A dialogue with Martin Luther King, Jr. on Climate Change

Have you ever seen a quote and it spoke to your condition?  As regular readers of this blog know I am a climate activist.  I recently read over a long list of Martin Luther King quotes and many of them spoke to me and related in my mind to the current Climate Crisis.  I share with you today, on his birthday a sort of dialogue I made up of my questions or comments as answered by a real quote from Dr. King offered in the 1960s.

Doctor King, I want to call you that in acknowledgement that to receive the higher education to get a PhD has not been an easy path for African Americans whose path was blocked in many ways.  So I want to honor and not ignore your accomplishments.

Dr King, I have been an activist all my life and your legacy has shaped my activism.  I now work on climate change an issue which at the time of your death was only just becoming known to oil companies which kept this secret from the public.   So you did not address this issue during your life, but your words speak to me because of the eternal nature of many of the things you said.  They speak to our current struggle to try to protect our planet and life for our children and their children.

What would you advise us as we look at the issue of climate change?

We must live together as brothers or perish together as fools.

What would you advise this group of people who have gathered here today of all different faiths, races and classes, to honor your name, about this issue of climate change:

“If we are to have peace on earth, our loyalties must become ecumenical rather than sectional, our loyalties must transcend our race, our tribe, our class, and our nation: and this means we must develop a world perspective. 

Dr. King, Naomi Klein has said that climate change cannot be solved unless we take on the web of interlocking injustices that face us at this time.  What would you say?

”Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny.  Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.”                       

And what would you say to her point that capitalism is the heart of the climate problem?

“Capitalism does not permit an even flow of economic resources. With this system, a small privileged few are rich beyond conscience, and almost all others are doomed to be poor at some level. That’s the way the system works. And since we know that the system will not change the rules, we are going to have to change the system.”

What would you say to the corporations, such as DAPL and Kinder Morgan, who speak for their right to profit over the concerns of the public?

Property is intended to serve life, and no matter how much we surround it with rights and respect, it has no personal being.  It is part of the earth man walks on it is not man.”

Documents now show that they have waged campaigns of disinformation and withheld the science that shows us the danger we are in.

A lie cannot live.

People of color stand to be much more profoundly effected by climate change, should that divide us in the struggle to stop climate change?

We may have all come on different ships but we’re in the same boat now.

Dr. King as we in this room face the crisis of betrayal by corporations, politicians at all levels of society and even our own friends and family caught in the web of habit what should we do?

“If any earthly institution or custom conflicts with God’s will, it is your Christian duty to oppose it. You must never allow the transitory, evanescent demands of man-made institutions to take precedence over the eternal demands of the Almighty God.”

I have been working hard at this Dr. King, for years now, but it is hard sometimes to speak up when I see my friends casually engaging in carbon burning, earth destroying habits or to confront public officials.

Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about the things that matter.

Most of us must work for a living so it is hard to find time to fight this battle on top or the normal demands of life.

We must use time creatively, in the knowledge that the time is always ripe to do right.

But Dr. King, there are children to drive to things, there are holiday preparations to tend to, there are church responsibilies, and overtime at work, and sometimes the sun shines in Seattle

An individual has not started living until he can rise above the narrow confines of individualistic concerns to the broader concerns of all humanity.

I wish everyone felt that way, we need more help, we are such a small number against well financed and powerful corporations.

“Human progress is neither automatic nor inevitable… Every step toward the goal of justice requires sacrifice, suffering, and struggle; the tireless exertions and passionate concern of dedicated individuals.”

Almost always, the creative dedicated minority has made the world better.”

What would you say Dr. King, to those among us who know that Climate Change is a threat, but do not make the time to act on this?  To those who feel there is nothing they can do about climate change because we are dependent upon fossil fuels and the politicians won’t act?

He who passively accepts evil is as much involved in it as he who helps to perpetrate it.  He who accepts evil without protesting against it is really cooperating with evil.

Sometimes Dr King, I am angry.  I am just so angry about the way our planet is being destroyed and our childrens future being curtailed.  What should be do Dr King?

"History has taught...it is not enough for people to be angry--the supreme task is to organize and unite people so that their anger becomes a transforming force."

We have been organizing, but we have also encountered some huge defeats and set backs with the election of the climate denying, profit loving Mr. Trump.

I believe that the unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word.  This is why right, temporarily defeated, is stronger than evil triumphant.

It is so disappointing at times

We must accept finite disappointment but never lose infinite hope.

Some of us in this room have family members who do not believe that climate change is real or view our actions and beliefs as crazy.

“But though I was initially disappointed at being categorized as an extremist, as I continued to think about the matter I gradually gained a measure of satisfaction from the label. Was not Jesus an extremist for love…Was not Amos an extremist for justice…Was not Martin Luther an extremist…So the question is not whether we will be extremists, but what kind of extremists we will be.  Will we be extremists for hate or for love? Will we be extremists for the preservation of injustice or for the extension of justice?”   

Dr. King how can I have courage in the face of all of this?

“Courage is an inner resolution to go forward despite obstacles; Cowardice is submissive surrender to circumstances. Courage breeds creativity; Cowardice represses fear and is mastered by it. Cowardice asks the question, is it safe? Expediency asks the question, is it politic? Vanity asks the question, is it popular? But conscience ask the question, is it right? And there comes a time when we must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular, but one must take it because it is right.”

We are organizing people to do nonviolent direct action against the fossil fuel companies, but for some of us to break the law is a big leap.

“One who breaks an unjust law must do it openly, lovingly …and with a willingness to accept the penalty.  I submit that an individual who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust, and willingly accepts the penalty by staying in jail to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the very highest respect for law.” 

Others don’t always see it that way. Forinstance, the people of ND saw the DAPL protestors as trouble makers and law breakers.
“We who engage in nonviolent direct action are not the creators of tension. We merely bring to the surface the hidden tension that is already alive.”

Dr. King where is God as we face this struggle for survival?

“The God whom we worship is not a weak and incompetent God. He is able to beat back gigantic waves of opposition and to bring low prodigious mountains of evil. The ringing testimony of the Christian faith is that God is able.”

What then should I ask of God?

Use me, God.  Show me how to take who I am, who I want to be, and what I can do, and use it for a purpose greater than myself.

Thank you Dr. King for sharing your wisdom and your inspiration with us today.

To see the source for these quotes: http://www.keepinspiring.me/martin-luther-king-jr-quotes/

The Transformative Power of Love in the Face of Hate.

It has been a bad month for hate.  A man was driving in circles in a state park destroying the plant life.  Two Native American teenage boys in the state I live in called out to him to stop, and he ran them over while making stereotypical whooping noises. The media failed to report it correctly as a hate crime but called it "a dispute" between two parties.  One boy died. The tribe was particularly upset by the press misrepresenting what had happened.

In Portland two people died from stopping a person who was bullying two teenage Muslim girls in head coverings on the public train system.  One of the men as he lay bleeding to death told a supporter who was holding him: "Tell everyone on the train I love them".    I can only hope that after a fatal brutal attack I could still be focused on love!   Several weeks later without protectors a 16 year old Muslim girl was attacked and killed in VA.

After Fox news targeted the progressive school of Evergreen University in Olympia WA, White Supremacist groups came onto campus to protest and violence broke out between them and counter protesters.  An "anti-Shira Law" group (ie anti-Muslim group) not getting a permit to protest in Portland came up to Seattle where they were given a permit to protest.   A counter protest was held a half mile away (an effective way to show the Muslim community they had support) However, that group decided to march to where the Anti-Shari group was (a strategy which holds no merit I can see and simply raised the risk of a violent outbreak).  The Pretty Boys (as they self named themselves) chose to walk through the counter demonstrators gathering causing peace keepers to work hard to part the crowd so they could pass.  They then took punches at the crowd with the apparent intention of provoking a fight.   They did this in full view of the police who did nothing.  When the peacekeepers asked the police why they did nothing they said:  "If you are going to let them walk through your group, there is nothing we can do."  The result being that many counter demonstrators were assaulted by the Pretty Boys.  In terms of spiritual practices that I understand when you focus on violence you magnify it.   When you counter anger or hatred with anger and hatred you increase the anger and hatred.  King demonstrated to us that it takes training, grounding, preparation and love to face hatred and violence in a transformation way.

Most upsetting has been the police shooting Sunday in Seattle of an African American woman in her home after she had called the police after a break in.  She was shot dead in front of her three children because she got upset and picked up a kitchen knife.  She joins a long list of African Americans shot dead by the police across this country for the apparent crime of "being black" and freaking the officers out because of said blackness.

I have focused here on the hate violence that has happened in my part of the country - the NW (while noting the death of a Muslim girl in VA for contrast to what happened in Portland).  There has been similar violence throughout this country.   I also am not talking here about the numerous suicide bombings, and mass shootings and terrorist acts that have happened world wide.  (Although to be clear here - any mass act of violence against people simply because of who they are is a terrorist act.)
This national violence, I and many others, place at the feet of Donald Trump.   His hate speech and encouragement of acts of violence by his supporters at his speeches, his frequent display of contempt, disrespect, put downs and stereotypical descriptions of those he disagrees with has given a permission for hate and violence that has not been present in this society for decades.   I'm not so confused as to think that prejudice and racism had gone away - but they had become unpopular and disrespected ways to behave.  There have been numerous reports of people acting out sexism and/ or racism and saying things to the effect of "if the President can do it, I can do it."  Or simply saying Trumps name as they act.  And Trump has not condemned these acts after they took place.

I must confess my greatest fears about climate change have been how scarcity and fear might drive people to violence against each other.  I never dreamed someone would simply sprinkle a generous helping of hate on top of the difficulties we already have.  Although I guess if I had really thought about it I would have realized that throughout history dictators have used fear to control and direct the masses. By creating external enemies, or scapegoated groups they turn attention away from real problems and create a false sense of unity.  It is actually the oldest move in the play book.

So what about us?  What about those of us who don't want to live in a land of hate?  Those of us who want to live by Kingian principals of nonviolence that include staying centered in a spirit of Love?  A few weeks ago I woke up from a dream.  In the dream I left somewhere I had been and I came out and there was a group of people moving slowly in a coordinated fashion side ways across a hill, at times they would retreat in apparent fear, at other times inching forward.  But always progressing forward with determination despite something they clearly found scary.  I did not know what was happening, but I felt drawn to them and fell in with them to see what was happening.   They inched up towards a large building with big picture windows and glass doors and through it I could see some type of uniformed officers and also a group of teachers inside what I realized was a school building.  The teachers were some standing and some sitting in chairs but joined to each other by holding hands in unity.   The officers where walking rapidly up and down the line in a menacing way, clearly saying things to them, and randomly slapping or hitting various teachers on the head.  Despite this scary behavior the teachers were holding their ground.  And as the onlookers watched this a chant slowly came up:  Love,... Love,... Love,.. Love,... Love....  It was being made in solidarity with the teachers, it exposed the crowd and they knew it, and it sent an energy that was pure and disarming.

I awoke from the dream with a feeling of happiness, peace, and hope.   Hope that I have not felt for a while.  I felt clear that I want to be with the people who are chanting love in the face of hate and violence.  How about you?

Recently a friend of mine who is a librarian at a community college discovered that the campus security were planning a day of practicing a violent assault on campus.  They intended to use fake rifles with real loud sounds and actors with fake blood etc.   My friend was incensed by the idea of the campus being used for this sort of "military practice" and mindful that increased glorification of militarism is one of the signs of fascism.   She also believe guns have no place on campuses every by anyone.  Never having done anything of this sort in her life she crafted a dear colleague letter.  She feared only her friend would sign it.  In the end 63 faculty signed the letter.  The training exercise still went forward.  There was no time to organize the singing of "Love, love, love".   But she asked her friend if he could imagine doing that.   Yes he said I could imagine that. .....Maybe next year.

When will we next be confronted by anger, hate and violence?  Will you be prepared to sing?  To bring love not hate to meet hate?

NonViolence Applied

On May 8th I was arrested...on purpose, committing civil disobedience. At least 4 years ago I had, along eventually with 100,000 Americans signed the Pledge of Resistance, stating we could commit civil disobedience to send a forceful message to then President Obama to not approve the XL pipeline.  As we all know it was a very bumpy road with Obama, at times he looked on the verge of approving it and we would be all geared up, and then another delay would happen.  Eventually he did refuse to approve it, and we celebrated and the Pledge was laid down.   But of course Trump has tried to undo almost everything good Obama did, and to turn the hands of time back on things like coal that are beyond reviving.  So a call went out again for the Pledge to be revived.

The XL pipeline would move such a massive amount of oil, and the Tar Sands are the dirties oil with a much worse GHG load, that Jim Hansen has called it "Game Over for the Planet".  It is for this reason that 350.org and a coalition of national climate groups made it a target of their opposition and the focus on it ignited a movement to oppose fossil fuel projects, and Bill McKibben's famous "Do the Math" tour which brought powerfully to America's attention that not only do we have to stay below 350 parts per million to have a liveable planet (currently breaking 420...yikes) but that we have a "carbon budget" ....an amount we cannot burn, or we will never be able to keep the planet cool enough to support life.   Scientists say that at our current rate of burning it we have 4 years left before we pass that point.   So climate activists are pretty intense right now about trying to stop things like the pipeline.   To the uniformed Trumps attempt to "approve it" would seem like he has just ended the game for all of us.   However, the pipeline does not have project level funding.   And this is where the civil disobedience comes in.  The movement has targeted the banks with the hope of putting enough pressure on them to stop them from making these loans.   It is a good strategy because if they don't loan the money the pipeline will again be dead.

In Feb and April of this year, Bernard Lafayette of Civil Rights era fame, has been in Seattle and lead two trainings on non-violence (which I have previously written about.)   Hearing Bernard talk about the difference between non-violence with a hypen and nonviolence without a hype, as the difference between "not violent" and something far more complex and spirit based, really helped me put words onto something I have been struggling to articulate to the local movement for a long time.

Our Faith Action Climate Team, here is Seattle, planned how we wanted to go about our action. Mindful of the 6 points of nonviolence (listed again in that previous post) we committed to conduct ourselves from a peaceful spirit so our actions aligned with that spirit.  We met up on the day of our action and sang and prayed to ground ourselves.  We went over to the Chase bank (largest potential funder of the XL pipeline) and spent an hour sharing prayers, silence and song.

I was able to talk to the bank manager at length trying consciously to speak to that of God in  him. Our conversation was respectful.  I did not make him the enemy, I treated him as the person who would carry the message to higher levels of the bank that the people where rising up and would remove their accounts and hound the bank if they continued this plan to fund.  He told me he was sympathetic and agreed to communicate that message.  I was able to communicate to him that 4 of our group had accounts at Chase and would return another day to close them and that if Chase persisted they would just lose more and more public support.  He acknowledged that they already had lost accounts for this reason, and they knew that. He also told me that if we did not leave he would be forced to call the police.  I told him I understood that but that we were staying as long as spirit told us too. Outside the bank other supporters fliered the passers by and sang and prayed for the success of those inside.   Throughout our two hours there the customers came in and did their business and left. They were not interfered with by us nor felt threatened by our energy, they were not our target. But they were curious about our message, and they each left clear why we were there.

The police liaison, a Mennonite, also spoke to that of God in the police.  By the time the police arrived the bank manager was telling the police liaison that most of the bank employees agreed with us.  The police from the minute they walked in and found people sitting in a circle on the floor in the bank praying, did not want to arrest us.  They repeatedly tried to encourage us to go outside and protest outside saying they did not want to arrest us.  Eventually the Lieutenant in charge stated repeatedly that he was "begging us" to go outside and kept going away and leaving us to "think about it" in the hopes we would leave.  Eventually, I looked at him and said:  "I know you don't want to arrest us, and we have decided to stay, so I am sorry for you."  At that point he knew that he really would have to arrest us, and they did proceed to do so.  However, they also wound up releasing us without booking or ticketing us.

My co-defendant said in the holding cell that she felt sort of badly about making him have to arrest us.   I said: "No, there is nothing to feel bad about.  Everyone of us will have to face the ways in which we are complicit with climate change, and if he had to face how he is sometimes enforcing laws that keep the oppressive system in place and support climate change, and if that is what the bank manager has to face, his role in a bank that is making it happen...then that is actually the power of nonviolence to bring moral pressure to bear for social change."  This is important since people sometime ask me what good getting arrested actually does.

Friend George Lakey, author of Strategy for a Living Revolution, a classic work on nonviolence who was here speaking in Nov and then also in April, urges the movement over and over again to be strategic.  He says that he does not see much point in random marches or one off actions.  He wants to build campaigns that have clear goals.  Nonviolence researcher Erica Chenoweth also points out that successful movements use a variety of techniques.  They don't just do one thing over and over again.   For the most part American's response to Trump has been a lot of marching and lobbying. Marching has it's place as a beginning movement building stage.  So for example a lot of people came out for the first time ever to march in women's march and to the degree that their names got captured and they got hooked up to Communities Rising (the off shoot of the women's march) then the march served a purpose.  In a normal politician it would have also created some fear and the desire to pivot to protect popularity.  But on a narcissist this is completely lost.   So when we do marches we have to ask: Who is the target?  Is it to build coalition? Is to pressure certain key people? It needs to not be because we are mad and want to stomp around.  Because frankly that is not much different than small children tantruming.

The expression of anger by protesters is a seductive thing indeed.  We are mad about the injustices that are happening, and we have good reason to be mad!  However, who are we targetting and who are we effecting and to what outcome?   So for example, over decades various movements have felt moved to sit down in street intersections or to walk onto highways and shut down traffic.   There are times were what is happening in our whole society is so well known and outrageous (an escalation of the Vietnam war, or the shooting of a black man in the back by police) that this sort of "no business as usual" response is clear and powerful.   But too often it is actually an expression of the protesters sense of power that they can stop traffic.  It is a sort of waving a fist at the sky.  It leaves many people in buses and cars with schedules messed up and lives inconvenienced and leaves them angry and feeling disrespected.  (One must consider - someone is going to pick up a child from daycare, someone is going to a surgery, someone is going to an airport, or a job interview.  Is the fact that the President is doing something horrible or that climate change threatens them too, really a reason to cause them these problems?)  When we piss them off do we build a movement?  Is it strategic to have this effect on them?  Contrast this to when completely nonviolent protesters were maced by the police at Occupy or Black Lives matter.  In these cases the nonviolent behavior met with oppressive violence garnered public sympathy because if made more clear the oppression that is at work to keep our system in place.

When we say that we are targeting Chase bank as the primary funders of the XL pipeline that is a goal, but then the question has to be: how will we move them?  Is it again a feel powerful thing to "shut them down"?   What will actually move the bank management to decide that funding the XL pipeline is a bad idea.  I am not so naive to think that people calmly explaining it to them will accomplish this because those at the highest levels are so profit driven that it seems clear that they have not been considering human welfare for a long time.   But given that they are profit driven then things which threaten their brand and their profit do speak to them.  So protests of all kinds (not just those that shut them down) threaten their good reputation.  Do they lose business or profit from being shut down?   No not really.   This is the case if you block an oil or coal train, but with a bank people just deposit in a machine or the next day.  (And are again angry about being inconvenienced.)  People closing their accounts and telling them clearly why is what impacts their business.  Negative media attention affects their brand.  A wide spread event, closing many branches certainly creates a media event.  But unless their is a long term campaign plan, unless Chase has to worry that disruptions and negative attention will continue - they can easily weather one bad day.

Let us consider for a moment the psychology of stakeholder power holders like bank executive or politicians.  Like most humans when told they are bad or challenged in their actions the first reaction is to dig in and to justify to self and other, ones own actions.  When someone is identified as a villain they respond to this sort of polarization by seeing the other as the enemy.  What Martin Luther King showed us so powerfully is that when you treat an opponent with respect but with a firm demand it both confuses them and troubles their conscience, it leads them to self reflection and self questioning (with the few exceptions of those without conscience - who still must be supported by many other people to stay in power and those folks do have consciences.)  So they start by defending themselves, if things stay polarized they stay defended.  However, if they are challenged but on vilified there is room for them to start reexamining their position.  There is room for them to consider compromises or shifts.   There is also room as public opinion shifts against them and change becomes inevitable for them to find face saving ways to embrace the change they have to rather than to go to more violence or keep behaving in more and more morally repugnant ways to protect their position.   Like Aikido their energy is met and redirected in the direction of a more peaceful outcome.

Erica Chenoweth in her studies of non-violence tells us that when violence occurs within a nonviolent movement that movement can succeed despite, but not because of the violence.   In other words they must work to recover from the damage to their image that the violence creates.   Thus another indicator of how important pure nonviolence is.   Historically, it is also true that some movement followers impatient that success has not already been won begin to advocate property damage and or outright violence.   Movements have split over such disagreements.  So it is important as a movement that we know the history of nonviolent movements and that we carefully prepare the ground works in our movement for a spirit that supports nonviolence over simply non-violence.  Erica has also identified that movements succeed by using a variety of strategies and techniques, not by relying to heavily on one method which will lead to loss of momentum over time.  Additionally she tells us campaigns take about 5 to 7 years to succeed, so we have to have the faith, patience and determination to persevere.

So as a nonviolent movement to stop climate change, we must teach nonviolence which is not well understood in the American population. We must teach how to be non-violent not just in our actions but in our spirits.
We must choose our targets strategically and learn how to identify power holders and to make detailed strategies for how our pressure will work (Not simply say we will apply pressure).  We must be able to articulate a plan that uses different techniques and escalates pressure over time and how we think the tactics will be effective. We must think about how we interface with the public and do so in ways that engage them and bring them with us rather than alienate them.   We must learn how to activate our own centers of hope, love, courage, creativity and fun as we create these actions.  And we must with our eyes on a clear vision of where we are going dig in for the long haul!

With my Mind Stayed on NonViolence

Last weekend I went to a training on NonViolence by Bernard Lafayette and his wife, Kate, and Mary Lou Finley.  Bernard founded the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) when he was 20 and he was part of Dr. King's inner circle.  He is now 77, and still fighting for justice.

My reaction to the training was to feel like I was in a familiar place because as a birthright Friend I have literally been raised with the 6 principles of Nonviolence that Bernard shared with us.  In fact at one point when he named the influences on King's development of his own philosophy of nonviolence he mentioned "the historic Peace Churches" and then listed them out.  Dr. Lafayette also was one of the creators of the original Alternatives to Violence Project (AVP) workshop at Greenhaven Prison in NYC.   So my many years of involvement in AVP also made the principals of nonviolence that he shared with us very familiar:

1. Nonviolence is a way of life for courageous people.
It is a positive force confronting the forces of injustice, and utilizes the righteous indignation and the spiritual, emotional, and intellectual capabilities of people as the vital force for change and reconciliation.
2. The Beloved Community is the framework for the future.
The nonviolent concept is an overall effort to achieve a reconciled world by raising the level of relationships among people to a height where justice prevails and persons attain their full human potential.
3. Attack forces of evil, not person doing evil.
The nonviolence approach helps one analyze the fundamental conditions, policies and practices of the conflict rather than reaction to one's opponents or their personalities.
4. Accept suffering without retaliation for the sake of the cause to achieve the goal.
Self-chosen suffering is redemptive and helps the movement grown in a spiritual as well as a humanitarian dimension. The moral authority of voluntary suffering for a goal communicates the concern to one's own friends and community as well as to the opponent.
5.  Avoid internal violence of the spirit as well as external physical violence.
The nonviolent attitude permeates all aspects of the campaign.  It provides mirror type reflection of the reality of the condition to one's opponent and the community at large. Specific activities must be designed to help maintain a high level of spirit and morale during a nonviolent campaign.
6.  The universe is on the side of justice.
Truth is universal and human society and each human being is oriented to the just sense of order of the universe.  The fundamental values in all the world's great religions include the concept that the moral arc of the universe bends towards justice.  For the nonviolent practitioner, nonviolence introduces a new moral context in which nonviolence is both the means and the ends.

I realized among other things that having been raised in Chicago where various civil rights leaders from Dr. Lafayette to Jesse Jackson spent time, and also having spent time on the eastcoast in Boston and DC. I was exposed to peace and social justice activists who were deeply steeped in these attitudes so they were normative to me when I moved out to Seattle.  They are not typical attitudes in Seattle whose Wobbly past leans a bit more towards a Sal Alinsky approach that very much identifies opponents as enemies and directs anger at the opponent, often making a person the enemy.   This has also been a painful part of doing peace and social justice work in Seattle for me.  The 5th principal itself comes into things like do you chant angry chants or do you sing songs of hope and determination?  Principal 3 comes in for me to questions of how you pick the targets of protests and the focus of campaigns.

Since history is written by the victors for the most part the history of nonviolence has been obscured or rewritten.  It is way beyond the "white washing" of Martin Luther King's quite radical legacy.   I seriously during the debates around non-violence at Occupy Seattle had to endure people saying (and meaning it) that nonviolence had never been successful in history except in freeing India and sort of in the civil rights movement.  This is an ignorance of the dozen's and dozen's of successful nonviolent government change overs that have happened just since WWII and the fact that those are escalating. If you are not familiar with the research of Erica Chenoweth on the efficacy of nonviolence I encourage you to visit her blog https://rationalinsurgent.com/.  Dr. Lafayette did a wonderful job of telling us stories from his many decades of experience with active engagement in non-violence: from Selma, to Wounded Knee to being Kidnapped in Columbia.  I will write more about this in another post.  But I am left wondering why there are not camera crews following around Dr. Lafayette, Dr. Lawson and Rev Jessie Jackson while they are still alive, before this amazing oral history is lost forever.

Dr. Lafayette explained that the civil rights movement distinguished between "non-violence" (the absence of violence which can lead to passive peace) and nonviolence which is the whole significant "technology" that is represented by Kingian nonviolence as described in the 6 principles above and this he said leads to "active peace" a peace that includes social justice.  For me this was a helpful light into why I am often in the room with people who ascribe to non-violence as a tactic and yet know that we are actually not talking about the same thing.  I know I want to live and act from the true Spirit of nonviolence.  While we sang at the end,  sang: "Woke up this morning with my mind stayed on Freedom."  I saw that the words stuck in my head were "with my mind stayed on Nonviolence"!

Completing the work of Martin Luther King, Jr.

Tomorrow is Martin Luther King Jr Day.   Much will undoubtedly be written about 50 years after key civil rights legislation and the sadly still needed “Black Lives Matter” movement which is happening right now.  For me this is the logical falling out of the fact that Martin Luther King Jr did not get to finish his work before he was taken from this earth.  I have little patience for those who simply want to say it is evidence that we have not gotten very far.   This is a superficial understanding of institutional racism and the violence that interrupted attempts to get to its root.

In the past year I have heard Tavis Smiley give an hour long talk on his book Death of a King: The last 365 days of Martin Luther King, Jr.,  and I have just seen the movie Selma.   Smiley makes the point that after King came out against the Vietnam War his popularity took a huge hit.   Many people felt he was “going too far” and that he was “off topic” by talking about the war.   If you have never heard or read the talk King gave on the war I encourage you too because his words were nothing short of prophetic. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b80Bsw0UG-U  It will be 25 minutes well spent!  

King very deftly ties in the role of capitalism in the oppression of poor people of all races.  He uses the term revolution which won him a death sentence with the powers that be.   He was increasingly clear in the last year of his life that we would have to change the economic classism of our society if the role of Black people in US society was really to change.  He was in fact in Memphis to support the garbage collectors at the time of his death because he was trying to focus on the economic struggles of the poor.  I encourage people to follow the activities of Smiley and Dr. Cornwall Davis as they have taken up in their previous Poverty Tour, the task of calling American’s to complete the uncompleted work of MLK on economic equality!

King’s message was radical and that is why he suffered huge criticism and shunning at the end of his life even from people who had been his supporters.   He states in the speech that he “agrees with Dante that the hottest place in Hell is reserved for those who in a time of moral crisis maintain their neutrality.   There comes a time when silence is betrayal.”  As someone who is a climate activist these words remain timeless to me as they so well apply to our current crisis which people remain silent about.  It is also ironic because as Smiley well documents many followers betrayed him by being silent, not defending him against the verbal targeting in the difficult final year of his life. 

One of my favorite parts of his Vietnam speech is where he says he finds it amazing that the same people who praise him for calling for non-violence in the face of the violence of white man, Bull Connar, would condemn him for calling for an end to US violence against the brown skinned people of Vietnam.  Here Martin encounters the same experience that Quakers have for centuries that our call for non-violence is ignored or found amusing until we make the call to our own country to disarm at which point we are treated as traitors.   But in the point he is making there and elsewhere in the speech where he talks about the colonization of Vietnam, he is decades ahead of his time in pointing to the colonial  and violent roots of racism!

While it has been known in movement circles for years that The FBI had MLK watched all the time (apparently his own photographer was on the payroll of the FBI), his phone tapped, and deliberately put women in his path to seduce him and then sent tapes of him with the women to his wife to weaken his marriage – it was surprising to me to see a mainstream movie actually acknowledge that.  I see within the social justice movement and public in general when people wonder what harm it is that the govt has recently revealed it has all our phone records…that we have forgotten our history.  We have forgotten how the govt has used people’s personal information to target them when they dissent.

I appreciate about both Tavis’ book and the movie Selma their efforts to help those of us who lived through the civil rights movement and those who have been born since to not forget our history.   Many people believe the Republican talking line that we have “outgrown” the need for the Voting Rights act.  Perhaps when people can see the great sacrifices that were made by African Americans in order to win the vote and the deep systemic attitudes and practices that created obstacles to voting, then it can be understood why things like requiring id to register to vote just starts again the creation of obstacles for the poor to prevent voting.

When I hear people responding to Black Lives Matter by thinking that the solution is simply to indict police officers who have shot black citizen’s I again feel that there is a lack of understanding of the deeply rooted racism.   Yes they should be held accountable, but that is a bandaid after the wound.  We must first understand the deep fear and “otherness” that racism creates that makes officers quick on the draw and quick to pull the trigger.  Only when we complete Martin’s work will we make America safe for Black people.

Faithfully Delivered

There is a well known Quaker joke:  Two men sit next to each other on a bench.  The one shakes for a long time in Meeting and yet never rises.  Eventually the other man rises and gives a message.  The Meeting for Worship ends and the second man turns to the shaker at the rise of Meeting and says:  "Next time give your own damn message."    This is funny to Quakers (yeah try giving this joke to a group of non-Quakers... you have to explain the joke just to get polite smiles.) because we recognize what it is to sit on a leading to speak.   We have all done it at some time.  I have also heard people say  "Yeah not going to do that again...not worth the heart attack"  meaning that the racing of the heart and the butterflies in the stomach felt while not delivery the message are not worth it!

We all also have stories of times where people's messages deeply spoke to us which, is both magical and a deep motivation to faithfully deliver messages given to us.  My own story of that happened on an occasion where I had gone to not my own Meeting, but a local meeting in Jan the Sunday after Martin Luther King Day.   On that Sunday I was deep in thought concerned about an issue concerning my then step-son and feeling somehow like two cherished values were pitted against each other and trying somehow to figure out which one was actually more important or how to reconcile them.   Towards the end a young man rose and said:  "I went to the Martin Luther King march this Monday and I was very struck during the pre-rally by how someone quoted him saying: " But I want to tell you this evening that it is not enough for us to talk about love, love is one of the pivotal points of the Christian  faith. There is another side called justice. And justice is really love in calculation. Justice is love correcting that which revolts against love".  As I heard this it shot through me "Oh yes Love.  Love is the answer.  Love trumps all and I had forgotten this.  

After Meeting I went to him and thanked him for being faithful in delivering the message because it had spoken to my condition.   His eyes got big.  He said:  "I have never spoken in Meeting before and I did not know why I should just repeat that quote.  It seemed silly, but I kept shaking so I finally did."  Both parts of this story are important -that he was faithful and spoke to my condition and that I let him know as this wound up being an eldering in the importance of being faithful. Interestingly, I had had a strong urge to go tell him.  I also had been faithful to the inward prompting.  This would be an example of how we are one of another in community.  I would also note here that I did not say "I liked your message", but "thank you for being faithful".  This is an important distinction; when we thank Friends for "their message" we add to the confusion about where messages come from and tempt the ego of the one who delivered.

I remember once going to a Meeting in another town and being given a message, but no prompting to give it.  I was confused by this and spent much of the hour trying to decide whether to give it, but eventually concluded that I was not to.  I wound up thinking it was a message that God intended only for me.  And in fact it was meaningful to me for quite a while.  Then one Sunday in my Meeting I somehow felt moved to give the message.  "Really God?"  "Yes really"  So I stood and gave the message.   Later a Friend who did not often come to Meeting, came and thanked me for the message saying how much the message meant to her.   Wow, I had no idea that God could work in such a way!

I'm not sure if that is the oddest way The Holy One has brought a message to Meeting through me or if it would be this story.   I once woke on a Sunday morning from a dream in which I had been in Meeting for worship and one of our Members had sung a message and some other thing had happened.  I went to Meeting and thought about this dream - after a while I started feeling the familiar stomach sensations indicating to deliver the message.  'really?...but this is a dream its not a message"  Yes really!   So I rose and told the dream and sat down embarrassed.  Late,r the person who had sang in my dream came to me and said that she had been for several months been getting words to a new song in Meeting for worship but did not think of herself as a song writer and so had not written them down.  We looked at each other and she said:  "I guess I had better write them down huh?"   She did and some months later sang the song for Meeting.

In my Yearly Meeting there was for two years a Clerk who was very good at racing through the agenda, but not very good, it seemed, to listening to the Spirit.  In his first year an issue arose where the nominating committee was not being able to get people to agree to serve on committees.  So they took the position of laying themselves down to force the Yearly Meeting to look at the issue. However, as people began in business meeting to look deeply and focus on what was wrong in our Yearly Meeting, the clerk abruptly cut off discussion in favor of simply having an Ad Hoc committee create a new nominating committee.  Later, I simply thanked the tearful clerk of nominating for being faithful.  For it was clear to me that she had been faithful in delivering a painful message, and that she had done all that was her part, but was thwarted by others not listening in the Spirit.

The next year we were down to the last hour of business in this clerk's term and again someone began to question the creation of yet another committee to try to solve the same problem that we had quite possibly created a committee earlier in the morning to solve.   The question was again raised what is wrong in our Yearly Meeting?  This time speaker after speaker rose speaking of their distress about the condition of our Yearly Meeting, the non-spiritual nature of business meeting, etc. It was like a geyser that could not be contained.  The clerk again tried to cut off the discussion, but this time a young woman, not even from our Yearly Meeting rose in tears about the her sense of the Spirit being stiffled and plead that we would sit in silence and listen to the Spirit and so this time (and in part because worship was next on the schedule) the clerk surrendered and the messages poured out for another half an hour.  For me this was a very powerful example of how Spirit is determined to be heard and will use every faithful voice in the room to bring the truth home.

What dear Friend is your experience of being Faithful in delivering a message?