sure of their HIV-status, or for those who are in mixed “HIV” relationships and want to simply do what they can to insure that they are being responsible, or for those who are willing to spend $10 for a test at home rather than go through a lengthy process, or for countless other reasons, the option of home-tests may be just the kind of thing that can help people access testing and ultimately slow the spread of HIV.
So, where’s the outrage? Why is the FDA making Orasure, one of the manufacturers of self-administered HIV-tests (the very ones that are used in many HIV-testing clinics) go through a lengthy process to get approval to sell these directly to the general public? Where are all those organizations and activists that are demanding more funds and looser rules regarding needle-exchange programs, condom distribution, and mobile testing units? Why aren’t they lining up demanding that the FDA speed up this process, just as they did with HIV-medications that we now know were sped through an approval process despite minimal positive effect and high toxicity? Because they are lined up against approval of greater distribution of self-administered HIV-tests, and for many of them, testing is a job.
I have been engaged recently in an effort to advocate for approval and dissemination of self-administered tests. Perhaps naively at first, I was taken aback by the resistance of HIV-testing organizations. Over time, as I have settled into listening to the reasons why there is the resistance, I have come to see that many of the concerns are not permanent barriers. But there is a lack of conversation stifles creativity and possibility. Furthermore, many of the concerns about home-based testing already exist: many people do not follow-up with care, and the current tracking system is not accurate (notice the sharp increase in the estimates of newly-infected last year from 40,000 to 56,000 – still just estimates), nor is it timely as it tends to track where the leading edge of the virus has already been, not where it is going next. Finally, if the current system worked well, there would be no need for this conversation.
Cynically, I have to say that what I have seen is this: the very people who were demanding more action twenty years ago to get government to do something, still will make demands, but have also staked a turf around testing and do not want to see that go away. I don’t think that there is a real consciousness on the parts of the people working in these systems to do this: I really think it is more a matter of a movement becoming an institution (and perhaps becoming a bit of a racket).
One of my favorite expressions: Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. Other than when applied to computers, this generally holds true. I am not saying that home-based, self-administered testing will solve all the problems. But I do think it can bring about a new level of dialog and passion. That’s what we are venturing into (see www.dontguess-test.com). Join us.

Gays

2009-04-15T10:48:00.001-07:00

In this morning's Washington Post, some military folks wrote an editorial about gays in the military - and how they should not be allowed (see http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/04/14/AR2009041402704.html). What is most interesting for me is not so much what these writers adhere to (and the amazing loopholes in their thinking - it's not as if you can tell who's gay by his/her skin color, and it is not uncommon for people to come to grips with their sexual orientation at about the same time they would be in the military); what is most interesting are the comments made by readers. They are a clear example of the desperate need for the art of dialog. I have written before that love and logic will be the means through which our world will come together; both of these are necessary. Unfortunately, we too often start with logic; I think we need to start more with love, and then engage in dialog. (Perhaps one of the internal dialogs could also be that we actually support no gays in the military as a starting point to getting everyone out?)

I also think learning, practicing and engaging in dialog that is led by love is something that those of us who are truly passionate about non-violence and doing what we can to remove the occasions for future violence should start to embrace. Anywhere we turn in the world, it seems that there is an edge of violence in the air, and we can expect more as people become more fearful, and more vulnerable. I know that for many, glbt issues are not at the forefront of people's minds but, as with HIV-prevention, I think that how we can engage in these issues can be good opportunities for practicing how to deal with some of the more difficult issues. The issues are becoming more prominent in the media (two examples: http://www.advocate.com/news_detail_ektid78359.asp, and http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/04/14/AR2009041403455.html), so we may as well get involved.

Progress on Gay Rights

2009-04-08T10:31:00.000-07:00

Over the past few months, there has been an enormous amount of movement on the rights of same gender-couples to get married. We all know about California and the voter decision to support Prop 8. There was also, in November, legislation in Florida and Arizona that put various restrictions on same gender families. But then, this week alone, Iowa courts and Vermont legislature made same-gender marriage a reality in those states. The District of Columbia is taking similar action. On a national level, there has been increased discussion about letting civil unions be the rule of the land for all people, and marriages be the acts of churches - a compromise that for many seems to have merit.

At the same time, in Iraq, (see NYTimes article: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/08/world/middleeast/08gay.html?_r=1&emc=eta1) there is a backlash in some of the more conservative regions against gay men. As quoted from the article: "Clerics in Sadr City have urged followers to help root out homosexuality in Iraqi society, and the police have begun their own crackdown on gay men. 'Homosexuality is against the law,' said Lt. Muthana Shaad, at a police station in the Karada district, a neighborhood that has become popular with gay men. 'And it’s disgusting.' For the past four months, he said, officers have been engaged in a 'campaign to clean up the streets and get the beggars and homosexuals off them.'”

All progress has elements of violent reactivity. No doubt that there is a rapid change in the expansion of gay rights, but we can expect an increase in reactivity as well, unfortunately. It always seems to be a part of the struggle.

I think it is important that we as Friends and Friend-communities look to see what we can do to support the movement. Paradoxically, I do not think that what we should do is create a litmus test for gay marriage. I just don't think society as a whole is there yet. But I think we can create allies for gay marriage among those whom are not yet there, but who are repulsed by people such as Fred Phelps (see www.godhatesfags.com), and by the attitudes of Lt. Shaad as quoted in the Times. Patience and perseverance will get us there, with a dash of faith. We know that opponents to gay marriage are gearing up, and their tactic is going to be to divide, and let gay marriage be the dividing issue. If we react along these lines, rather than continue to reach across these lines to those who are not at the far extreme but just on other side of the line, we will do more harm than good. To react divisively plays right into the "us vs. them" game. I, for one, will continue to look to expand who the "us" is rather than focus on "them".

Voting Rights vs. Statehood

2009-02-25T08:43:00.000-08:00

As recently as Sunday afternoon (three days ago), I would have been much more joyful about the prospect of the citizens of Washington, DC getting a vote in the House of Representatives, and very skeptical of the notion of statehood ("are you kidding me? A governor, statehouse, two senators, etc., all for one city?" I thought).

Then, along comes Mike Brown, one of the Districts two elected "Shadow senators", and within 15 minutes, there goes my worldview (again!) Here's what I quickly learned:

1. Getting a vote on the house floor will not effectively change the governmental structure of the District, nor will it give the government any more autonomy.
2. The trade-off at the house level is that Utah will be granted a new seat in the house as well, giving that state 4 seats (and almost assuredly a Republican seat knowing that Utah is, by voting record, the most Republican state in the nation).

So, while the citizens of the District will most assuredly now have a voting person in congress, the District government will be no more autonomous, and in fact could very-well be further away from that autonomy. Why? Becuase on a national level there could very much be a sense that now that there is a voting voice in the House, the District should just be quiet about any other complaints.

What other complaints could there be? Well, here's three examples:
1. This city, with its high rates of HIV, cannot establish its own policies regarding such things as needle-exchange programs (which have been proven to be effective in reducing HIV-transmission). Thankfully, last year, President Bush authorized needle-exchange for the district, but it should not come to this.
2. The district cannot tax the incomes of people who work in the district but live in Maryland and Virginia. This is the only city in the country not doing this. As the Brookings Institute pointed out, it's like a restaurant being forced to serve all-comers, but only being able to charge one-third of the clientele.
3. The federal government effectively can establish gun laws in the District, moreso than in any other city.

This lack of autonomy effects so many things, including environmental policies, water policies, education policies, and the list goes on.

This city has so many challenges - internally and externally. It is a very divided city (just sit in Starbucks in Potomac Palisades, and Starbucks by Eastern Market, and you'll see the difference - and that's just within Starbucks). It has such a long history of disenfranchisement. That history continues. So, while it seems certain that there will finally be a DC voice (1 in 436) on the House floor, and Holmes-Norton may finally get her wish, it may be the long-time citizens of the District who will continue to suffer.

A model of non-violence is detained

2009-02-09T13:44:00.000-08:00

Over this past weekend, I heard through the facebook network that Phil Rizk, someone I had known when he was at Wheaton College, had been abducted by the Egyptian police. The circumstances surrounding Phil’s detention are still not clear, and are unfolding as I write this. Phil’s parents have gone to Cairo to be with his sister and to do what they can to get Phil released (Phil is half-Egyptian and half-German). Amnesty International has sent lawyers in to protect the family from unwarranted harassment by the police (who were apparently trying to force Phil’s father to go with them to the police station as well, and were doing illegal searches of home and office without warrants). Technology (in this case facebook) has allowed hundreds of us who know Phil to follow things minute by minute. It has been as eye-opening as it is troubling to get e-mails and updates of what is happening in the moment, as opposed to an event that is in the recent past, for example, seeing posting from Phil’s sister asking people to make calls for an immediate intervention.
I first met Phil in late 2002. He was a junior at Wheaton College, and had become actively involved in Student Global AIDS Campaign fresh on the heels of Bono’s Midwest AIDS/Poverty caravan. Phil and a fellow student, Brian Davis, were the two early leaders of SGAC on this Christian campus, and were also two of the handful of students who fairly quickly looked beyond AIDS in Africa, building relationships with local people with HIV (such as myself) and local services (such as the one I was working for). The passion, compassion, and thoughtfulness of Phil and Brian (I also need to mention John Campen here as well) opened my eyes to something I had not expected: openness, respectfulness, and a profound dedication to service and making the world a better place. All three of them continue to be models for doing what Quaker author Parker Palmer wrote about – letting one’s life speak. John remains dedicated to his love of music and his dedication to family – sharing the joys and the struggles with friends and family while addressing some of the social and corporate inequities of our world. Brian has spent much of his post-college career with his now-wife Susan in Kenya and Uganda committed to serving others, most recently opening up a cyber-café in Uganda that is both a social and a training center for youth. He and Susan have also included me in family events both in Illinois and in Kenya, further crumbling the misperceptions I had about Christians and not just tolerance but real acceptance of sexual diversity.
But it is Phil I really want to write about. While I have kept in some contact with Brian and John over the years, I lost touch with Phil. After helping open the door for Wheaton College to get involved in HIV/AIDS work, I remember Phil spending his last winter college break in Iraq – this was after the US invasion. Phil went on a mission trip to try and bring healing and reconciliation through community-building. After that, we maybe saw each other once more before he graduated. Then, earlier this year, came across a blog written by Phil. Apparently he had been spending much of his time in the West Bank, mainly, from what I could tell, writing about the impact that the Israeli/Hamas battles were having on Palestinians. He has also done some films that are meant to simply bear witness to the day-do-day lives of people caught in the crossfire (To see more, go to http://www.thedailynewsegypt.com/article.aspx?ArticleID=18931) It seems that it is because of some of these writings and films, and his subsequent involvement in calls for action that focused on human rights over nationalism, that he has been apprehended (he was part of a demonstration in Cairo over the weekend; all the other demonstrators were released).
For those of us who consider ourselves pacifists, I think all three of these young men are models for us, and in very different ways. John demonstrates the importance of caring for family and friends (it was John who first drew my attention to Phil’s plight), and Brian completely dedicates and immerses himself in what he does. Unlike so many people who stay in the comfort of their own homes and try to solve problems elsewhere, Brian and Susan have completely dedicated their lives to what they are doing.

Phil takes this to an entirely different level. He has gone into the heart of conflict – first Iraq, then the West Bank – not to engage in military conflict, but to intervene on behalf of human rights. A quote from the article linked above says it best about Phil’s latest movie: The other unspoken message that Rizk captures through his lens is a creed of nonviolent resistance that each of the individuals portrayed in the film have made part of their daily lives. In continuing to cultivate fields, rebuild destroyed homes and simply refusing to yield their places on the land to others, these Palestinians embody a relentless steadfastness, shunning the weapons of their adversaries that would’ve automatically allowed the world to question their moral authority had they been employed. For Rizk, showing the rootedness of nonviolent resistance in the lives of his characters was a central aim of the film. “We wanted to address the fact that violent forms of resistance, widely reported by international media outlets, overshadow more common non-violent forms of Palestinian resistance like sumoud, longsuffering and perseverance in the face of Israeli occupation,” he explained.

Military soldiers are often noted for what they are willing to die for. Each one of these men are models of what it is to commit your life to something, at great personal sacrifice and commitment. When I think about the Quaker youth that we work with, and all youth who refuse military service, I think about people like Brian, John and Phil who also do not pick up guns as service. But they also do not pick up protest signs from the comfort of a safe place. They put themselves out there. And, as we have seen over the weekend with Phil, at great peril. It is a reminder to me of what true pacifism is all about – not just standing on the sidelines in judgment, but a full-on life-and-death commitment to create a better world through non-violence no matter what the personal costs. At times over the past 7 years, they have been my inspirations to step out my comfort zone, and to really see what my commitment is to a more just world. Especially these days, perhaps we can all look to Phil as the ultimate model, and pray that he can continue to be that model.

Unjust Prejudices

2009-02-03T15:43:00.000-08:00

The other morning, I was sitting in Meeting for Worship, and there was a man sitting doing some kind of knitting. This completely disturbed me and was something I have noticed about. It is completely against everything I believe and stand for to have the kinds of reactions that I have to men knitting. I try to really promote and live that we love and accept things as they are without judgment. Heck, as a gay man living with HIV, who am I to sit in judgment of anyone? But when it comes to men knitting, I struggle.

So, what do I do? I think I have found an answer that works for me, at least for now. Rather than try to repress my negative feelings that morning, I reveled in them. I let the vision of me going up to this complete stranger, slapping the needles out of his hands, and saying "what the heck is wrong with you?" As I did this, what I released was not a cathartic sense of my righteousness, but instead the complete absurdity of my prejudice. Am I completely over it? No way. But what is different, is I have embraced my prejudice - my emotional reactivity - for what it is, just silly and funny. I have defused its potency. I think when we deny our prejudices, the repression may come back to bite us. It's tricky business. It's not pleasant to admit we have prejudices, but we all do. Perhaps when we can learn to accept them, we can learn to dishonor them and laugh at them. At least, for me for right now, it's a way to move through it and perhaps now connect in a deeper, more meaningful way with the male knitters of the world.

Inaug-Blog

2009-01-27T12:49:00.000-08:00

Well hello there. It’s been a while. I’m still around, being anal about little things like jelly dishes and slacking off on important things like laundry. Despite working in a community that’s fecund with social justice study and discussion, I find that my loves are still the same: food and psychology. So I’ll write about my inauguration experience and hope that you’re not a DC native because this will likely be inaug-tale number 129 for you.

The day before Obama’s induction, once some financial duties were sloppily completed, I ran off into the cold to accomplish two things: 1) Get my inauguration ticket from my representaitive’s office and 2) see if I could get in to see Aretha Franklin at the Kennedy Center (after which I could die a happy, happy girl).

You’ve really got to pay attention to this Southeast, Northwest, etc. thing in DC. You might be looking forward to an evening of smooth jazz and instead find yourself at Frank’s Cubicle Storage in a squalid riverside community in Southeast. That day, in my haste, I failed to note that the representative’s office was a very quick, four-block walk from William Penn House rather than on some non-existent 2nd Street section downtown. “Funny, there isn’t supposed to be a tunnel here...” Toward the end of my search I was running through the crowds in a frenzy, upset and harried, before a kind café owner told me that I was a good fifteen minute walk from my 3:00 deadline. It was 2:57.

Defeated, almost broken, I decided not to be a weenie and keep trying for my second goal. The office would be open again tomorrow morning, and calorie burning will justify almost any presumably useless trip.

The first train rumbled in. Full to the brim. The second train came in. Almost empty. Weird…but OK. I spent the rest of the afternoon (no tickets left for Aretha of course) wandering around in a peevish haze, people watching and trying not to think too hard about how much time I’d wasted.

The following morning I woke up at 6:00am to get the ticket, which was just as easy as walking into a country corner store and buying a Zagnut bar. A memory came rushing in: The day before, I walked past that very same building on my way to the imaginary rep’s office and thought, “Hm I wonder what all those people are waiting in line for?”

Now, as ex-boyfriends and family members will tell you, when I don’t get enough sleep, I am a grumpy, unpleasant human being. On inauguration day, I was downright unlikable. Stupid inauguration. Stupid ticket. Stupid crowds of people. Stupid moment in history. But I headed down. When I reached the inseparable, unorganized lines of ticket-holders down by the Capitol Building (a.k.a the “ticket-thicket”), a patient, neighbor-loving crowd swept me up in their mass and had me going in some direction that was neither planned nor desired. Thank God for the group of friends behind me who, equally disoriented, called out “School of fish! Change directions!”

Somewhere down by the freeway (where it appeared zombies had attacked the city and throngs were waiting in line to escape to the epidemic) I lost my ticket. Yes, yes, yes – rib me if you like, but there it is…and I almost turned around. Not because I was grieving the loss of my chance to stand in a dreary line of over 1,000 people, but because this crowd crap wasn’t my thing. I wandered a little further in a state of indecision, and down around 7th Street I saw something; a beautifully plump young black girl with short blonde hair, blue contacts and glossy, glossy lips. Unmistakably, she was one of the more conspicuous subjects of my people watching from the day before, all the way up at the Kennedy Center. “Alright God. Let’s do this then.”

The poor man’s section down by the Washington Monument turned out to be way more sunny, hot chocolate-filled fun than the ticketed Silver Section ever could have been, and the sight and feel of that day will be with me forever.

So here’s to mistakes, here’s to the absent mind that God gave me and here’s to a new president who is already ruling in a spirit of intelligence and tolerance. With any luck, he’ll stick to the running the country, and I’ll stick to folding laundry…sometimes.

But Who Is My Neighbor?

2009-01-21T22:49:00.000-08:00

“And who is my neighbor?"
-Luke 10:29

A couple Saturdays ago a committee member bought up this passage from Luke during a discussion about the Washington Quaker Workcamps Program that I coordinate. Over the rest of the day I thought about this passage and how it related to my previous week.

In many ways, I had spent that week with my diverse neighbors without fully realizing it.

During the week, I started working on a Convergent Friends workcamp for high school age Friends that will take place here in July. The focus of the workcamp will be about living out the Friends Testimonies in the 21st Century, because through the past several years that has been a recurring theme in conversations I have had with Friends from all branches who are in high school and college.

Also about the same time I started emailing with a youth leader from a programmed meeting about organizing a workcamp for her meeting's youth group about what it means to be Quaker and Christian in the US and the impact it has and can have. In our dialogue about the workcamp, we had to overcome both of our preconceived notions about each other's background to find out our similarities. I realized during our conversation is that the workcamp I am planning for July will be based more on our common Quaker beliefs and letting our life speak than on the differences that divide us as a religion. Once we can see our similarities in each other we can start to see how we can connect on a deeper level.

On Tuesday that week, I participated in a peace vigil with a friend to remind the incoming Congress about the lives that are still being lost in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. We marched in silent around the Capitol bearing the names of the dead. Ironically I had to leave this vigil early, because I had to attend a meeting at a military hospital located in NW Washington. At the meeting I asked about ways that the workcamp program could be involved with the hospital and what groups could do for the wounded soldiers and their families.

The next day I went to a very small memorial vigil for a homeless man, who I met at the Friends Meeting of Washington once. On Christmas Eve, he was found beaten to death. This murder largely went unnoticed. No articles in the Post. A Friend saw an article about it and she thought the name sounded familiar, so she let the listserv know. Two vigils were immediately planned for this man that the meeting barely knew. At the vigil I went to, three of us gathered in the cold rain to remember this man who died on the streets from a senseless act of violence.

As I thought back, I realized that week consisted of spending time with my neighbors, whether in person, by email, or in memory, whether I agreed or disagreed with them or even if I knew them at all, because they are fellow human beings, children of the Light, like me.

The week also left me with some queries for fellow Friends:

Why do we attend other churches for interfaith events in our communities, but not another Friends meeting or church of another branch than us down the street?

Why do we show compassion for the injured victims of war, but not for the injured soldiers that are sent to fight? Aren't they themselves victims of this war industry?

Why did a man have to die on the cold December streets? If we could organize two vigils to remember him by, why couldn't we invite him into our homes for a warm place to rest?

Witness to an Inauguration

2009-01-21T03:36:00.000-08:00

January 20, 2009 is a day that will long be remembered for changing the world. How much? Much of that depends on us, and some of the events of this day are perhaps windows to both our challenges and our opportunities.

Below are some random observations and musings along these lines:

• “Me” vs. “We”; there were lines everywhere to get into any part of the Capital Mall to see and hear the festivities and swearing-in. And there were incredible struggles among the crowd to make sure that we as individuals were a part of it, and to honor President Obama’s call for unity. The struggle was palpable, as people tried to balance the commitment to something bigger than ourselves with wanting to be so much a part of it. I think that this will be the monumental struggle for our society if we are going to do all we can to heed Obama’s leadings. He is going to call on us to be a community, but we are used to being individuals.
• Boos for Bush – as he was introduced, there were plenty of boos for Bush. I certainly understand the pent up frustration – this presidency will easily go down as the worst two-term ever, if not the worst ever. Outcomes, not effort, really are important here, and he has left an absolute mess. But he has had a lot of accomplices, and much as we might not like to admit it, one thing he was trying to do was maintain the American way of life. Instead, he exposed us for what we can be at our worst. The fact is we cannot change our world effectively for the better unless we can look honestly at who we are. He helped us to see much of the worst of ourselves – addicted to oil, potential for greed, arrogant, easily swayed by fear. Sometimes we only learn things by suffering from the consequences of them. So, as Obama calls us to a higher level (even a national maturation from our adolescence) we all have to look at what lessons are to be learned. I don’t think an Obama election would have been possible for another 12 years were it not for Bush showing us at our worst. We as a nation put him in power (I know, most of us didn’t vote for him, but it’s still our system), and many of our elected officials went along, and let’s face it, for decades we’ve all benefited from this way of life).
• There was a lot of Quakerism during the event, not that Quakers hold any license to these things. First there was the inaugural poem which spoke of light and love. And then, there was the musical performance of Simple Gifts, the unofficial Quaker anthem that is an old Shaker song. (The irony – a simple song, praising simple things, turned into a masterful musical piece – what I’m trying to say is a simple theme but not simple to play). I think in many ways, Obama may help Friends to see that of God in all things, as he reaches out across ideologies, parties and nations.
• Cameras, cell phones, and leaving early: It was interesting to observe people trying to capture moments, rather than being in the moments. The former involves cell phones and cameras – really distractions from being in the moment. From where I was standing, for example, the view was really not great. I could see the main stage, but no one was distinguishable. The jumbotron was barely visible, and far away. And I’m 6’2”. Most people could not even see that. But arms were raised, cameras clicking, cell phones going with messages (the system was overloaded). Then, there were people who just seemed to “be”. Listening meditatively, many with tears. It was a reminder to me of the importance of both. I chose to just be. It moved my heart.
• My favorite line of the inaugural speech: the old way of doing things will not serve. It’s not a matter of less or more government; it’s “does government work?” This is a paraphrased quote, but the essence is I think what Obama will be all about. Barack Obama is not an ideologue: I think he will challenge Democrats and Republicans to come together in ways that are going to be real hard for people. We are so used to being divided, and not talking to our adversaries. He’s going to talk to everyone.
• Last night, as I was waiting for an hour for a bus in the cold (traffic problems), I saw countless limousines, tuxes, and lines for balls. Funny thing in NW DC: so much celebration, but done with wealth, and crowds mostly white. I suspect that if Obamanation really takes root, this too may all have to change. Think about how many hungry people could have been fed last night with all that money going elsewhere.

We have seen ourselves at our worst over the last 28 years (yes, 28!), as a nation. While Clinton was a bit of a respite, he did little to stem American hedonism (it’s not part of his nature – he is more of a “if it feels good, do it” kind of guy, and under his administration we saw the explosion of big cars, big houses, dot-com millionaires getting rich off of nothing, and far less done for AIDS, the environment and energy than could have been done, especially given the post-administration popularity for both him and Gore).

As Obama-nation sets in, I suspect it’s going to be like waking up with a hangover. We hold our heads, look around, and say “what the hell happened”. Then as the head clears, we are going to have some hard lessons – about greed and compassion. I think Obama can set the road map, but it is up to us to see it through, and that’s going to be a lot of change on our part. Many Democrats/liberals I know are already disappointed with his “moderate” actions so far (i.e. Rick Warren). I think Obama is operating on a whole different level – on a plane that is not liberal-moderate-conservative, but all of us. He can’t do this unless we are all willing to show up, and instead of “demand for me”, dialogue in a way that I am heard, you are heard, we all are heard, and then we can discern, together, a way that collectively meets basic needs first. We do need all hands on deck, not 51% beating 49% into submission. I’m optimistic that yesterday set us on that course.

Submitted by Brad

"Gay bishop...

2009-01-15T17:34:00.001-08:00

"Gay bishop will kick of inauguration event" was the title of the e-mail that came in to my inbox from Human Rights Campaign.

Is that all that Bishop Robinson is?

There's not a whole lot to ponder about or to profoundly say about this. It is a sad commentary, I think, on the myopic vision of an organization as big as HRC that is supposedly out there representing all of us. It does speak to how I think the institutionalization of a cause ends up demeaning and dehumanizing the very people it is meant to serve (I've seen this in AIDS work as well).

Change

2009-01-13T04:48:00.000-08:00

I noticed on one of the DC buses recently an ad for Ikea. The message of the ad was “Embrace Change. Change begins at home”. I’ve also recently noticed both Coke and Pepsi are latching on to the “community” and “change” message. British Petroleum, the gas company, changed their logo a few years ago to look like some combination of sun and leaves, promoting a feeling of environmental awareness. Some other company had a “pay-it-forward” kind of ad (where a good deed comes around). All around us, the corporate world seems to be creating a feel-good message of change and community. Clearly, they are responding to something that is going on in our society and world. But we need to be careful. Yes, change is afoot, but the change that I think we are facing, is not just to feel good about drinking coke or shopping at Ikea. It’s got to be something much deeper, and I don’t know that I’ve seen much of that. Yet.

What I have seen is this: the same unfriendliness, impatience, and mean-spiritidness. Walking down the street and greeting people still garners no response. Bikers on the bike path still rarely announce their passing (except for the occasional bell-ring). Most amusing (and disappointing) is seeing the impatient, racing, horn-beeping driver with the “Yes We Can” and “Change” bumper sticker. It reminds me of the tail-gating Sunday morning driver in Wheaton IL who, when given the marginal opening to pass, displays a Christian fish on the back. Impatiently and rudely racing to church to be a good Christian.

See, the kind of change I think we need to be making is not a transactional change, but a transformational change. Transactional change is all externally-focused. It’s replacing a gas-guzzler with a hybrid. For someone like me, it’s taking HIV-medication to stay alive. For our society, it’s electing Barack Obama. For the above-mentioned corporations, it’s about buying their products.

Transformational change, however, is much more difficult, but is also much more lasting. For me, it includes:
• Being kinder, more loving.
• Not just driving a hybrid, but driving less and using alternative transportation more.
• Don’t just buy differently (paying attention to the social and environmental impact of the purchases), but perhaps consume less.
• Not just taking medication, but taking care of the spirit and soul, as well as doing exercise and attending to nutrition. And also increasingly being ok with the impermanence of life. Everything here could be a whole book.
In essence, transformational change really is an internal change, one that moves from being eternally dissatisfied to being eternally grateful, with a commitment to making all that we see in the world as kinder, better, less harmful, more peaceful. It is part existential – there is no “there” – and very spiritual.

It is going to be interesting to see how this plays out in the next two to four years. Clearly, the election of Obama creates an opportunity for change. But, are we going to look to him to be all the change we need, or are we going to look at this time as the opportunity to truly, fundamentally change the way we all live and work? Crisis is always a good time to look at these things, and we are certainly facing one of those, financially. Already, Obama has challenged us to be more open, more inclusive. He’s got Rick Warren and Bishop Gene Robinson (the “gay bishop”) participating in inaugural events. He’s going to call on us to make the change happen. Are we going to be there to make Obama a success? Or are we going to sit by, and watch with disappointment as we let him fail? As Gandhi said, “You must be the change you wish to see in the world”. Now is the time. If we want to see a more peaceful, more kind, more friendly, more just world, it’s going to be up to us to start living it.

Who's going to save who?

2009-01-08T05:32:00.001-08:00

In this week's New Yorker Magazine, there is an article called "Greening the Ghetto" (see http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/01/12/090112fa_fact_kolbert). It's about Van Jones, founder and president of a group called "Green for All".

Green, a forty year old African-American ("a youthful version of Barack Obama) is quoted in the article, while talking to a group of high school dropouts in New Bedford, MA, a depressed old whaling town as saying:
"I love Barack Obama. I'd pay money just to shine his shoes. But I'll tell you this. Do you hear me? One man is not going to save us. I don't care who that man is. He's not going to save us. And, in fact, if you want to be real about this - can y'all take it? I'm going to be real with y'all. Not only is Barack Obama not going to save you - you are going to have to save Barack Obama." He goes on to tell this gathering that they can be leaders in the green movement and the next wave of entrepeneurs, and at the same time make Obama a success.

For me, this is a powerful message that we can all take note of. Among Quakers and other like-minded people, I have had a sense that Obama is being looked at as a savior (this the presence of Obama signs at Friends gatherings?). Even at a recent pot-luck, the discussion was about what Obama needs to do to be inclusive of the poor outside the US in order to shift the flow of violence in the world. I think the reality is, as Jones says, we've got this wrong, and if we simply sit and observe how well Obama does, we are going to be horribly disappointed (many already are by some of his appointments).

The fact is, to date, Obama has actually been very true to his campaign pledges: he said he would bring in diverse people and he never said he was for gay marriage, so the Warren announcement is not necessarily flip-flopping. What Obama also said throughout the campaign is that the work ahead is going to require all of our best efforts, and he cannot do it alone.

I would like to think that the fundamental change that can happen - but it has to happen quickly - is that, rather than consider what opportunities does Obama have to change the world, let us consider what opportunities his election has created for all of us to change the world. We now have someone who will support changes in fuel and consumption patterns, and who will encourage greater inclusivity in our communities and in the world. So far, I don't think that "we" as a collective nation have responded well. Many have slammed Obama for his inclusiveness. More importantly, there has been a lot of chatter on the internet about telling Obama what he needs to do. Really, it's about, ok, now that we have elected him, what do we need to do to save him? If he asks us to be patient; if he asks us to make changes in our lives; if he asks us to reach out to others in our community to do it; if he asks us to stop being so angry and fearful, but instead loving; if he asks us to drive less and ride bikes or walk more, will we do all these things? If he asks all of us to get tested for HIV, will we line up (just think, if the whole nation did this in a year, we could dramatically stop the spread of HIV).

I think Jones has got it right: We need to save Obama. For each one of us, that means it's time to get busy not focusing so much on what others need to do, but on what we - or more importantly, I - need to do fundamentally different.

Obama and Rick Warren

2008-12-28T03:07:00.000-08:00

I often find myself, as the "gay guy who has worked with evangelicals", being asked my opinion about Rick Warren being such a visible part of the upcoming inauguration. Here are some of my responses:

1. I fully understand the disappointment and anger, especially on the heels of the passage of Proposition 8.

2. I'm not sure it's fair to say that Obama has "turned" on anything as much as partisans on the left (including glbt advocates) were blinded by their own zeal. Obama has been to Saddleback a few times (including HIV testing w/Sen Brownback a few years ago). Obama never said he supports same-sex marriage - in fact he has said the opposite. He certainly never claimed to make gay rights a priority.

3. I'm not sure that Obama is simply trying to woo people who did not support him. Obama won California fairly easily, but Prop 8 also passed. Clearly, many Obama supporters voted for Prop 8. I'm guessing if Obama were more assertive about gay rights, he would have had a narrower victory.

4. On a more "Quaker" level, anger is divisive. Is it our role, as Quakers, to necessarily have to choose sides on this issue, or can we find a more loving response? Rather than lament and fight, what if we were to instead say "this decision has been made. What is ours to do now?"

5. I think the gay community would do well to understand that there have been so many advancements over the past decade that society needs a rest. We are on a positive course without a doubt, and within ten years all will be well. In the meantime, let's step up responsibility rhetoric, rather than rights. An example? Let's step up HIV-prevention. There's too much complacency and even complicitness in the gay bars, pornography, and internet. We cannot simply sit back and blame the government for the continuing spread of HIV in the gay community.

6. Finally, I think the Warren announcement gives pause: let's look at the entirety of this person and of the movement. Much is being exposed. Warren has done a lot for poverty and AIDS. He (and moreso his wife, Kay) have talked of being open and loving to people with AIDS. How does this settle with judgment of those at-risk for HIV: do they need to get HIV for us to care? Warren has also been clear that his belief does come with questioning. In addition, I know many evangelical Christians who are also upset by this announcement, and also many non-evangelicals who have really liked Warren's work and now are re-thinking that because they did not know his stance on glbt marriage. Anything that exposes where we truly are in society, I think is a good thing.

Basically, I think this, along with the passage of Prop 8, are quickly going to be "2steps back, 4 steps forward". We are already seeing this as a new level of dialog has emerged about gay rights, the fullness of people like Rick Warren, how he differs from the Pat Robertson/James Dobson crowd, and the hypocricy of being a "leader" in the fight against AIDS while being against gay rights. An example is Frank Rich's column (12/28/08) where he says: "Equally lame is the argument mounted by an Obama spokeswoman, Linda Douglass, who talks of how Warren has fought for 'people who have H.I.V./AIDS.' Shouldn’t that be the default position of any religious leader? Fighting AIDS is not a get-out-of-homophobia-free card. That Bush finally joined Bono in doing the right thing about AIDS in Africa does not mitigate the gay-baiting of his 2004 campaign, let alone his silence and utter inaction when the epidemic was killing Texans by the thousands, many of them gay men, during his term as governor." Bringing the long needed discussion of the separation of AIDS work from the people who get HIV/AIDS and how they get it to the forefront can only be a good thing.

I think, ultimately, a lot of good can come from this. What will only delay the progress from here is letting anger get the best of us.

Reflections on Homelessness at the beginning of winter

2008-12-23T22:38:00.000-08:00

On Sunday night I attended the Homeless People Memorial Service in front of Union Station with a group from Alliance Friends Church (Ohio). The memorial service was to remember the fifty people who died on the streets of DC during the last year. The organizations planning the service held it on Sunday night, because it was the longest night of the year. During the service, there were speakers from several organization serving the homeless in DC and former homeless people speaking about their experiences on the streets. The messages themselves were very eloquent.

Attending the service was the last event of the weekend workcamp that focused on homelessness for the Ohio group. During the weekend, we painted at Maurine's house, an elderly lady with an low income, at Friends Meeting of Washington preparing shoe boxes for residents of the DC area homeless shelter and then help serve a Christmas Meal at Martha's Table.

For me this event was a good closing to the weekend, because it serves as a important reminder that I need to do more to help out in DC. It is not enough to serve the homeless, but we need to find ways to help end the causes of homelessness and create a support network to help keep people off of the streets.

The most powerful part of the whole night was the background of this entire event. Behind the speakers, the dome of the US Capitol was lighted up. As one of the speakers noted, the US Capitol is the seat of the most powerful government in the world. On this evening, for me the juxtaposition of the Capitol behind the memorial service further illustrated the injustice that exists in the US. The government has enough money to bail out businesses who went bankrupt, businesses that further the pay inequality between CEOs and their workers and many who still engage in practices that led to their own bankruptcy, but it does not have enough money to house the most vulnerable of the population.

The Moral Majority has said in many ways over the past couple decades that we have a moral problem in the US. I am in total agreement with them, but for completely different reasons. How do we as an nation let people sleep on the streets and die on the streets? We are the richest nation in the world, but we do not want to house and feed everyone. Notice that I said do not want to, instead of can not, because we can definitely find ways and money to house everyone if that was actually a priority in this country. Actually if the US really wanted to, we could fund a global hunger campaign to end hunger forever in this world. It would only cost a couple B-2 bombers.

There are some great ideas to end homelessness here in the District. Earlier this year DC Mayor Fenty introduced the Housing First Initiative. The goal of this initiative aims to end homelessness in DC by housing the most chronic homeless people in supportive housing, mostly apartments. This idea was based off of a program that New York City implemented to help their homeless people. But with the recent downturn in the economic, the first thing cut from the budget was the initiative.

To add insult to this whole issue is the fact earlier this fall, the DC City Government and the Washington Nationals struck a deal on back rent that the baseball team owed to the city. The agreement ended up with the city actually paying for more improvements on their stadium than the back rent the team would pay. This money would have benefited homeless families more instead of helping a team that pays its players more than $54 million every year.

We need to do more as a community and as a nation so that next year we do not have to have another memorial service to mourn the deaths of more homeless people due to the weather.

Something for Me to Do

2008-12-09T14:04:00.000-08:00

My internship at the William Penn House will end in January. It has been an amazing 18 months of growing and learning.

I could talk about all the practical things I have done here. That is my inclination- I am a beaver. I’ve folded countless sheets and towels. Washed a lot of dishes. I am now an expert email-writer and phone-answerer. I co-clerked a planning committee for a nation wide young adult Friend’s inter-branch conference. I helped plan a retreat here for young adult Friends who are currently working for Quaker organizations. I’ve traveled to multiple yearly meetings and gatherings of Friends representing the House. I scheduled a multitude of appointments for college groups and then had students following me around DC like ducklings. I have seen a lot of guests come and go. I could talk about all of this “doing” but there is sometime much more important and lasting about my time at the William Penn House.

When I graduated from college in the spring of 2007 I was sure that I was headed for a career in academia. That is what I was comfortable with, what I loved, what I knew. I was the student, and that was all. When graduate school plans were not realized I felt lost and unsure about the next step in my life. Thankfully, in the twists and turns of the internet I found the William Penn House. It seemed like a great opportunity to live right in the heart of a big city, get out of Ohio and doing something related to my Quaker faith.

Those expectations were certainly met in my time here, but there have been other ways being here has changed and challenged me that I did not foresee coming. Suddenly I had free time to fill with things other than homework and studying. Suddenly I was far away from my friends of four years. Suddenly I was living and working in the same place. It was a much larger transition than I had anticipated. Who was I now if I wasn’t a student?

I could not imagine a better place to try and figure out the answers to that question than here at the WPH. With all the skills and gifts I thought I was bringing to the House, the House has been willing to invest in me and my development. I have found work here that is meaningful and fulfilling. I have learned to do small things like laundry and dishes as a meditative practice, instead of as something below me. I have had the chance to try new things- like planning a national inter-branch YAF conference and traveling to difference yearly meetings and colleges to represent the House. I have gained skills in communication and reflection by living with others. Encouraged by my mentors here, I have become more attuned to what I am feeling and needing in each moment. I have been able to put into words what I feel called to do and be in my life.

Dorothea Dix said that “In a world where there is so much to be done, I felt strongly impressed that there much be something for me to do.” That is the greatest gift from my time here. The WPH has allowed me to do deep searching to figure out what I am supposed to do and then as it fits with the mission of the House they have given me the skills, time and opportunity to live that out. For that I am extremely grateful.

A New Kind of Quaker

2008-11-19T13:31:00.000-08:00

This last weekend I traveled to Greensboro, North Carolina for "A New Kind of Quaker." Most of those gathered there were young adult Friends from the eastern part of the country. We were joined though be a good number of older Friends who were interested inter-generational conversation. The conference was very short, taking up only Friday night and Saturday till dinner time and consisted mostly of workshops and a little bit of open worship. Many of us however extended our time there by visiting F(f)riends on Thursday and Friday and hearing Nathan Sebens preach at First Friends on Sunday. For me, those extended times of fellowship were during meals, before bed and during car rides were some of the weekend's best moments.

I spent Thursday and then later Sunday night at Pickard's Mountain, an organic teaching farm, where several YAFs work and live. It was exciting to see Friends living out the testimonies of simplicity and peace as they live off the grid in yomes (a mix between a yurt and a geodesic dome) and raise a portion of the food they eat. I realized that here at the William Penn House I have grown use to the noise of passing traffic and the lights of the city. At the farm the full moon lit up our surroundings and we could see the stars and we played a board game by the light of candles. On Friday morning we worshiped together outside in the garden next to the goats. Often in the city I get disconnected from nature, but at the farm I was always in and apart of it.

The conference itself began with a talk by Betsy Blake, a time of small group worship sharing and finally open worship together. I found myself, in the silence after Betsy shared, longing to stay in worship together, instead of break up into small groups. I felt like I should stand up and offer this to Friends, but was scared. Scared of appearing rude, scared of changing the schedule, and so I didn't. Now looking back on it, I regret not being more faithful to the leading of the Spirit. As Friends, are we not supposed to be open to where God is leading us in the moment? And yet I thought that asking for the schedule to be changed would be stepping on others toes.

Much of the weekend felt this way to me, rushing from one thing to the next. The question that many Friends seem to have came with to this weekend was "What is God calling us to?" There were many workshops that talked this issue up and down. I represented Evangelical Friends on a inter-branch panel and spoke about what I saw in the future of my own branch. During the day and a half I poured out to others, talking about my own spiritual journey and trying to feel out what this "new kind of Quaker" will be. But I felt like we had little time to listen to where the Spirit is calling us, to lay down what we expect God to do and just let Him lead us. Many of us spoke of a desire for renewal and rebirth, to commit radically to our faith. I long for that, deeply. But often my yearning gets in the way of allowing God to possibly call me to something completely different than anything I can imagine. How can I get past my own impatience for God to move so that God can really move?

This being said, I did have deep and productive conversations with others at the conference. I enjoyed the experience of sharing deeply with others and finding common ground. That kind of connection is invaluable as we try to together discern the way forward. I met new people who I value as part of my spiritual community and I learned to appreciate old friends in new ways. I am particularly grateful to those who showed us out-of-towners hospitality during our stay by providing us a couch to sleep on and welcoming us at meeting on Sunday morning. The community, love and joy among us was where the Spirit was this weekend. That was where I saw transformation.

The liberal Moral Majority

2008-11-15T12:47:00.000-08:00

Earlier this week, John Kass, a columnist for the Chicago Tribune, worte about a student in the 8th grade in Oak Park, IL, a town I lived in for a few years in the late 1990's. This student, in order to test the open-mindedness of her school, alternated between wearing a "McCain" t-shirt and an "Obama" t-shirt at school. What she found, and the treatment she received, is somewhat disturbing. You can see the original column here:
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/columnists/chi-kass-13-nov13,0,2881384.column.

There is a follow-up column with reader comments here:
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/columnists/chi-kass-14-nov14,0,3405674.column.

When I lived in Oak Park, there was a lively discussion about offering same gender benefits. This was on the ballot, and was a pretty hot issue. Oak Park is considered a very liberal town, but I found that actually there was a fair amount of resistance to same gender rights. Now, with the Kass article, it seems pretty clear that even though Oak Park is somewhat liberal, it is not necessarily open-minded.

All of this rang so true to me. I recently attended the Friends General Conference Central Committee's annual gathering. While there was variance on the role of God and Jesus in the faith, there was unanimity on Obama. While I am an Obama supporter, I was looking for a way to get a McCain pin to wear just to see how much we Friends can walk our walk that "there is that of God in all people".

The lesson for me in all of this is we have to be careful not to have our politics be our faith. It leads to a hypocricy, and can clearly lead us to a place where being liberal does not mean being open-minded. In fact, my experience over the past 10 years of working with conservatives and liberals is that liberals can be more challenging. The reason is not that I do not agree with liberals, because the fact is that I do for the most part. Liberals are more challenging because of the self-proclaimed "open-minded" that really seems to be only as long as others agree with them.

The challenge of prevention

2008-11-10T15:01:00.000-08:00

Recently at the William Penn House, we held a workcamp for two Quaker schools - one is a prep/boarding school, the other an alternative high school. One of our reasons for this work is to promote the idea that when we can identify common threads among us we can build community partnerships and friendships to help make the world a better, more peaceful place while working together for the common good. With these two groups, "Quakerism" was the common thread, but what emerged was another common thread which really is a common challenge to our society, perhaps even our species, as we face challenging times. Briefly, what emerged after the groups participated in three very different kinds of service work, was that when the work had no immediate gratification, the students not only did not enjoy the work, but even questioned the validity of the work. In this case, it was pulling invasive plants from the banks of a water tributary (note that there is a difference between weeds and invasive plants; weeds can be natural to an environment whereas invasive plants are brought in by humans, and often can completely kill the eco-system by choking everything else out). Despite the fact that environmentalists everywhere are calling for this kind of work, the kids were skeptical. I have seen the same mechanism in operation with HIV/AIDS work. People are more than kind, caring and generous when someone is suffering, but often when you ask these same people to get tested for HIV, the answer is "no", despite the fact that the Centers for Disease Control is encouraging this, and the fact that the only we will really stop the spread of HIV is when everyone is diagnosed - not as having HIV, but as confirming their own status as "positive" or "negative" (plus, doing this helps to change the stigma of who "should" get tested, and becomes an opportunity for education). I have often talked about this work as "transformative" vs. "transactional", and perhaps another way to look at it is when we get the immediate gratification of our work, both giver and receiver may be better at least in the short term, but when the gratification is not so clear, we are all better off in the long term. And here's the real kicker: often with immediate gratification, we need someone to be suffering, only a few can respond and it often takes resources. With the other kind of actions, all people can do things (get tested, pick up litter, remove invasive plants), we are trying to prevent harm and suffering, and it costs little to nothing. How can we learn to really value this and transform our society?

Helping Our Neighbors

2008-11-09T21:34:00.000-08:00

Back in September, a chaperone for a upcoming trip I am leading to New Orleans sent me an article from the Washington Post
(http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/20/AR2008092002283.html).

The article is about how two people from Washington DC moved to New Orleans to help out the victims of Katrina. The article was very inspiring, especially since I try to do similar things in my work in DC. (Note: My comments here are not meant to negate any of the great work they are doing in New Orleans.)

After a couple days of thinking about the article, I found myself asking, "Why did they have to move a thousand miles to do this kind of work?" I felt led to write an editorial to the Washington Post, which was never published, probably because it was several days afterwards.

Here is the letter:

Dear Editor,

I enjoyed reading the article about the St. Bernard Project. I am really inspired by Liz's and Zach's work.

At the same time, a similar need for help exists here less than two miles from their former residence. DC has the highest rates of AIDS in the country, is home to the largest homeless shelter in the country, and 1 in 2 children are at risk for hunger. I have been in houses that
are in bad shape with leaky roofs and holes in the walls that let in cold air.

As we go out to help in other parts of the country, lets not forget about helping our fellow neighbors down the street.

Sincerely,

Greg Woods

In the last month and half of thinking about this article, I have finally gained insight into what my real problems with this article.

First it is a common narrative. White people move into a depressed area and save the day! Recently I have been reading books like Three Cups of Tea and Mountains Beyond Mountains that have this same narrative. In New Orleans I have met native New Orleanians who are
doing amazing work down there as well.

The other problem I see has to deal with guilt and silence. When we go to another area, like Zimbabwe or New Orleans to help, we are then only part of the solution, but if we work in an area where we have been living for a while, we have to face the fact that we have been
part of the problem too. At the very least, we have been silent about the problem for a while. Before we start fixing a problem in our community we have to deal with our guilt and overcome that before we can be effective. Here in DC, there is a lot of work that needs to be done. Also if we are only part of the solution, we don't know the history of the situation, so sometimes we can do more harm than good.

When I have groups coming to Washington DC, I try to take the group to the Holocaust Museum to connect the parallels between then and now.

One critical parallel is the role of silence. In Germany, people saw their Jewish, disabled, trade unionist, etc neighbors being taken away and most of them stayed silent as this was happening.

Here I see the silence in our neighborhoods, when one neighbor is struggling, the neighborhood is often silent. With one of the people I work with, her house is obviously in disrepair next to houses in pretty good condition. The difference is very visible in the back of the house, where most of the other residents park their cars. Looking at the back of her house next to the backs of her neighbors' houses, the contrast is immediately apparent. When I first came, trash was pile up in the backyard. Her back door needs work and she is missing some siding from above the back door. Until recently her backyard was full of tall weeds.

One day, while I was cleaning up from a workcamp that day, one of her neighbors told me, "Thank you for helping her! She really needs it!" I thanked him for his compliment. Later as I was thinking about this interaction, I should have responded, "Why didn't you help?"

Before a group leaves, I try to ask, "What will you do when you go home to help your community?" So I pose this question to the readers, "What will you do to help your community?"

I think this question need to be asked more .