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?

I take Thee...the Radical notion of Quaker Marriage.

Earlier this month two friends of mine who have been together for 35 years married each other.  They have been together longer than any of my friends who are married.  They identify as atheists and anarchists.  Therefore they saw no reason to be spiritually or legally joined.  But as retirement came into view, and one person went over the handlebars of a bicycle and wound up unconscious in the hospital, the idea of being able to share one's social security post death with one's life long partner loomed larger.

When they went to look at the vows that the justice of  the peace would have them say they were distressed by certain verses which felt to them religious in nature.  But primarily they were distressed by the fact that the Judge would marry them to each other.   They both felt that they were marrying each other - that this is not something that another person could do "to" them.  Having known me all their adult lives and having attended my wedding they were both very aware that Quakers are married neither by a Judge or a minister which is what they wanted.   They began a dialogue with the CA Secretary of State about the fact that due to separation of state and church that the vows language could not be legal, nor could the requirement of either a Judge or minister to marry two people.   They pointed to the example of Quakers that the law did allow for an exception to those requirements, but that the exception could not fairly be applied to only one religion.   The Secretary's office wound up agreeing that this probably was not constitutional.  They were issued a license to get married and were allowed to marry each other in their living room with two witnesses.

Most Quakers I know will proudly say that nothing compares to a Quaker wedding.  I have to agree because their is something so beautiful and so democratic about any family or friend being able to speak of love, relationship, marriage, community and good wishes at a Quaker wedding.  There is something so deeply right about the couple rising out of the silence to face each other and to say in vows that have not changed over 300 years "I take thee".  What a joy to have a document hanging in one's home with the signatures of all the loved one who joined and witnessed your wedding!

But most Quakers do not know the actual history of Quaker weddings.  Since Quakers did not have ministers in made complete sense that a wedding would take place inside of a Meeting for Worship and that the intention to marry, already tested and confirmed by a clearness committee was a public witnessing/honoring by the congregation of a connection that was believed already forged by God. Thus Quakers believe a wedding is an acknowledgement of a partnership God has already created. George Fox said: "For the right joining in marriage is the work of the Lord only, and not the priests' or the magistrates'; for it is God's ordinance and not man's; and therefore Friends cannot consent that they should join them together: for we marry none; it is the Lord's work, and we are but witnesses" Therefore, when the laws of the society said that one had to marry before a preacher or a judge, Quakers saw no need to change their process to comply with marital laws.  They were  already use to going to jail for simply gathering to worship and used to being punished by the state for being faithful to their understanding of God.  They were willing, as in all things, to stand with the Truth as they knew it.

Thus Quakers would marry each other and go on with their lives, unconcerned with whether this was regarded to be legal by the cities they lived in.   But in the small towns and villages dotted across the US that they lived in, they were good neighbors and respected business people whose integrity and sincerity was well known to their fellow citizens.   It did not sit well with their neighbors to consider them "living in sin".   So not through their asking, many states passed "the Quaker exception" where instead of requiring them to be married by a minister, it was recognized that a ceremony witnessed by their congregation would be considered legally binding.  Also many states developed legal precedents of "common law marriage", for any two people who for whatever reason lived together for more than 7 years were considered to be for legal purposes married.  However, in the past decades common law marriages were swept away and domestic partnerships became a legal mechanism that allowed Gay and Lesbian couples, other wise unable to marry to share some of the legal advantages of marriage. In many states if Quakers want to be legally married they still have to go down to the court house and have their marriage officiated there.

My friends recent experience has caused me to reflect and to realize that Quaker Marriage is a case of what Gene Sharp, tactical non-violence expert, calls passive non-compliance.  Where the failure of large numbers of people to comply with a law forces the law to change or become uninforceable.  This is one  of the many ways Quakers radically changed the society around them.  The radical thing was that notion that we marry each other, that we are not married through some other authority figure.  The original radical thing about George Fox's message was that we needed no inter-mediator between ourselves and God - that we could know God directly.   And the radical thing about Quaker marriage is that it also says that we can know directly, discover inwardly God's intention for our lives and that we can live in the authority of that alone.

Quaker observer to the Delta Five Trial

This  is a picture of my friend Abby up in the tripod with my friend Patrick chained to the front leg, and my colleague Liz at the back left next to Jackie and to the right is Mike on Sept 2. 2014.  This week on most days of the weeks I joined about a 100 other supporters in attending the trial of the "Delta 5".  (Delta for the train yard their action took place in, and the scientific word for change.)   You see in my state the fossil fuel industry is trying to put record amounts of coal, oil and gas through our state on trains and pipelines in a desperate effort to get it to port.  The "carbon corridor" is opposed by the activist community because it would bring several times the amount of carbon to market than the long opposed and now dead XL pipeline would have thus posing a deadly climate threat.  Therefore, my friends constructed this tripod and sat in it for 8 hours blocking an exploding oil train.   We call them exploding oil trains because since they started in 2010 traveling with the more explosive crude Bakken shale (not the regular oil that use to ship) there have been regular derailments and explosions of these trains.  The most disturbing was the fireball that became the small town of Lac Megantic in Canada that incinerated 47 souls almost immediately and took out the downtown center of the town.  At least 3 of these trains roll through downtown Seattle under our city core everyday threatening to make it its own 911 catastrophe if one ever goes up.

When I first saw this photo it was small enough I could not see Abby's face, but the message of the sign so characteristically reaching out to the workers while opposing the trains, and smiling face and energy made me think "oh that person reminds me of Abby."  Hours later I was to realize why...because it was Abby.  So this week was their trial.

Last week they had submitted a brief asking to be able to use the defense of necessity.  The judge first said No in a 25 page brief.   But they asked him to reconsider.  Lawyers said this would never happen that judges don't reverse themselves.  After 20 minutes in his chambers the judge came out and said:  "I have recently in a talk said Judges need to use more humility.  I am going to allow necessity".   Necessity is an ancient defense that defendants in civil disobedience trials often try to use but are rarely granted.  It basically says:  It was necessary to break the law to prevent a greater harm."  This was a historic trial because it was the first time in the US that the necessity defense was allowed for a climate case.

The first day was spent on jury selection and opening statements.  I was disturbed as I always am by the farce of a "jury of your peers" since both the prosecutor and the defense were allowed to ask them questions "to get to know them" that included questions about their beliefs about protests, etc.  These values based questions quickly identified the left from the right and then out of a jury pool of 60 through a fixed number of exclusions it was widowed down to 6 jurors.

On the second day of the trial the prosecution speed through it case only calling half the witnesses they had said they would - primarily police and BNSF workers who identified the defendants as present on the tracks.  Then 4 of the defendants gave powerful opening statements explaining why they had acted as they had.  Unlike other cases I have seen for civil disobedience where the defendants are not allowed to say why they did any of the things they did because it is deemed not relevant, because of the necessity defense they were allowed to explain themselves.

The third day, possibly the most powerful 3 expert witnesses testified: Eric DePlace from Siteline explaining the whole carbon corridor situation, Richard Gammon a retired climatologist from UW who talked about just how urgent and dire the situation of climate change is, and then Abby who had not spoken the day before spoke.   Abby, so at home on top an 18 foot metal tripod talking by phone to reporters...suffered panic attacks while on the stand.  It was painful at times to watch her struggle to get out what she wanted to say, and yet still she managed to tell them of the years of intense activism she had done to try to stop climate change, relationships she had forged with rail workers and even show a letter she had received from Barrack Obama answering one from her.  She told of the profound impact it had on her to learn of the whistle blower who testified the next day and how when a train derailed (thankfully not leaking or blowing up) 1 mile from her daughter's school (thus in the blast zone) she knew it was the last straw for her.  The final expert was Fred Millar, a rail safety expert who spoke powerfully about how unsafe these trains are and how if they burn all the fire fighters can do is get out of the way.

On the 4th day Mike Elliot a former BNSF employee told about being fired for checking the breaks of his train. (the Lac Megantic explosion took place because the breaks failed and the train, unmanned moved forward till it derailed and exploded.)  Then Dr. Frank James testified about the health impacts from the trains - how 1 to 2% of the oil does not make it from its original location to its destination because the train leaks all along the way and how carcinogenic the oil is - studies linking it to cancer.  The case had been laid out so powerfully that one began to wonder how the jury could possibly find them guilty.   But there were several twists ahead.

After lunch the judge explained to everyone's surprise that he was not going to allow the necessity defense.   He explained there were 4 legs - the first 3 he felt were met: 1) that there was a threat greater than the threats caused by breaking the law 2) that you were not the cause of the threat  3) that the threat was a real and compelling one.  But the 4th one he said was not met was that you had exhausted all possible legal remedies.   This one aggravates me because while you could again call 911 while a building was burning rather than break in to get someone...there is not time.   We are in just such a burning building where there is not time for the slow and tortured path of legislative change.

The mood of the supporters in the court room was somber indeed as the judge read a very narrow set of instructions to the jury, telling them they could consider none of the expert witnesses and essentially eviscerating their defense.  Defining the two charges against them of trespass and obstructing a train.  Telling them they could not act out of emotion, but that they needed to put all emotion aside (Ahhh that old Decartian frame which has so bent and destroyed our world - that mind and body, that heart and mind are separate.) The prosecutor basically said in his closing you can do nothing but find them guilty, they all admitted they trespassed and reading again from the narrow and confining jury instructions.   However, the defense attorney, Peter Goldstein was very skillful in opening up the idea that if the founding fathers had not broken the rules of Britain we would not have a free US, that there are times for dissent and that no one would have said to Mr. Jefferson on the stand "why did you not petition the parliament more."   He then also pointed doubt on to the idea that the trains were obstructed and to the idea that their intent was not to break the law but to use free speech.   The jurors later told us this gave them the toe hold they were desperately looking for to set the protesters free of at least that charge.  The prosecutor again repeated that they had no choice, but to convict before they went to chose a foreperson before ending for the day.

Today the jury took about 90 minutes.   I was quite surprised to hear the verdict read out of not guilty on the charge of obstructing the train and guilty of trespass for all 5.   They proceed to sentencing after the jury was relieved of duty and after the prosecutor said what he was asking for there was a break so the defendants could confer with their lawyers.   But then the most magical thing of all happened 3 of the jurors came in the hall to talk to the defendants and insisted on staying for the sentencing to see what would happen to the defendants that they had come to care about.   They told us how they had not wanted to find them guilty of anything and felt they were good people trying to act to protect everyone.  They said how emotional it was for them and how hard it was to put aside their emotions.  They hugged the defendants (see below) and this amazing bit of dialogue is captured and posted on 350Seattle.org's web site under the date of 1/15/16.  (story continue below)

For me what happened in the hall was so magical as to take away the sting of the judge giving the sentence the prosecutor asked for 90 days suspended for two years of probation, plus fines.  I have to say that these 5 defendants while not Quaker, are gentle and loving people who conducted themselves in such a manner and required the supporters to treat everyone in the whole court house with nothing but respect and kindness.   The judge, unlike all previous judges I have encountered also treated everyone in the courthouse with kindness and respect.   Thus the environment of  the entire trial was unlike any CD trial I have ever been to.  Even the judge spoke of learning from the defendants and respecting that they were acting because political solutions were coming to slow.  He however still felt he had to prevent "further crime" by putting them on a long probation.

We Quakers talk of speaking to that of God in others and the power of that to transform the world "let us see what love can do".   This for me was a week of witnessing exactly that.  The response of the jurors (including to promise to become active against climate change). was for me a very powerful example of Love and Truth transforming hearts even against the oppressive power of the state.

Occupy Your Heart

One of my favorite signs from pictures of Occupation sites around the US is one that says:  "Occupy Your Heart".  When I first saw it I thought of it as not a serious sign - like the ones that accuse Chase Bank of being "a reverse Robin Hood" or the one that said:  "I will believe in Corporate Personhood when Texas executes one".   However, as I thought about it more I realized it is actually quite profound.

For you see, when you really study what Wall Street employees have done in the past few years, leading up to the crash and afterwards, when you study what corporate CEO's have done, when you study what the 1% have done to help grow their wealth, when you study the way the Koch Brother's have paid for phony studies to bias the Climate Change dialogue.....well I have been saying:  "How do these people get up in the morning and look at themselves in the mirror?"  Which is a much more judgmental and polarized message than the one that invites the reader to occupy their heart.  What would the US look like if we all occupied our hearts?  If corporate CEO's could walk in the shoes for even one day of a single mom of color in the inner city would their heart still make the choices it does?   If the bankers had to actually see the people being evicted from their houses would they occupy their hearts?  If the brokers who were making money by betting on the market crashing had to explain it to the Seniors who lost their entire pensions how would their hearts then feel?  What if the Koch brothers had to have dinner with  some citizen's of the Maldives would it touch their hearts?

But I don't want to only focus on those that we call the 1%, I want to focus on the rest of us in the 99%.  If we occupied our hearts would we remember that most of the planet lives on a little less than two dollars a day when we are trolling the malls at Christmas buying things we probably don't really need?  If we did not feel that we need things to be "convenient" would we take bags to the grocery store with us and spare the petroleum in the bags?  If we weren't always in a rush would we drive the speed limit and use less gas- or actually have time to take the bus, or a bike or walk, rather than add more carbon to the planet?  If we occupied our hearts would we give more to charity and buy less lattes'?  If we lived in our hearts would we find time to do contribute to our communities rather than watch TV?

And on the deepest level of all I want to ask:  Why don't we occupy our hearts?  How often do you feel freely your love for others?  What stops you?  What makes it scary to give and receive love?  What are the hurts and scar tissue that we have accumulated?   How have we used those as accuses to not keep loving or not keep trying for a planet and a community were we all know our connection to each other and honor those as sacred?  2012 is around the corner - what would you do differently if you lived next year fully in touch with your heart?