Mindfulness in the Garden

We recently spent about 90 minutes with ten 9th grade students from Sidwell Friends School at Wangari Gardens, cleaning out garden plots and organizing community spaces in preparation for winter. It's amazing what can get accomplished when you have multiple hands to help out.

Among the tasks was to pick kale that was still growing in abundance from one of our plots. Kale is one of the plants I have learned to appreciate since getting involved in gleaning and gardening here in DC. It's a low-maintenance plant that produces from spring through the hardest of frosts in the winter, and is also good for you.

As we wrapped up our time together, I asked the group, after a moment of silence, to reflect on an image or a memory from our time together that they can take with them, knowing that bringing intentionality to an image carries itself with us for a longer time. One of the kale pickers said that she will remember how relaxing it was to pick the kale. She was one of the students who had never picked kale, but quickly learned that you cannot mindlessly pick it (or, as I've seen noted other places, "mind full" and "mindful" are very different experiences). One has to connect with the plant, noting where the top of each stalk is, and gently taking each leaf and stem below it. It is not something that can be done while multi-tasking. It is being mindfully present with each stalk and each leaf for a brief moment.

Another student said she will take with her the image of the light reflecting around us as the sun was setting. "I don't usually get to see the sun set", she stated. It's not that the sun does not set every day; it's that we are so often busy doing other things to notice what is happening around us.

These are two simple examples and affirmations of how easy it is to experientially teach mindfulness. We had not talked about mindfulness, but these two students got it, and by taking a moment to intentionally connect with it, it starts to infiltrate their being. As good friend Janie Boyd has taught me, spending time in the garden is good for the soul. It's as simple as that.  I will get to work with many of these students once a month over the school year. I look forward to deepening this practice with them as we strive to do good in the world.

What can be learned "As Way Opens"

"I never knew that the US violated so many treaties with Indians"
"I learned that Thomas Jefferson brought over many of the invasive plants into Washington DC"
"I learned that we can get more done when we collaborate"
"I learned that gardens help to clean watersheds"
"I learned why Philip's Head screwdrivers are called that" (Thanks, google, for the assist on that one)
"I learned that when rainwater flows off my driveway down the street, it can add to pollution"
"I learned that there is a connection between hunger and violence"
"I learned that William Penn honored his agreements with the Indians, and his sons did not"
"I learned that you don't need to exert a lot of muscle to saw wood"

What do all these statements have in common? They were the comments of 4th grade students from Sidwell Friends School at the conclusion of spending 4 hours together as part of a William Penn Quaker Workcamp. 22 students and 2 teachers joined us on a wet, rainy/snowy, cold day to start what we look to be a growing collaboration that helps strengthen the fabric of the DC community while addressing issues of nutrition and environment and developing service leaders for the next generation.

The plan is to nurture service as an expression of Quakerism while giving the students an opportunity to see how all things are interconnected and how small steps are vital for the big things to happen. Specifically, our starting point was to build shelves that will be used for growing seedlings that will go out into community gardens in the spring, and to start cutting wood that will be used for container gardens in yards throughout DC. We started with a group conversation about some connections between gardens, nutrition and the environment, and how these also can be expressions of the Quaker testimonies. And then we got busy with the work for the next two hours, encouraging the students to give input to how to do things while also learning some basic but important skills critical to effective service (being able to measure, saw, connect). It all went as planned.

But it was what was not planned where some of the real learning happened, as evidenced by the comments above. Few of these were on our list of "learning objectives", but each probably has a deeper imprint and, therefore, longer staying power, because of how it came about: organically, through conversation and curiosity, as way opens, experientially. Many of the points came up as we were working together; others came up in conversations about the various posters and artwork hanging around the house.

This is what I find so wonderful about William Penn Quaker Workcamps: it is not the big things, the meeting with power and tackling the big issues. It is simply creating spaces for these "conversations that matter" to take place, always with a vision of coming together to make the world a better place. It is not what we teach, but that we create opportunities to engage, enquire, question and learn, that matter. It is exciting to see the seeds of this take place with 4th graders. It gives hope for the future, and excitement to see what takes root and grows.

Mindfulness, Simplicity, Fear and Quaker Workcamps

I just finished reading the book "Mindfulness" by Harvard professor Ellen Langer.  The premise is that mindfulness is much more than a meditative state of consciousness; it is an awareness of choices, and that things have different meanings in different contexts.  One of her main themes is that we often live mindlessly, having assumptions about people, places and things because of the way we have been raised.  We can see this in the divisive nature of our culture and the assumptions we make about people with differing opinions.  We see it in the way we are led by polls and community conversations that give limited options, leading us to think these are the only options.  Her research supports that when people are actively engaged and have many options, they are more likely to stay engaged, to be optimistic, to be healthier and to even live longer.

Much of her writing is in sync with what we strive to accomplish with Washington Quaker Workcamps.  We talk often about options and opportunities, instead of problems.  We talk often about the importance of the journey, not the destination.  A guideline is that there are not mistakes, only opportunities to learn.  By walking to places, we encourage practicing mindfulness about our surroundings.  Through reflection and action, we change the context within which we see ourselves in the world.  All of this is intended to create safe spaces for participants - mostly youth - to see the world as one of opportunities to be embraced and for them to see their own gifts in embracing them.

Two common challenges we run into when planning and running Workcamps that are also reflected in Langer's work are fear and control. They usually go hand-in-hand, and the result is that they often lead to more mindlessness rather than mindfulness.  The desire to create and follow a set schedule blocks our ability to engage in what is going on in the moment.  The fear of upsetting parents can lead to limited options of service - revolving around perceived needs or around false senses of security such as only doing service that guarantees nothing bad can happen.  Not only do these limit the experiences and learning opportunities of the participants, I think they are also doing a disservice by not allowing the youth to actively look at options and make (or at least influence) decisions by engaging in the process of weighing factors such as personal hunger and personal risk.  It does not adequately prepare them to deal with these things as they head off to post-high school lives where the supervision is far less.

In 1 Peter 3: 13-22, the message is about not letting fear stop us from doing what is right, but to also have good reasoning for doing what is right.  At Washington Quaker Workcamps, we do not shy away from conversations about the role that fear and control play in guiding daily action, and how these can lead us to be negligent in our responsibilities.  A fear that a teen may hurt him/herself by climbing a ladder or using a power tool does not adequately prepare that youth for when he/she is no longer at home.  Likewise, concerns that a parent might be upset because his/her youth has to wait 2 hours for dinner while preparing food for homeless people is not a reason to avoid the important experiences and lessons about justice and privilege that are at the root of so many service programs, and a fear of being in close proximity to homeless people who may have mental illness should lead to conversations about how we make assumptions about people and things we have not experienced rather than not going to a fellowship breakfast of mostly homeless folks.

The Quaker Testimony of "Simplicity" is one of the ways to break down some of this fear and control.  "Simplicity", in this context, is in the Benedictine tradition of striving to let go of assumptions of what we have been told about other people or places so we can be open to seeing what is with our own eyes.  When we tell people that certain neighborhoods in our own town are unsafe (even though we may send them to places just as unsafe in other cities or countries), we perpetuate closed assumptions rather than open wonder. When we engage with something or place that is new to us, our eyes are open. The right thing to do is to engage, create, collaborate, and inspire curiosity, not to perpetuate fear through assumptions. It is not only right for the benefit of Quaker Workcamp participants, but it is right for bringing greater justice and peace to the world.

Fasting or Monetary Incentives: The Extremes of Charity and Justice

This year, as a lenten practice, I am reading a daily reflection about a different saint each day.  This morning, it was about Sharbel Makhluf, a 19th century Lebanese monk who spent the last half of his life as a hermit. He is known for both his fasting and his care for others. He would leave his hermitage routinely to go care for villagers. The prayer suggested for today is "God of our fasting, show us how our hunger unites with those in need of bread, how letting go of life's comforts can aid those lacking necessities for life."  

Then I turned to Dan Pallotta's daily hit from his book "Uncharitable."  Dan is the founder of Pallotta Teamworks, was a pioneer in fundraising via AIDSRides/Cancer Walks, and was an inspiring visionary. I still remember clearly the first time I heard him, in July 1996 on the first day of the Twin Cities-Chicago AIDSRide, challenging everyone that we could end the AIDS pandemic within a decade. I think he was right in the vision, but unfortunately and ironically, there was too much money invested in and to be made from AIDS to allow for the creative innovations to make it happen. 

Today's "hit": "An ambitious reporter puts a sentimental photo of a child with leukemia in the newspaper and asks, 'How can you be so cruel as to want to earn a profit from his situation?' I put up the photos of a million others like him and ask, How can you be so shortsighted as to deny me and a thousand others the monetary incentive it would take to devote our life’s work to helping these children? You have just robbed them of our talents. What if your moral compass is wrong?"  

These two represent the polar ends of the spectrum of the cultural and institutional realities of the social justice/charity/advocacy world. At William Penn House (where we work for beans), we get groups that want us to set up service programs for them but sometimes they have trouble seeing why they should pay us a fee as they are doing charity. I would love to double the Workcamp fee so that WPH could have a cushion, a bit of security and I would be able to perhaps save a bit for the future. And I see many colleagues in the field in much the same boat.  It sometimes feels like because we work in this field, we are expected to live like St. Makhluf.  

On the other hand, I see why people are concerned about the money made in charity work. I see and know people making well over 6 figures (some more around half a million).  They are happy; the donors - often the deep pockets of the Clinton/Gates/Bono realm - are happy. The workers fly in high circles. They are very good at raising money, creating good images, marketing, etc, but are the donors really getting the best bang for the buck? Do people enter these jobs fueled by their passions for the cause, or by the lure of the paycheck? How many dollars are spent in meetings to no end? Even being a part of the DC HIV Prevention Planning Group, a non-paid position, I suspect that we meet to meet, but actually do very little. I'm working on that one. 

It really boils down to the tension between ego and grace. For me, personally, I don't think I could ever live the life of Makhluf, Francis, or countless others. Even in my daily life, I stand in awe at the life of grace of some of the people I know. In one case, this life of having and needing little (and this is with someone who gave up much to do his ministry) is essential.  And yet, I firmly believe that the more one has attachments to things that can be bought with wealth, the more the ego gets fed, and this inevitably is a problem.  Just look at how Dan's quote ends.  He basically is saying that if I don't get paid what I want, it's your fault for robbing people of my gifts. The immorality is yours.  

It's fair enough to do what we can so that people can make a living, and I think it's fair enough to negotiate what an equitable wage is, and what is too much, and through this tension we can get the biggest bang for the buck. To me it boils down to this: fair and decent wages are good - perhaps essential, but getting rich off the backs of the poor and the sick is not. 

Workcamps, 2013: Breaking Barriers, Nurturing Leaders

As we get ready to shift into high gear with the summer Workcamps and programs, I have also been reflecting on ways to integrate new ideas and opportunities so that we do not fall into a rut of relying on a template, but instead keep things new and fresh.

For starters, I am ever-more convinced that the responsibility that comes with planning and running service programs is to not just meet the expectations of participants (i.e. to feel good about making a difference, or understand a social injustice better), but to also challenge these expectations in a way that promotes thinking critically about what kind of world they envision and what else they can do in their lives to move closer to that vision.  It is in this kind of conversation that we talk about the importance of relationships - you don't create your vision of the world that includes others without including them in the conversation and the creation of that world - and about the role that privilege and responsibility have in social justice work.

In addition to these "continuing revelation" conversations, here at William Penn House we have an added dimension of progress this summer: we are focusing a concerted effort on nurturing the leaders of the next generation in leading these conversations.  Our summer intern, Nate Anderson-Stahl, joined us last summer for 2 weeks on Pine Ridge.  Prior to that, he had attended Baltimore Yearly Meeting summer camps and the teen adventure program.  Now he will be applying his knowledge and experience of Quakerism, Quaker process and Workcamps to developing and leading them as part of our team. In addition, we have three rising seniors from a DC-prep school who will be joining us for 2 weeks in late July.  The first week will be to experientially learn about Workcamps, the kinds of service we do in DC, the importance of relationships in doing service (I often think that, without a relationship, there usually is not service), how things are connected, and the importance of critically thinking and questioning things.  The second week, these students will then be leading the process for a Workcamp group coming to DC and, hopefully, taking the relations they establish with them to their school, bringing a new dynamic of service and opportunities with them.

It is always an honor to be able to work with the leaders of tomorrow.  My hope is that this summer will be the start of breaking down the compartmentalization we sometimes create around programs and issues, as we weave more connections into the fabric of community.  One vision: to create a flow where youth who have been introduced to Quaker ideals (in schools, Meetings and/or camps) and had an opportunity to practice them in a larger arena (Workcamps), become the farm system for Workcamp organizers, creators and leaders where they get to experience facilitating visioning and implementation built on relationships, and then take these experiences into the rest of their lives with greater consciousness of stewardship, compassion and persistent hope that overcomes the frustrations and disappointments that are sure to be there as well.  This is something I have been envisioning for the past few years; this year is looking like it is starting to take root.  As with all things, patience and perserverance seem to pay off, but now the real work begins.  

-Brad Ogilvie

Israel, Palestinians, and Quakers

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.

Thoughts on "Meaningful" Work

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

Too busy to notice?

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".