Work: Undone and done #233

Even in grieving over the work I can't do, there is unexpected comfort.

Pamela Haines

Dec 07, 2022

Work: Undone and done

Poetry: Witness to destruction

Dare to imagine: Another economy is possible!

Tuition-free college

Signs of hope

Resources

Dear all,

After all the excitement about election results, it’s been a pretty quiet month. We have slowly and steadily recovered from COVID, and had a couple of delightfully intimate and low-key Thanksgiving visits/adventures. It’s been a treat to host some visitors and dinner guests—almost like normal times! And after the chaos of some first floor wall and ceiling repair and some deep cleaning, we’re resting in greater calm and order.

I continue to be pleased with my growing relationship with the Waging Nonviolence newsletter, and may have finally hit my stride in both producing new writing and making previous work more widely available. The chrysanthemums which I planted years ago in the front of our community garden and have been tending ever since, have made a spectacular late autumn show, and I been watching the moon growing ever more full.

(I’d love to hear from you! If you just respond to this message I’ll get it. Posting a comment takes some steps but might allow for more conversation.)

Love,

Pamela

Recently published:

The struggle to keep public water services in the public is only just beginning

With privatization of wastewater systems on the rise in Pennsylvania, citizens are mobilizing to fight its costs and forging victories.

Going all out, mistakes and all

There is joy to be found in consigning mistakes to the past, focusing on what I accomplish rather than what is undone, and laughing at imperfection — as I try all out.

Cultivating seeds of courage, harvesting a better world

Not everyone’s courageous acts will look the same. But as we learn to recognize and appreciate courage in ourselves and others, more becomes possible in this world.

Angry white men and the search for common ground

These conservative vets invite my curiosity. How can we find each other and fight together for our common humanity, for our shared interest in a livable world?

Who’s brave enough for internal disarmament?

When I am armed internally, my energies are harnessed to my fears instead of my dreams.

Work: Undone and done

Always on the lookout for ways to be of use in this world and show up with my values as an active member of our larger community, I signed up to write postcards for the spring primaries. This opportunity to reach out to people in Philadelphia who were registered to vote but didn’t always follow through was perfect. I was already sitting in front of the TV more than I was entirely comfortable with, keeping a partner who was recovering from cancer company, and that growing stack of completed cards was a visible sign of connection and engagement. We were assured that it made a difference, and perhaps it did. After all, who doesn’t like to get genuine hand-written personal mail?

So I signed up again, way in advance, for the November elections. Then life intervened and I forgot, and then I couldn’t find the cards. I gave myself a mental shake in late September, made a concentrated search, found the cards, took advantage of a couple of long webinars (our TV watching now involved Korean subtitles) and got the project done. Discovering that my local Post Office didn’t carry the right stamps brought another delay, and it was well into October before I finally got them in the mail, congratulating myself on a job done well and still in time.

But as the campaign heated up, and Pennsylvania kept being trumpeted as a key battleground state, my little pile of postcards were looking more and more paltry compared to the need: A red wave was building. Races that had seemed secure were now in question. Voters were worried, fed up, ready for a change. I decided that I needed to up my game, and reached out to the postcard people with an offer to do more. Their campaign had closed. I read a personal appeal (my inbox was stuffed with exhortations to get involved) to join a deep canvassing door-knocking project. Trying to get my mind around the prospect of such unrelenting and exquisite torture, I was strongly motivated to search for alternatives.

A local canvassing group was looking for volunteers to do office help. I responded, blocking out a possible window in my calendar. I remembered a friend’s positive experience doing phone canvassing with a group that focused on building relationships and telling stories. I took a deep breath, decided that would be more endurable than a day of door knocking, and signed up for two shifts.

The morning of my first shift, my husband tested positive for COVID. As I began coughing and feeling feverish as well, it became clear that I wouldn’t be able to spend two concentrated hours on the phone, much less venture out to a community-based effort to get out the vote. I used what energy I had that afternoon to cancel both offers, making donations in their stead.

And so, for the two weeks before the biggest and most important election in years, I slipped through my days nursing my head, taking long naps, reading, doing puzzles, sitting with a sick partner in front of the TV, gathering up enough energy to accomplish critical tasks. In a way it was a pleasant break, very different from my usual goal-oriented and busy days. But I was also watching myself idling those days away, contributing nothing to the battle that raged outside.

I would have chosen to be part of that struggle. There was work that I cared about, going undone. While I couldn’t rouse myself to more, still I grieved. The day before the election I tried to offer something in my newsletter—that though we couldn’t anticipate the outcome, our understanding of wholeness and connection would be called on in ways we might not be able to anticipate. Having somebody tell me on election eve that my words made a difference offered some balm to my soul.

As returns began to come in late on Election Day, the news in Pennsylvania seemed positive. Could it possibly be true? The next day confirmed a clear win, and there were signs of more in sight. Enough people had stepped up. The work had been done. Even as I had given up my place on the field, reduced to being a spectator on the sidelines, those who were there were enough.

I cried in relief. And when I got a message about the need in another state where voters would be facing a critical run-off in the weeks to come, I snapped up the opportunity to write a new batch of postcards.

Witness to destruction

Early Sunday morning the scene unfolds as I approach— police lights at the corner… danger tape… It’s our deli… car crashed into the deli… all the way in… unspeakable destruction. A man who works there— worked there till this morning— tells me more. Stolen van police chase owner on his way. Mr. Lee, my neighbor a kind man whom I’ve known for years his life’s work whole one moment gone the next. I circle round the block come back to find him pulling up, offer a few words hand on the shoulder leave him to take in his new reality. And then I’m overcome. Greeting the kind Jehovah’s Witness ladies just setting up down the street I shed unexpected tears. Destruction rages round in deadly storms, gun violence, war some houses lost, some lives cut down others spared. I am part of them all. The women comfort me. I walk back to my house that is still, unaccountably whole.

Ute Simons

Dare to imagine—a new economy is possible!

College without tuition

Berea College in Kentucky, which serves students largely from the surrounding Appalachia area, hasn’t charged tuition since 1892. All of the college’s students bring some amount of the Pell Grant with them to help offset some of their costs. The college relies on student labor to supplement a lean staff, working on the grounds, as teaching assistants and in the financial aid, admissions and food service offices. Returns from Berea’s endowment constitute 74% of its funding, while 17% comes from federal and state aid and 9% comes from annual donations from supporters.

Their focus of spending is on what brings real value to the college experience. Rather than building bigger and better stadiums and residence halls to attract tuition-paying students, Berea instead maintains the facilities it does have while funneling money toward services like its writing and student success centers.

Some things that have made me hopeful recently

All the good non-candidate election news: Nebraska and Nevada voted to raise their minimum wage. Massachusetts voted to hike taxes on the rich. Illinois voted to guarantee the right to unionize. Cities in Maine, California, and Missouri approved measures to make housing more affordable. South Dakota voted to expand Medicaid.

New commitments to native communities made by President Biden at the Tribal Nations Summit

South Korea’s journey to almost zero food waste

How a partnership with the Philippines is bringing composting to Detroit.