Why a Feminist Opposes Draft Registration for Womyn

 I am a lifelong feminist and I am a lifelong pacifist, and I do not support extending draft registration to women.   Yep you heard it right Congress is about to vote on extending draft registration to womyn.   Jimmy Carter first reinstated draft registration after the end of the Vietnam war had ended it, back in 1980.  At that time all young men ages 18 thru 20 were required to register.  Many young men bravely publicly refused to register for the draft, challenging a system they felt would quickly lead to another active draft and more US military aggression.   A few were prosecuted, thousands quietly did not register, the justice dept decided to start ignoring that the system was failing. (Audits showed most did not put in change of address forms and the usefulness of the registration cards was ever increasing.)  Despite many states making registration automatic with getting a driver's license and the "Soloman amendment passing, denying Federal financial aid to those young men who could not show they had registered.   And still they system has been so incomplete and inaccurate to be useless, and the military has continued to fill its ranks from the "all volunteer" military.   Otherwise known as the poverty draft.

So why at this point in time would the government seek to extend the failing draft registration to womyn?  The answer is interesting.  A few years back several young men sued the federal government stating that draft registration was sexual discrimination because it only applied to men.   They are correct of course.  And they won.  The government has been given a deadline and then and extension due to change of administrations to resolve the problem.   The Trump administration spent a year with the NCMNPS holding hearings around the country that were quite restricted in who was allowed to testify at these "public" hearings.  They toyed with ideas like making a mandatory public service for all young people for two years.  (Hitler's youth?)  While not military it would have done things in the public interest...as defined by who?  Sounded like building a wall on the Mexican border to me.  The Biden administration is just going with the recommendation of the commission that toured around which is that women be included in draft registration.   No serious consideration seems to have been given to the other obvious solution to the problem: cancel registration for any gender.

The NCMNPS heard testimony from a former Director of the Selective Service System that the current SSS database is so incomplete and inaccurate as to be "less than useless" for an actual draft, and that registration should be ended rather than expanded to women. But the NCMNPS conducted no research on current or likely future compliance, noncompliance, or enforcement of the registration requirement.  This is an outdated system that has never been used for an actual draft, never functioned well even 41 years ago when implemented.  At a cost of $23 million dollars a year, this is just a waste.  This means we have in my lifetime wasted $943 million dollars on this fiasco.

The tired logic has been trotted out again that if women are serious about equality that this means they must do this too.   I am sorry but it is not a "move forward" for womyn to be eligible to be equally shot at, maimed or killed against their wills....because a draft is against your will by definition.  It is a joke to make this claim at the same moment that womyn lost jobs at record rates in the pandemic and Roe Vs Wade is more threatened than it has been since the original ruling - in a year where womyn may actually lose control over their reproductive rights.  But will gain the right to mandatorily be killed in war.

Womyn AND men deserve the right to equal OPPORTUNITIES (threat of death is not an opportunity).  They deserve the right to equal choices - I stand for the rights of womyn who chose military service or who chose abortion.   But neither group deserve to be equally oppressed.   So I don't think we should keep the oppression for just one group (men).  I think we should finally end this flawed and pointless draft registration system.  

Womyn deserve equal rights but they are not the same as men.  There are still differences between men and womyn and differences that create increased risk factors for womyn in militarized zones.  The most obvious one here being the much greater likelihood of a female solider being raped whether by the “enemy” or as military records reveal disturbingly by her own fellow soldiers or commanding officers (25% were sexually assaulted by fellow recruits and 80% were sexually harassed.  In fact, currently they are more likely to be raped in service than killed in service).   Womyn in addition are on average not as strong and thus more prone to injury from things like marching long distances with a heavy bag on their back. (Stats show womyn having twice the injury rate in training then men.)  But also studies are very clear that womyn are far more prone to PTSD – thus putting them in a situation very likely to create PTSD is putting them at more risk.  (10% of womyn wind up reporting PTSD versus the 4% of men reporting PTSD – although this is in part due to the high sexual assault rate.)

The solution to fixing a broken system which is unconstitutionally applied to only one gender is not to apply the same mistake to both genders!  So far the wrong question has been asked which is whether to include women in draft registration.  The correct question would be whether to end the militarizing of our young people of either gender.  A draft (which this registration collects contact info for) is by definition is to enforce service against people’s wills.   It is (despite court rulings to the opposite) involuntary servitude.  It is wrong to force people of either gender to commit acts of violence and to face potential maiming, psychological harm or death.  Let us create equality by treating both genders right rather than imposing on women the same harm already imposed upon men.   

Friends, FCNL strongly fought to end the draft at the end of the Vietnam war and also opposed its reinstitution in 1980.  But now it is "not a priority".   I understand we have limited staff and have to pick what we can do, have many issues we have worked on for years, etc.  But FCNL in theory sets its priorities by having Meetings vote on priorities but this is not even brought to us to vote on.  Non-violence, anti-militarism and the Peace testimony are historic issues for Friends, and yet most Friends do not even know that their daughters and granddaughters are about to be made draftable, because FCNL is not informing us.   Please let them know you do want this addressed. 

Also write to your Congressional representatives and let them know you want it to at least have a hearing in the House (more than happened in the Senate) and that you do not want this applied to women but rather a bill like HR 5492 from last year that would cancel draft registration altogether.  To change what is required for half the population when they reach the age of majority, to impose a requirement that if utilized could result in their deaths, and to do this with no hearing is outrageous!  

Living in the God Space

It is very tumultuous times in the US.  We are facing the most important election in our history.  One that will determine if we stop being a democracy and become an oligarchy instead.  It is very unclear what will happen, and this is happening in the midst of a global pandemic uncontrolled in the US due to lack of leadership.

I feel like I have been distracted from my professional life as a psychotherapist, distracted from my clients.  So today in Meeting I was praying for my clients.  For me what this meant was to hold each of them one by one in my attention and imagine them whole.  There were some clear themes that emerged of what seemed need to be and feel whole:  To know that one is loveable and loved, to be able to lay down the injuries of that past to come fully into the present, to be able to self sooth and come into the peace of our universe, to be able to set boundaries so no harm comes and to be able to not have to try to hard, to relax into the universe as it is.

This made me think of quote (misattributed to Nelson Mandela but actually from Marianne Williamson) that has long been on my bulletin board:

"You're a child of God.  Your playing small doesn't serve the world.  There's nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insurece.around you.  We were born to manifest the gory of God that is with us; it's in everyone.  As we let our Light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same.  As we are liberated from our fear, our presence automatically liberates others."

That quote for me is about living into the bigness of who are as a Child of God.  Who we really are before and after injury.

Recently when Trump was admitted to the hospital for Covid, I noticed a wonderful space opened up for me.  It is was not the space created by rejoicing in his illness or potential death, but it was a space in which I was able to imagine for the first time in a long time my country not controlled or diminished or manipulated by him.  It was a space where he is no longer President and no longer can create havoc.  There was much relief and peace and possibility in that space. What I quickly came to realize was that whether he left the hospital, alive or dead, that it was I who was in charge of that space. It was a space I could choose to stay in and or to dwell with, or I could in fear return to a universe controlled by Trump.

This makes me think of the words in the Peace Testimony: "We utterly deny outward strife and tumult.  We live in the Life and Power that takes away the occasion for all wars".   Think of that it is a space, an energy that is not war, the opposite of war, a place without outward strife and tumult.   And we live into that space.  It too is a choice as one could live in the space where there is war and tumult.

I am not talking here about some Pollyanna world where we close our eyes and do not see or feel war, or Trump, or the injuries my clients have suffered.  I am simply saying that in the God space there is another set of possibilities.  Ones with more wholeness, more peace, more possibilities for growth, healing and justice.

Why Quakers should be Vegetarians

This article appeared this month in FJ.   Here is the slightly longer unedited version.

Being a Vegetarian is a Climate Issue                                           By Lynn Fitz-Hugh

I would like to make the case for Quakers becoming vegetarian.  Quakers at one point wore black and white clothing so as not to create a market for dyed clothing because the dying process was so carcinogenic that those working in the industry died young.  Quakers also, over a process of many years came to unity on the practice of owning slaves as inhumane, unjust, and inequitable. Our testimony of simplicity has always called us to own less as a way of not being driven by material attachments or over consumption of our earth’s resources..  John Woolman called us to look to our possessions and removed the seeds of war (and I would add suffering.)  All of these ideas: caring for our ourselves, our fellow human beings, and the earth, lead me to conclude that the modern day application would be for Friends to become vegetarian. 

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I first became a Vegetarian while attending Earlham and I have been a vegetarian, of some stripe now for 4 decades.   I became vegetarian not for health or spiritual reasons or the issue of animal welfare.  (Although after reading Charlotte’s web in childhood I never again ate pork)  I became vegetarian for political reasons. I learned at Earlham that we could end world hunger if we stopped using food to feed cattle consumed by people.

I will briefly describe my journey with vegetarianism to illustrate the point that there are many ways to flexibly hold a witness about the effects of meat production on our environment, animals and our planet.  I grew up in a meat and potatoes kind of family where every meal was meat, carbs and over-boiled veggies. I therefore could not even imagine how someone could or would eat vegetarian.  The first time I had a week of delicious vegetarian meals when I was 21 I was instantly converted.  I knew then that it was possible to eat well without meat.  Nine years later I wound up in a situation where I had to travel a stretch of road dotted with one fast food restaurant after another during dinner hour and then enter a facility for three hours that had no food! The only thing I could find to eat was bean burritos at Taco Time. That was okay for a while but after three months of bean burritos three times a week I thought I would barf if I saw another one!  I reluctantly added fish back into my diet.

For the next 15 years, I only ate meat outside of my house and then infrequently . In order to welcome my meat eating step-son into our house I began to cook chicken and fish at home. My husband at the time, who had been 100% vegetarian for nine years, was amused that I describe myself as vegetarian.  I told him that so far, he had still eaten vastly more meat in his life than I and that would be true for years. After we divorced I stopped eating meat again.   Then I developed some health issues that the doctor said was from not eating enough animal protein.  Currently I eat fish and eggs each once a week which seems to be enough to maintain good health. Apparently, sometimes what we wind up eating is a series of events created by the landscape we travel.  

In my early vegetarian years, I learned quickly that simply mentioning that I was vegetarian brought a strange guilty/defensive reaction from others.  Without my saying anything other than “I don’t eat meat”, people would start offering explanations and justifications for eating meat.  I learned not to make a big deal about my choices because I got tired of listening to people’s guilt. I had not become vegetarian to assume a position of moral superiority over others.  I mention this because some of you as you read this may notice feelings of guilt or defensiveness.  I ask you to try to wrestle with those feelings.  I suspect that Friends who were first asked to give up owning slaves also wrestled with guilt and defensiveness.  I think that each of us will have to do the best we can with the moral issues present at this point in history that involve meat production and consumption.  

As my bumpy path demonstrates I have no morally superior position to speak from.  I am not trying to tell the reader how to eat.  I am however  asking you to exam the moral issues with meat consumption in the age of climate change.  I also think that this is not a black and white no meat no dairy or everything.  Some people choose to be vegan, some vegetarian, some eat no red meat, some are pescatarian eating only fish, and some just eat less meat than they used to.  Change is not easy, but if we hold this loosely we can explore and begin to shift.

Climate Change

The first reason that I would call Friends to vegetarianism is climate change.  Friends overall are well aware of and very concerned about the threat of climate change. Friends have earlier written to FJ about why climate change touches on every one of our testimonies.  Early in my climate activism I started making a comprehensive list of what people could do to lower their carbon footprint.  What blew me away was discovering that one of the biggest reductions people could make was simply cutting out eating meat!   The fertilizer used to create animal feed, the transport of the feed, the amount of feed to produce a comparable amount of animal protein, and the transport of the animal are all very energy intensive activities.  Eating lower on the food chain and eating foods grown organically produces far less carbon.  

There’s yet another drawback to eating animals such as cows and sheep.   Their manure, burping and flatulence deposits large amounts of methane into the atmosphere, and methane is 20 times more effective at trapping heat in the atmosphere than carbon.  I know that sounds like a joke, but it is true.

I have seen various charts showing how much carbon per day/per year a person would save if they didn’t eat meat.  The data doesn’t agree exactly, but they all show HUGE savings.  By one estimation if you cut out eating meat one day a week for a year, you save 700 pounds of carbon, cut it out two days a week  you save 1400 pounds of carbon a year and cut out all meat and you save a whopping 4,900 pounds of carbon a year. By point of comparison switching out one 60-watt bulb saves 100 pounds a year.  

A more conservative chart showed the savings from giving up all meat to be equivalent to giving up driving a Prius. (Some of this depends upon how much meat you were eating to begin with.)  The UN list meat production as 18% of worldwide greenhouse gas (GHG) production.   What would happen to climate change if we all cut out that 18% of GHS emissions in the next year? This is the point at which I went back to not eating any meat.  The newly released book Drawdown by Paul Hawken’s lists 200 ways for humans to reduce or sequester carbon.  The fourth solution is eating a plant based (non-meat) diet.

Again, if one holds flexibly the goal of eating less meat to achieve more social justice, it is helpful to know the following.  The production of lamb is by far the highest carbon footprint, two times that of beef which is also terrible.   After beef, cheese has a little less than half the footprint of beef (but still high because of how cows are raised in the US), then comes pork, salmon, turkey, tuna…with tuna being half the footprint of pork, and eggs just a bit less than tuna.    Yogurt or tofu has one third the footprint of tuna.  Inexplicably cow milk is lower than even vegetables. (See www.ewg.org       For chart) 

A vegetarian who did not eat cheese, but did eat eggs, yogurt, tofu and milk could get enough protein and produce relatively low GHG emissions. Forty percent of all energy used for industrial agriculture is for fertilizers and pesticides.  Thus organic food systems use 30 to 50% less energy and the soil sequesters about 28% more carbon than industrial-farmed soil.

Clearly being vegan would have the best carbon footprint, but there are significant health issues surrounding eating vegan.  (Hats off to those of you who put in the effort to do it safely.)  There are also vegans who feel that it is indeed perfectly safe and there are conflicting studies about this.  Like all the choices mentioned here eating vegan may work for some though not all.  Each of us needs to find our right choice.   

Peace Testimony

Not killing animals speaks to our testimony of non-violence. Even if you are comfortable with the idea that in the cycle of life some animals eat other animals, I would suggest that if you take even a cursory look at Confined Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs), you would be horrified.  The animals are raised and killed in inhumane, crowded and violent ways.   This, at a minimum, is reason to look to pasture raised animals.

Climate change is creating drought and resulting food shortages.  The argument has been made, I feel convincingly, that the war in Syria really began over food shortages.   So the issue of using food to feed production livestock rather than export it to other countries so more people can eat is a peace issue.

Social Justice, Equality and Simplicity

As explained above meat is an energy intensive way of producing protein. Seventy nine percent of farmland is for livestock feed and pastures.  Rich countries have higher levels of meat consumption (and resultingly higher obesity levels).  We could feed 2.9 billion more people if meat were not produced.  One acre of grain produces five times more protein than one acre used to produce meat, and feeds 25 people as opposed to one carnivore.  Meat production is also a much more water intensive way to produce food, and as water becomes more scarce it will also be increasingly more of a resource issue.  Both equity and simplicity testimonies always have been about not living in ways that deprive others of their quality of life.  The idea of “live simply, so others can simply live” is embodied here.

Earth Stewardship

Quite aside from all of the climate change issues mentioned above, CAFO’s (where most meat in the US is produced) are one the greatest contributors to the pollution of local creeks, ponds, rivers and aquifers due to the runoff from animal waste into these water sources.  The way mass crops are produced (most of which in the US are for animal feed) under agribusiness strip the soil of nutrients and do not sequester carbon like organic farming methods do.

So Friends I invite you to take up the challenge of reducing or eliminating your meat consumption!  I would like to see that for our Quarterly, Yearly and annual gatherings like FGC that we try working with our food providers to provide only vegetarian meals.   This would be a great way for Friends to experience delicious and healthy eating, and to support those who are working on such changes.  I invite you to this witness for peace, equality, stewardship and justice.

Quaker Parenting

This article appeared in Friends Journal in the April 2015 issue.

By: Lynn Fitz-Hugh & Sara Alice Grendon

My daughter, age 16, is a dyed-in-the-wool Quaker.  Other Quaker parents are often very curious how I pulled this off.  To me one of the most significant things is that from her birth, I felt I was steward of a spiritual being, a soul sent into my care and nurture.

I noticed early on her own expressions of spirituality, and unlike non-religious parents who might ignore or even discourage these expressions, I encouraged and nurtured them. My daughter had a great love of nature and expressed a sense of awe that tied what she encountered to a sense of majesty and the mystical.  I affirmed this.  I was influenced by the writings of Barry and Joyce Visnell who say that our image of An All Powerful and hopefully Loving God is shaped by our early experience of our own parents as all powerful.  This makes much more important how we as parents use power and model just, fair, compassionate and truthful behavior.

I am a leader among West Coast high school Friends, and soon to be part of a lovely team of powerful young Quakers, clerking FGC’s high school program. You don’t get this way by accident. There are choices my mother made as a Quaker parent which led to my growing into my Quaker-ness, and I suspect if one asked my weighty Young f/Friends how they got that way, we’d have similar experiences.  If we really wish to see the Religious Society of Friends continue, Quaker parents must raise Quaker children, and this does not have to mean shoving your beliefs down your kid’s throat. 

It seems Quaker parents rarely tell their children what to believe. However, they often don’t give them the spiritual framework to figure it out themselves, which is oh so necessary for a child exploring their own spiritual life. What I find most horrifying is when we don’t acknowledge our kids as having spiritual thought. As if somehow being a child means they can’t feel the Spirit. Doesn’t that contradict the idea of, “that of God in everyone”?

“Mommy, what is God?” I asked from the 3-year-old booster-seat.

“I can’t tell you,” my mother said. Unsatisfied with this frustrating answer I asked, “Why not?”    

“I could tell you what I think God is, but you’re going to have to form your own definition,” she told me, meeting my eyes thru the baby mirror.  I know that I proceeded to ask my mom for her definition of God, but I couldn’t tell you what she said next, because that isn’t the significance of this memory. This conversation from the back seat on a spring day when I was 3 is still so memorable because this interaction set a precedent for the rest of my life. I knew from that point onward, that my mother would never tell me what to believe.  

When Sara was about 3 or 4 we went to the Olympic Peninsula and camped overnight on a bluff looking out at the rock stacks jutting up in the ocean.  We woke at low tide and walked through the fog out to the base of the now exposed stacks.  The ocean had retreated to reveal starfish, barnacles, and small fish in tide pools swimming to the music of the ocean!  Sara was enchanted!

A number of years later when 7 she announced to me:  “I know what God looks like.”

Some parents would have rushed in with logic about how no one can know what God looks like.  I held my breath and calmly said:     “What does God look like?” 

She then described to me the mystical experience she had on the Peninsula that morning and said solemnly “that’s what God looks like.”  I could only agree and be amazed at her wisdom of recognizing the Presence of the Creator when 3 years old.

            I never set out to teach Sara the testimonies.  I tried to live them and this made them values that were real to her.  Each of us describes below our memories of how some of these things were communicated/learned:

Social Justice: 

When Sara was three, WTO took place in our town.  I decided I would take Sara to the demonstration but leave if it got violent or tear gas was released (this was before all that began.)  How to explain to a three year old what was happening?  She knew who our President was, and most children’s books had Kings as rulers, so I explained to her that there was an important meeting happening in Seattle where Presidents and Kings of other countries were coming together to decide how things like water and food would be made available to people all over the world, and some of the things they wanted to do would make it hard for people to have clean water or enough food.  Sara said,  “We should tell them to share with everyone.”  I told her that the people we were going to walk with would carry signs to make that message to the Kings and Presidents.  When the tear gas started a mile ahead of us I quickly pulled us out of the march and turned around to go home telling her simply “we need to go home now.”  She cried saying “No mommy, I want to see the Kings first.  We have to tell them.”

I think children naturally want to do what is right for all and if you don’t confuse them by doing otherwise they stay with that belief.  Throughout Sara’s life I explained why we bought certain foods or products and not others and what the labor conditions of the workers or the implications for other people were. Politics were constantly discussed at our dinner table.

I am an Activist. Most 16 years olds will not own up to that yet.  One of my frustrations with our faith is that not all Quakers are Activists, but I believe the words should be synonymous. When social justice is a testimony of our faith and we believe in peace, equality, integrity, and stewardship why would we not stand up for these?  I was taught to. Partly out of being born with a rebellious spirit, but largely due to my mom’s example.  I still remember WTO protest and many other protests. I was taught that if you want justice in this world you must seek it through non-violent revolution and that it doesn’t get done any other way.

Peace:

 My own parents, also Quakers, would not let my sister and me have toy guns or even water pistols growing up.  I resented the water pistols part so when Sara was little I got her a plastic fish that squirted water.  I did however always tell her that it was wrong to kill under any circumstances because there was that of God in everyone and that one should not hit or be violent to others either. I also told her that her classmates would believe otherwise because of how they were raised by their parents and prepared her for the idea that beliefs about this differ widely in our society. She never entertained the idea that violence was a way to solve things.  I acknowledge readily to parents of boys that I think this is much more challenging when raising a boy because of the messages in our culture to boys about violence.

The peace testimony is one I’ve watched parents nail bite over, and is perhaps the hardest to teach in a society that worships violence. In the simple logic of my toddler’s mind it wouldn’t make sense to hit another kid in the face for a toy, because then they would hit me, and who wants to get hit in the face? But it’s a little more complex than that; our culture is so saturated in violence that it’s hard to not expose our kids, but that’s the key: exposure. I was not allowed to watch certain TV shows, or movies rated higher due to “violent themes.” I won’t lie: I didn’t like it. When all your other friends with non-religious, non-pacifist, and very American parents get to watch something and you don’t, it’s not fun. But it was those kids that hit each other for building blocks and used violent language.  I’ve grown to appreciate my mother’s sensibilities.

Equality:

I was not allowed to watch Disney as a kid. This was the hardest media sensor of all because little girls love princesses, all my friends loved princesses, and wanted to be one. Of course I eventually saw some of the Disney Princess movies at other little girls’ houses, but that didn’t stop my mom’s intention from living on.  She would tell me;

          “Disney is sexist and racist; all those princesses are always rescued by men, why do they need men to save them?”  I never had an answer for that question. I look back now on my childhood and I frequently tell folks that my mother’s greatest feat as a parent was not allowing me Disney. Because I didn’t watch Disney I didn’t learn from the crows in Dumbo, or the warthog in the Lion king that, people who talk in Ebonics or with a Latin American accent are dumb.  I didn’t learn from the shading differences in lion’s fur that “bad guys” are darker than the other lions. In fact I didn’t learn the concept of “bad guys.” Simultaneously hearing in Children’s meeting that God is in all of us, along with less exposure to stereotyping, I learned equality.

  I did not want Sara to learn good/bad dichotomies or stereotypes about gender and race , but all her friends could watch Disney, and so this was frustrating to her.  I would explain to her what a stereotype was and that these movies had them.  This was uninteresting and unsatisfying to her and I did not think I was getting anywhere, till one day when she was four she was looking at a Disney T shirt of princesses in a store (a previously much coveted item) and she said to me:  “I don’t want this anymore.”  I asked why and she explained:  “There is no princess for Layla” (an African American friend in her preschool).  I knew at that moment that she understood.

Integrity:

 I told Sara it was important to tell the truth and I always told her the truth.  Sometimes I would tell her a subject was too adult and I would not talk about it, but even when I made her promises I would not make them unless I knew I could follow through on them.  I also made clear to her that I expected her to tell the truth and that it was important to me that she not lie.  I realized when she was small that if she did something wrong and I punished her when she told the truth, this would teach her to lie.  So if I asked her something like “How did this get here?  Who spilled this?” or “Who broke this?” and she told me the truth I did not punish her.  I just told her what I wished she had done or expressed my disappointment or other feelings about it.  I also sometimes expressed appreciation that she was telling me the truth. 

As she got older she would sometimes initiate discussions with me about situations with friends where she was struggling to figure out how to act with integrity.  The sincerity with which she examined these things always impressed me, and I wished some adults I knew would give as much thought to their integrity!

Integrity is my favorite testimony; it’s also the hardest to live by 100% of the time, which is why it is my favorite. Every kid will experiment with lying; when I did my mom didn’t get mad, just disappointed. That disappointment was enough to make it feel icky, and it remained so. But integrity is more than simply honesty.

This testimony I learned alongside equality, and in my world they are inseparable. I learned Integrity to myself as female, being spared images of Barbie’s “basketball boobs,” and Disney princesses’ helpless wails. Like violence, it’s about what you expose your kids to.

As a child I played a game with which I still do. When I didn’t like my classmates I’d look for their Light, in trait that wasn’t that awful, or the way they drew with crayons. Now I look for what I can relate too, even if it’s only their teenage insecurity. This is how I learned to treat even the kids I didn’t like with integrity.  

Simplicity:

We all know the United States is a hot bed of consumerism.  The encouragement to want, want, want, and buy, buy, buy, is a trap easy for children to fall into, since advertising is catered toward them. In part I learned simplicity because growing up with a single mom we never had a ton of money, so when I’d ask for luxury grocery items I was denied.  But she would say to me with my bottle of Nutella in hand. “Do you need that?” And I couldn’t make a case for why these things were a necessity, so this logic forced me to put them down. 

From my Aunt Cindy (who is not Quaker) I learned that gifts aren’t always material. Every year she takes me to a show for my birthday, and it’s the best gift she could give me.  My mother lives simply (as Americans go) and I learned by example, but never felt deprived or empty, only fulfilled by life.  

  Like most children Sara wanted toys her classmates had or things she saw advertised on TV.  We had a LOT of dialogues about how and why I was not going to buy most of these items.   I tried to tell her that she had enough and did not need toys that do things for you.. Everyone and their uncle was giving Sara stuffed toys, and when there were 30, I put my foot down!  I told her she had too many to play with and they needed to be loved by someone.  Then I said that from now on if she got another one she would decide whether to keep it and give up one she already had or to just give it away.  She kept to this and as a result we could see some parts of her bed!

If I had to say one thing to Quaker parents it would be that Quaker parenting requires a lot of hard stands, swimming against the tide of popular society, needing to explain a lot of things and having the strength of your convictions, but it also unites with that which is innate in all humans—a sense of fairness and love and wanting good for all.  The results are pretty stunning.

Sara now goes by Alice.  Both belong to Eastside Friends Meeting near Seattle, WA.  Lynn is a therapist and Climate Activist.  Sara Alice has turned 18 since this was written and attending Hampshire College and Mt. Toby Meeting and is a climate activist in her own right.

Diary of a Quaker Climate Activist

I have this goal to post on both my blogs once a month.  But here it is 3 and half hours before the end of the month, and why have I not written a post yet?  Because as a Quaker all of the testimony's directly interconnect with Climate Change.  (An idea already expressed by Eileen Flanagan.)  How can one embrace the Peace Testimony when Climate change will bring wars over water and food?  How can one embrace the testimony on Equality when the first world has created carbon pollution which is creating severe drought and or flooding in the poorest countries in the world.  How can one embrace simplicity while living in the country with the highest carbon foot print in the world (who are we kidding half of China's is ours as they produce our products.)?  How is there integrity in remaining quiet in the face of such a huge threat to all life on the planet?  There are not words for how this violates a testimony on Stewardship!  Thus for all these reasons and many more I have been a climate activist for the last 7 years.

This month past week I have not been able to write because I was networking with other climate organizations and  attending a potluck for people who have signed the CREDO Pledge of Resistance. 76,000 some Americans have signed this Pledge saying that if the State Dept came out recommending that Obama approve the XL pipeline that they would commit civil disobedience to send a loud message to the President:  "No on XL".  The president has said repeatedly he won't approve it if it will contribute to climate change, and yet he approved the southern leg which last week started pumping it's evil and plentiful load to the Gulf Coast to be exported.  We will risk an oil spill and we will incur the carbon in our atmosphere, but we will not get that oil.  He could have said NO to this pipeline yet we waits for reports.  It does not look promising.  Today the State Dept came out with their second highly flawed environmental study within a year's time.  They again claim that there will not be "significant" environmental impacts ALONG the pipeline.  This is such a strange and narrow sense of the environment that joins us as inhabitants of this planet.  They reluctantly admit because there is no way around it that it will effect GHG emissons.   So it seems that in 90 days when the public comment period comment period ends that about 17,600 Americans will be getting arrested in cities all around this country!

I have also not been writing because last Sunday the 350Seattle chapter I helped to start (last May) held a demonstration on Sunday on the railroad tracks.  We were symbolically blocking the oil trains that are being planned to travel through downtown Seattle - 24 a week!  Because the pipelines were not working or approved yet the oil companies started shipping Bakken Shale on them about a year ago.  In the last 9 months 6, yes 6, trains have exploded.  In one case in the center of a small town in Canada killing 47 people! This shale which has been fracked, from deep within the earth's core, has unstable gases in it which have now been found to easily explode at over 73 degrees!  These oil trains are suppose to go through a tunnel that travels beneath our downtown core and two blocks from our huge sports stadium which can hold 72,000 people!  That is the stadium that you can see in the background of this photo:

That night the HUB (steering committee) of our 350 group met in my living room for a potluck and we told stories of civil disobedience to each other.  We were planning a panel for later in Feb on civil disobedience to help people think about this...because between the XL pipeline and the exploding oil trains and the dirty coal trains also shipping through Seattle (2 went by during our hour long demonstration!) there are a lot of reasons to get arrested these days.  There were a lot of things behind my Hat Honor post of last month where I asked people what they cared deeply enough about to be commit Holy Obedience.

On Wed we met again to plan the general 350 meeting we will have this coming Wed, and the meeting we will have with the newly elected Mayor to ask him to please stop the oil trains and coal trains coming through Seattle and to complete the job, started by our previous Mayor of divesting Seattle's funds from investments in fossil fuel.

Today all I thought I was going to do was go to Seattle's local rally against TPP - a national Day of Action. 350 Seattle has had a work group against the TransPacific Partnership since we started.  While TPP is terrible for labor, for health, for internet neutrality, for intellectual property, democratic sovereignty and yes the environment in general....It is killer for climate change.   If we don't stop TPP we might as well not fight all the things above.  Why do I say this?  Because under the Investor Rights chapter, released to Wikileaks because the whole thing has been negotiated in secret and not even released to Congress who will vote on whether to "fast track it", (meaning up or down vote no amendments on a trade agreement they cannot see), we see a huge corporate power grab taking place.  Just like under NAFTA corporations can sue to a court made up of three judges (with higher standing than any countries own courts) and claim that their "investor rights" (the right to profit!) is being violated by laws (environmental, labor or privacy) of that country!  So even if XL pipeline is not approved, if the TPP goes through, then Morgan Stanley can sue in this court and win the right to build the pipeline, and fracking companies can sue and on and on ....it is nightmare.  So I went to a great demonstration today that brought together union people, environmentalists, children, retired people, people of color, health care workers, etc.  If nothing else the fights for Climate Justice are uniting people who have fought their battle's separately for years.

I thought that demo and writing this blog was all I would do today.  But then the State Dept came out today with its unfortunate ruling and kinda put a lot of stuff on my calendar for the next 100 days.  It means we will have a big demonstration on Monday demanding Obama say No on XL.  People all around the country will be demonstrating Monday.  It also means I will be at an emergency meeting tomorrow to plan it.  Sunday I will not get to go to my Meeting.  I will be at the local Unitarian Church giving a talk on Climate Change scheduled long ago...and again at another church this Thurs.

I keep thinking that things will slow down after this thing or that.  But that does not seem to be the case.  But my nightly prayer for years has been that we as a people will make good choices about climate change and that God will make good use of me.  Some people say they don't know what to do about climate change.  That has not been my experience, I find that if you open yourself there are more than enough things to do about it.

Peace,
Lynn

Hat Honor

It is fairly well known among Quaker's that early Friends refused to doff their hat to those of higher class an offense for which one could be jailed. Friends did this, as well as using differently thee and thou, as a way of making the point that we are Children of God and equal in the Creator's eyes.

I think that mostly modern Friends think of this as another cool or exemplary piece of Quaker history.  However, I wonder how many of us have stopped to actually feel out what this really would be like.  Imagine standing in front of someone who in these modern times has way more status than you and then imagine deliberately doing something which you know will offend them, and in fact will probably get you arrested.  Yeah, you may notice as do I, that this takes some nerve!

Actually it takes faith.  It means that in a non-creedal, non-doctrinaire way that one takes action not as an expected ritual action, but as active witness to a Holy One that you are in active communion with.  I am reminded of the feelings I had while taking part in an active civil disobedience on the White House lawn during the Reagan administration.  I had felt lead to this action and felt engulfed in Light in a most intense way as we sat praying on the lawn.  It felt literally sort of amusing to me when the secret service men read us an ordinance against sitting on the law and ordered us to leave.  I was amused that mere mortal men thought they had any power over me as I sat literally covered in Divine Light.  It seems to me that in the Peace Testimony when it says "we act in the Life and Power that takes away the occasion of all war" that it is this same intense Life and Power that they are describing.  And I think that when early Friends refused to doff their hats that they were faithful to that same Presence.....otherwise it was just a lot of nerve!

Recently I was at an action that was some thing between a demonstration/street theater and an arrestable act of civil disobedience.  A group of twenty entered Ameritrade bank which has funded the XL pipeline and inflated an pipeline replica (made of black garbage bags) and read a declaration condemning the bank for its part in destruction of life as we know it on this planet and imploring it to stop.  One person had to keep reading while the security guard literally jumped up and down in his face, while another person had to try to reason with the guard asking for time to finish reading.  The rest of us sang or chanted to distract or emphasize the point and we all left before the police arrived (although standing out side legally protesting as they arrived and left.)  But as the reader continued to read while the bank manager freaked out I was reminded of hat honor.

On one level if you think of it as getting arrested for not taking your hat off it seems ridiculous.  On another level if you think of it as making the point that all people are equal it is an extremely important point to make where ever that arises.  And yet today, in the totally non-arrestable action of simply what we buy and what we don't buy we are confronted with: bananas, teas, coffees, sugars and chocolates which are planted and harvested instead of food for the citizenry in the countries that provide them to us for dirt cheep.  Also our chocolate and the metals mined for our cell phones are made by child labor (sometimes slave labor) and yet we still buy these items.

We read in the papers the slow chipping away of our civil liberties, our right to privacy, workers rights, etc.  Are any of these important to us on  a level of our testimony's for social justice?  Corporations continue to heat our planet in a thousands ways.  What feels important enough to you to stand your ground for?  To not doff your hat for?  To risk arrest for?  For what will you be Holy Obedient?

...Answering to that of God in Others.

Walk Cheerfully over the earth answering to that of God in others.  George Fox

In the summer between My Freshman and Sophomore year of college a letter came for me in the mail.  It was from Jim, a guy who had lived on my hall the previous year.  This would not seem eventful, but it was, because Jim had spent half of the last year not speaking to me (and half the other people on the hall.)  He'd gotten mad at us all for some reason which was never clear to any of us and then refused to speak. Not only that, he also pretended I did not exist, so he would attempt to walk through me in the hall and speak when I was speaking.

I was perplexed and annoyed by this, but after some consideration I decided that he'd done me no wrong and I would treat him accordingly, but most specifically I would stay true to the idea that he had that of God in him and try to speak to that of God in him.  As the months dragged on I was somewhat discouraged by the lack of change this wrought, but I continued to do it because it seemed like the right thing to do.

So indeed it was a surprise to receive a letter from Jim.  In the letter he told me that he'd spent the summer working for the forest service, so he'd had a lot of time to think.  He said he'd come to feel bad about how he'd treated me and wanted to start over next year and be friends.  He said that he wanted to apologize to the others, but I was the only one he thought would forgive him.  Sometimes directing ourselves to that of God in someone is the best way to connect with their highest self.

Some years later I worked as a volunteer in the prisons for nearly a decade with the AVP program.  I made the decision in going into the prisons that I would look for that of God in each of these men.  Without exception I found this quite possible to do, and in fact not even very difficult in most cases.  I think it also made it a very pleasant experience.

During that same period of time I believe I avoided being raped by also following this same practice.   A man arrived at the church where our office was and was asking for the pastor.  I let him in to the big deserted building.  He started asking me about the program I worked for, so I took him into my office and told him about it.  He started saying flirtatious things and otherwise making me uncomfortable. My initial attempts to get him to leave also failed.  Somehow as my anxiety rose I remembered to notice that of God in him and speak to that.  I eventually got him to leave the building to get some food and in so doing got in a public setting again where I was able to then tell him I had to go and separate from him.  Later a friend who worked in a shelter told me upon hearing the story that he knew him and that he had several sexual assaults on his record.

I am reminded while walking with others that most people do not approach the world this way.  For most there is a quick judgement of others as to whether they are friend or foe, good or bad, and little patience for the challenges that others may present us.  This means the opportunities for conflict and frustration are many. I don't think walking around looking for that of God in others is easy, but I do think it brings me into a better more loving connection with others for which I'm grateful.  It has brought me away of life and a way of being in the world which I'm happy with.

The Quaker and the Buddhist

Many Buddhists have crossed my path in the last decade.  Not a surprise really when you note the commonalities between Quaker's and Buddhists.  The most obvious is the form of worship...silent meditation although the goal and the intent is somewhat different in that silence.  Quaker's intentions are to clear the space to know God's mind.  Buddhists do not believe in God precisely, but see meditation as a discipline of the mind and a path to loving compassion.  Both Faiths hold high the pursuit of Truth.  As I jokingly like to tell my Buddhist friends, unlike Quakers, Buddhists number everything and find 4 this and 8 that and 4 subsets of the eight, etc.

Buddhists say that the way to end suffering is the eightfold path.  I'm fascinated by how the eightfold path is both similar and different from Quakerism and below are my reflections on the eightfold path.

1. Right Understanding: Learning the the nature of reality and the truth about life.

Early Friends called themselves Friends of the Truth, or Publishers of Truth and saw their role as to seek and know God and God's will and to be absolutely faithful to this.  This is still why we gather in silent worship.

2. Right Aspiration Making the commitment to living in such a way that our suffering can end.

Quakers have testimony's which we say are the truth as we know it.  We have a firm believe in continuing revelation and so believe that no statement of Truth can ever be final.  But the testimonies which we do have are our statement of the truth as we currently know it and as such we commit to trying to live them out to the best of our ability.  I have noticed that Quaker's really beat themselves up and guilt trip themselves about the failure to do that.  Because of another Buddhist belief numbered in 4 that has to do with stepping away from ego I think Buddhists do a better job of accepting their short comings in reaching their aspirations.  (Or maybe I only think so because they have 4 reasons not to get caught in ego about this endeavor.)

Interestingly non-violence is one of the right aspirations of Buddhism...which of course coincidentally is one of the truths that Quakers have also been lead to.

3.  Right Effort Just Do It. No Excuses.  Be in Wholesomeness.

Hmmm... well that would seem to contradict what I just said above wouldn't it.  I must say it is a trait I like about Buddhists that they live in a very committed and dedicated way in the world.  Although I suppose from the outside many would say the same about Quaker's going to prison to avoid conscription, or for not taking off their hat to the King etc.  This is also said by Buddhist to mean no taking of life, no stealing and no sexual misconduct.  So again Buddhist and Quakers share a commitment to non-violence but because of how it is stated this means vegetarianism for Buddhist, but not for Quakers. (Although many Quakers have made that logical connection.)  Somehow not stealing just seems hardly worth discussing if you are trying to live peacefully with others.  I have not heard Quaker's talking about sexual misconduct, so I do not know if this is an issue we should be examining or not?

4.  Right Speech Speaking the truth in a helpful and compassionate way.

I have seen this written in other Buddhist contexts as a commitment not to lie, be divisive, abusive or to gossip.  It is interesting that it focuses on speech since early Quakers used thee and thy differently than the rest of the population in an attempt to not make class distinctions and to treat all people as equal.  They also refused to swear oaths because those implied that truth was only spoken sometimes and we had "one standard of truth" to be spoken at all times.  Our testimony on integrity is all about truth telling and Quakers are very committed to only telling the Truth as well as applying non-violence to our language.  However, I think we could stand to examine the Buddhist challenge to not gossip or be divisive because....well I think we are a little prone in that direction, Friends.

5.  Right Conduct Living a life consistent with our values.

Well this again would seem like the emphasis Quakers put on trying to live out our testimonies, to live by the truth that has been given to us.  It also points to the Quaker idea that if you follow a leading (an opening to the Truth) that you will be lead into greater Truth, and that you must also listen for the end of a leading so that you do not "outrun your Light, or your Guide."   Quaker's talk about things as being "rightly ordered" which means that it does with prayerful attention and listen to the Light, not out of ego or pride.

6.  Right Livelihood Earning a living in a way that doesn't hurt others.

Early American Quakers gave up slaves 100 years before the rest of the US because they were lead into the corporate truth that this was a violence against other human beings.  Early Friends in England were farmers and business men because they were due to religious restrictions not allowed in many other professions.  As such they started universal pricing (instead of bargaining) so there would be one truth about the value of things.  They have for the most part avoided professions in defense, gambling, production and marketing of addictive substances, etc. as inconsistent with the Truth as they knew it.  Buddhist similarly were urged not to work in the sale of weapons, people, meat, intoxicants, poison, etc.

7.  Right Mindfulness Recognizing the value of the moment; living where we are.
This is one I think Quakers could stand to benefit from paying some attention to.  For the most part I think our seeking is sort of outward, to know God.  It is not reflective upon the very moment, and yet in my personal experience it is a very attuned awareness to the moment that I can most clearly see God speaking.

8.  Right Concentration Expanding our consciousness through meditation.
Again this I think is where the path of Buddhism separates from Quakerism.  Quakers are for the most part fairly undisciplined about how we meditate and in fact I have heard long term Quakers still expression confusion or discomfort about what they do in the silence.

Living in that Life and Power

I have long felt the most fascinating phrase in the peace testimony is not the famous part of "All bloody Principles & Practices, we do utterly deny, with all outward wars & strife, & fightings with outward Weapons, for any end or under any pretence whatsoever. And this is our Testimony to the whole world."  but rather the phrase, "We live in that Life and Power which takes away the occasion for all war."   This second phrase to me speaks so powerfully a real testimony of faith, a witness to the whole world of a transformative and overwhelming power and rock upon which early Friends found the strength not just to refuse conscription but to stand non-violently in the face of harms way in any number of other witnesses to the world.  It also describes the peace of living in God's Life.  It calls the listener forward to want that life.  And I have sometimes wondered, feared, whether we modern Friends have lost hold of that Life and Power.

Recently an email came into my inbox entitled: "Towards a testimony on Gun Violence." Oh how exciting I thought.  I opened it in anticipation of something that calls out in a similar way to the listener to forsake the violence of Guns.   Imagine my surprise when instead I read what I can only describe as a policy proposal for Friends to endorse existing proposals for gun registration.  I was quite disappointed.  Now mind you I have no objection whatsoever to gun registration; it is a logical and much overdue step.  Certainly it is strategically the next step this country could/should take.  But is it a Quaker Testimony? Certainly not.  In fact I was moved to write the committee writing the minute saying if it was presented at Yearly Meeting that I would most probably rise to oppose it as long as it used the word testimony because as such it violated my sense of what a testimony is.

I was raised with the understanding that our testimonies are different than creedal statements because they are statements of "the truth as we know it now."  I was told that the Truth is known experientially and that we struggle as a community to hold up to each other the truth and to find it together and reach unity on the Truth, that we act as a corporate body when we recognize together a shared Truth. Well Friends, it cannot be that the greatest truth we have after 350 years as pacifists is that guns should be registered!  When we say that we live in the Life and Power that takes away the occasion for all war...do we not also feel it takes away the occasion for violence?  Do we not feel that while we may fail, that we are called to live as nonviolently as we can?  I assume that means that little ol' Quaker ladies are not packing pistols in their purses, nor do Quaker men keep guns in the bedside table.   I think we are called to put our faith in God for safety and to live in ways that make no one intent on hurting us, and to speak to that of God in the stranger who may come with ill intent, and to suffer an injury if need be rather than to inflict one.  This, I believe, would be consistent with the Peace Testimony.  And in fact when we look at the first part that I quoted: "all outward wars & strife, & fightings with outward Weapons, for any end"  (emphasis added) it would seem pretty clear.   A gun is an outward weapon and it is rejected for all ends or means.

Now I realize that in proclaiming to the world that they should lay down their guns and try to live nonviolently that this will seem dangerous to some, laughable to others, way too idealistic to be "practical," a threat to the Second Amendment, etc.  But why should that stop us from proclaiming the truth?  After all the peace testimony itself is seen to be absurdly impractical and idealistic to most of the world and has for three and half centuries and that has not stopped us!  In fact, when we first suggested to the world that they give up slaves that was seen as unrealistic (something that we had first had work a century on within our own ranks) and yet it was useful to the world that we held out that idea, or the idea of women's suffrage, or same sex marriage.  Eventually the world sometimes catches up to idealists.  It still has not come to accept the idea that it is wrong to fight wars and yet I don't see us laying down that testimony any time soon.

So instead it is time to note that if a testimony is the "truth as we know it so far" that it is indeed now time to expand the peace testimony.  I think it is time for us to tell the world that we are called to that Life and Power that takes away the occasion for all violence against other humans.  That we utterly deny the use of any weapon against another child of God and that we are called to walk in struggle for understanding, love, and compassion which can lead us into peace with others when there is conflict.