Ending Cycles of Violence

In this video clip, from her recent presentation in Watsonville, California, Pam Sexton talks about addressing cycles of violence in post-conflict Timor Leste, but her observations could also be applied to other impoverished areas that have been devastated by war or even natural disasters. Toward the end of the presentation, listen to an interesting example of the disconnect that frequently exists between local residents and large relief/development organizations that arrive to “help.”

http://picasaweb.google.com/115536358126885462849/EndingCyclesOfViolence?authkey=Gv1sRgCOfWl7_744e_oAE#5496147889805149458

IF supports Pam in her work with community-based groups in Timor Leste, one of the world’s newest nations. A former Portuguese colony, Timor Leste would have become an independent nation in 1975, when a revolution in Portugal resulted in its decision to decolonize. But in December 1975 Indonesia invaded East Timor in December 1975 (after getting a green light from the US). With mostly US weapons, the Indonesian military killed over 10,000 East Timorese within a few months, and then nearly one third of the East Timorese population over 25 years of occupation. Throughout the occupation, US administrations gave generous political, diplomatic and military support to Indonesia and its occupation of East Timor. In 1999, when a UN sponsored a referendum on the question of independence or continued rule by Indonesia, 98.6% of registered voters turned out to vote and 76% of them voted for independence. In the next two weeks, Indonesian-supported militia and the Indonesian military carried out a scorched-earth campaign that destroyed around 80% of East Timor’s infrastructure, killed over 2,000 people and forcibly displaced around 250,000 people.

When Indonesia finally accepted the results of the vote, they turned control over to the United Nations, which administered the nation for two years before formal independence was declared on May 20, 2002 and the official name of Timor-Leste was adopted. Since 2002, Timor-Leste has steadily worked to rebuild the nation’s infrastructure, and develop the laws and procedures of an independent nation. Faced with the serious challenges of post-conflict violence, it is the poorest nation in Asia.

A Beacon for Working Families

In May, IF Board member Bill Leininger was recognized at the South Bay Labor Council’s COPE Awards event. Annual COPE (Committee on Political
Education) awards are given to community members who have made outstanding contributions for the area’s working families. organizing and Interfaith Council work.

This year there were 5 awardees, including Bill, in recognition of his organizing and Interfaith Council work.  Bill is founder of faith sharing group, IF/When, which has for over 20 years conducted a weekly dialogue homily in which participants consider how scriptural lessons apply to contemporary social issues. Rather than making donations to a church building, IF/When members pool together support for many local causes, including affordable housing, immigrant rights and fair labor practices.

Unfolding the Potential of Women in Uganda

Education is not literacy but is the awakening of consciousness. Education should encompass all-round development, resulting in a well-integrated personality and should enable one to stand on his own feet. Education, as a Mahatma puts it, is the unfoldment of the perfection that is already in man.”
- Muktananda

One of IF’s program partners, Linda Cole, has been working for years in Northern Uganda to improve the lives of women and girls in conflict and post-conflict areas.  Her goal is to build social, political and economic equality for women and girls in Africa.

The building was constructed by the community members to house the center so they would not have to sit outside

This is done through supporting existing groups of women, helping them realize their potential. Rather than starting new projects, it is about building on what has already been started by the women themselves.

Because of widespread violence and conflict, many of the women and girls in the region never attended school or only attended for a few years.  A large number are unable to read or write and have limited math skills.  The government has a plan for adult literacy; however, in many of the more remote areas it is not available.  Some of the areas which have government-run adult literacy are in poor shape as lack of funding means unpaid and unmotivated teachers who rarely show up, and no materials. Linda’s group, Community Action Fund for Women in Africa supports teacher salaries and educational materials in several learning centers, including the one supported by IF shown in this photograph. The program is running well, we have over 50 women and a few men attending on a regular basis. At the moment it offers the beginning levels of adult literacy but the goal is to expand into several classes in all of the centers, giving people a chance to develop their knowledge, to see their real potential.

About Integrities

You may ask about the name of our publication, “why ‘Integrities’?” Although integrity is usually about personal behavior, today personal integrity is not enough. We face choices about the integrity of the planet and the circles of life on earth, as well as the circles of our own lives. We need to develop a sense of how the circles of our lives connect to the larger circles of life on earth and we need to begin to shape our lives and actions according to that sense.

Like us, maybe you have a vision of the unity and interrelatedness of circles of life, but that vision has been largely mystical and religious. Francis of Assisi radiated a sense of brotherhood with sun and moon and birds and wolves and all of life. William Blake could see a world in a grain of sand and heaven in a wildflower. John Donne could proclaim that no man is an island.

Modern physics is coming closer and closer to the mystical vision of reality. In their search for the separate particles which form the building blocks of our universe, physicists have been finding instead an incredible array of interrelated patterns of energy, a seamless garment. If the world were a machine composed of separate building blocks, then tinkering with the individual parts should not send waves of confusion throughout the biosphere. Instead, our world is looking more and more like an integrated organism, and the continued psychic shocks, reigns of terror and new chemicals introduced into the system make our world convulse and shudder. The spasms appear locally in the drinking water and teenage suicides, in allergies and immune system problems, in an influx of refugees and an increase in political posturing, in debtor nations and balance of payment, in the disappearance of the topsoil.

If indeed the world is organic then the sickness of one part means the infection of the whole. Personal integrity and individualism can no longer cope, The hand cannot say to the foot, “I have no need of you.”

What we need is a perception of true wholes.

We are surrounded by institutions that serve false wholes. “Self-maximizing entities” Gregory Bateson has called these institutions because they are always bent on making themselves more powerful. He numbered nations and banks and unions and military establishments among them. Those who speak for the false wholes have the loudest voices. For them, loyalty to one’s country means subverting the just aspirations of other peoples. Loyalty to a religion means denigrating the values of those who strive for emanicpation through other faiths. Loyalty to the corporation or stock-holders means keeping the profits up at the expense of the poor of the world or the health of the planet which we all share.

Beginning to discern false wholes from the true and getting our loyalties straight is the task of our time if we are not to perish. Devoting our lives to larger wholes of which we are all parts is the beginning of wisdom. The saints and sages have told us all this before. Thomas More remained the king’s good servant, but God’s first. Gandhi wanted the independence of India but valued respect and nonviolence even more.

In order to serve larger, true wholes, we must assume our own power and stand up to those who foster false wholes. There is power to assume. Power always belongs to the people. Historian Hannah Arendt assures us, asking us to gather together and speak out. She never lost sight of the impact our stories can have on each other. “Even in the darkest of times, ” she wrote, “we have the right to expect some illumination, and such illumination may well come … from the uncertain, flickering and often weak light some men and women, in their lives and in their works, will kindle over the time span given to them on earth.”

By sharing the “weak light” in our lives and works, we can illuminate and warm each other as we attempt to bolster integrities in the circles of own lives and the the world we love.

Here is an opportunity for us to gather our “weak lights” together. Today, join others in saving Sakineh, who faces a horrible death by stoning in Iran. Please follow these links, and today make a step in reclaiming humanity in the world.

www.facebook.com/…Sakineh…/123908540984923
freesakineh.org

http://www.realcourage.org/2010/07/sakine-ashtiani/

I respond, even though I may be changed

Can we make a difference? Historian Eugen Rosenstock-Huessy, whose writings about voluntary work service influenced the development of the Peace Corps. suggests that thinking about it may not be the right approach. He feels that we have been overly influenced by Descartes – “I think, therefore I am” -and suggests something fits reality better: “I respond, even though I may be changed.”

Perhaps the first step in making a difference is taking a step down, off the top of the world, away from trying to control. Instead we can take small steps guided by compassion and empathy and love. Living more frugally and less wastefully, working for something we believe in, joining others who are committed to peace and justice, writing letters to Congress – these may not be gigantic steps but they all matter. They are responses. They are saying with actions, “I respond even though I may be changed.”

A friend in Guatemala once gave some tortillas to some street kids. He saw them gather around but was puzzled when they did not eat. They stood and waited while one older boy went to find three little ones who were missing. Only when they were all there did they divide the food and begin to eat. The street kids had learned what highly educated and sophisticated people have to learn over and over. That the empowered community starts very simply, with justice and love and sharing, and with care for the most vulnerable among us.

The Shadow Side

Carl Jung gave us extraordinary insight into the “shadow” which is a part of each one of us—the part that we do not acknowledge and which can remain hidden throughout life. A great part of our life work is acknowledging our dark side, thus preventing it from becoming a destructive force. If we continually deny our shadow side and make believe that we are all good, Jung warned us, the results will be catastrophic.

Militarism and greed lurk in the shadows of our national psyche. When we start wars or invade little countries, we usually pretend that our motive is to spread democracy. Former Congressman Pete McCloskey (R, CA) often said that, as a Marine in Central America, he had presumed he was fighting for the US and for democracy, but he found out later that he had been fighting for the United Fruit Company.

Eisenhower warned us decades ago about our military-industrial complex. It has since grown into a devouring monster.

We are now experiencing some of the consequences of our shadow side in the collapse of our financial system, and in a failed war that has made millions the world over despise us.

In the early protest marches before the Iraq war began, many people held up signs which read /NO BLODD FOR OIL! How prescient those signs were. The US government lied about the Oil, then tried to hide the Blood. In what Gore Vidal has called the “United States of Amnesia,” we don’t hear much about the hundreds of thousands of people killed in Iraq and millions of refugees forced to leave their homes. We keep count of the dead, but we never see their bodies; we hush up service members who commit suicide.

Unacknowledged darkness wreaks spiritual destruction.Though our failures are catastrophic, they may have a maturing influence upon us as a nation. Our “shadow” is at least out in the open.

I May Have Met You

When Charlie Liteky turned in his Congressional Medal of Honor to protest US policy in Central America, he lost a government stipend along with the medal. Several people – strangers to Charlie – offered to help by contributing some money each month. Among them was a friend of ours who had felt he hadn’t been doing much for social justice lately.

Our friend received a thank you note from Judy Liteky, which concluded with these words: “I believe I may have met you. Are you the person who came to speak to a few of us about social justice at St John of God Church ten years ago? (He was.) If so, you see how seeds do grow in our lives – from your work to what Charlie and I are now about…”

During the Nazi regime, no one could have predicted who would step out of their ordinary existence to help the Jews. Those who did so defied our usual categorizing of human beings. Some belonged to churches; others had nothing to do with religion. Some followed conventional morality; other seemed to have lived profligate lives. But they all had one thing in common: conscience. They were very aware that the results of their own action – or inaction – would be with them for the rest of their lives.

Listening to Prophetic Voices

What we are living through has been a long time in coming, and it will take a long time to get resolved. We have had decades of irresponsible economic activity, decades of  insane arms spending and decades of ecological degradation. The yearning for a magic wand to get us back to where we were is an illusion. There is no magic wand to wave.

But there may be an opportunity for a radical change in our ways—similar to the alcoholic who hits bottom, wakes up and begins a new way of life. To wake up would mean to realize that greed, massive military spending and world domination are not only addictive behaviors but also are ultimately self-destructive.

In our publication, Integrities, we talk about learning to recognize the Prophetic Voices of our time. The term Prophetic Voice is used in many ways, but what we refer to here corresponds with the description of the historical black prophetic tradition which “affirms the responsibility to tell the truth, even when telling the truth comes at a personal cost. The prophetic tradition emphasizes boldness in public witness; when lesser men or women would tremble at the task, prophetic voices publicly raise those issues which are most difficult for us to confront.” (from http://princetonprofs.blogspot.com/2009/03/prophetic-tradition.html)

Prophetic people look beyond the present moment. They take lonely steps ahead of the crowd because they have their eyes on a point in the future. They deeply disturb those who are stuck in the present.

• On the day after Hiroshima, Dorothy Day was in Times Square publicly condemning the atomic bomb attack. She saw even then the terror that nuclear capability would unleash. We haven’t caught up with her yet.
• Over forty years ago, Gregory Bateson  said he didn’t think that “a society based on the internal combustion engine could long survive.” I remember repeating that statement to a few people who rolled their eyes as if Bateson were crazy. Now, there is  a mad rush away from the internal combustion engine toward electric cars, alternative energy sources, etc.
• On April 4, 1967, exactly a year before he was assassinated, Martin Luther King, Jr. declared that “a nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual doom.” That speech was called “Beyond Vietnam: A Time to break the Silence. ” It should be hung up in front of Congress and the White House, and especially in front of those who have been so enthusiastic about waging war and so critical of programs of social uplift.Three elderly giants with entirely different worldviews—Ted Kennedy, a liberal, William Buckley, a conservative, and Robert Byrd, a southern Democrat—all saw in advance what a terrible deception and blunder the invasion of Iraq was. We all mourned 9/11 when 3,000 people were killed. But now there are over a half million dead in Iraq and four million displaced persons. And in Afghanistan, the body count mounts.

Violence begets violence. “I object to violence,” Gandhi said, “ because when it appears to do good, the good is only temporary; the evil it does is permanent.” Jesus condemned violence. “If you cannot say on the basis of the New Testament that Jesus was nonviolent, you cannot say anything about Jesus,” wrote Scripture scholar John L. McKenzie.

Almost everyone bows to Jesus and Gandhi, but very few take their rejection of violence seriously.

The Breath of Life

“Spirituality” is a term that’s hard to get your hands on; it seems invisible, up in the air, like something that isn’t quite here. The Hebrew term for spirit, rua, was much more concrete. It meant breath. (And “breath” is something we can feel, even see on a cold day). Yahweh breathed the rua into Adam (literally “the Man”)  and Adam became a living being. The connection of  breath to spirit repeats itself in ancient wisdom from all over the world. Prana in Hindu and Buddhist traditions means both “breath” and “spiritual energy,” as does ruh in the Sufi tradition. Breath and energy turn up again in the concepts of Ch’i and in Shamanic spiritual journeying. The examples are endless.

So the root meaning of “spirituality” has to do with the Breath of Life. And Evil may have a lot to do with sucking life out.

The ultimate test for what is spiritual may be fairly simple: Is it Life-giving or Death-dealing? What breathes Life into our world, and what sucks Life out? This question makes spirituality very tangible indeed. Drilling for oil in a reckless fashion, gambling with trillions of dollars that belonged to ordinary people, waging war in Iraq – all brought death, not life, in their wake. Might it not be that our extreme lust for profit, our compulsion to dominate the world, our wars and our treatment of Nature are slowly sucking the life out of our planet? And out of us?

Blind adherence to any “Thing,” be it a nation or a corporation or a religious system, stifles the Breath of Life. Corporations, governments and religious institutions are Things. Institutions are necessary, but the more they become inanimate objects rather than groupings of people who breathe life into the world, the more they kill the Spirit.

Our ultimate allegiance must be not to Things but to the Living Whole. That is why people of goodwill strive again and again to breathe life and spirit into our world. In Lord Acton’s words, “Everything good must be done over and over again forever.”

We are part of an immense world filled with life and mind. The living Earth is not a bunch of resources for us to suck up and use. It’s Pacha Mama: Mother World, Mother of all Life. Ecology has a deep spiritual dimension in that it senses the Earth not as a dead Thing but as a living, breathing Whole of which we are parts.

How can we become contributing members of a Living, Breathing Earth? The country of Costa Rica derives over 90% of its energy needs from alternative sources – hydro, thermal, wind and solar. It does not have a standing army. It does not invade other countries. And yet it seems to be doing rather well. The very fact that this is a shock to us points to where we stand. America can’t seem to dream any more. It seems stuck in destructive behavior.

A Few Ways to Breathe Life…

• Be outspoken. Oppose war. Stand up for the poor and the persecuted.
• Listen to prophetic voices instead of the inane political dialogue that plagues our country.
• Use your money and resources to help people out, especially the young and those who are trying to do worthwhile things.
• Get Integrities and like-minded publications around. Turn off the TV and read books.
• Cut back on your energy use and waste month by month. Make it a challenge (like a game) but a game that breathes life into the world.

Betty M’s Guatemala Saga

1992  What was I doing—in the Western highlands of Guatemala hauling concrete blocks?  I wasn’t particularly dedicated to manual labor, much less mucking about in the mud.  What prompted me to take this crazy trip to a terribly poor country having a civil war and a cholera outbreak?  I’d never had a passport, never been out of the US.

After thirty-three years of teaching, inspired by Jimmy Carter’s work for decent housing, Peter and I  joined our local Habitat for Humanity affiliate in 1984.  We served on the local Habitat board for eight years, learning and doing way more than we had bargained for.  By 1992 we were beat.  We “retired” to take a “sabbatical.”

We also joined forces with a local nonprofit — IF.  Its members were traveling to Latin America and bringing back stories that didn’t match the sanitized/manicured news we were getting.

I wouldn’t qualify for the biggest risk-taker on the planet.  Maybe the smallest!   But a new member of our Habitat Santa Cruz Board announced a trip to Guatemala.  I was already primed by my IF colleagues.   I signed up and . . . .  Let us say it was a stretch!  I returned home to tell my husband Peter how awful, yet. . . how intriguing.  The next summer we both went!!

Fall 1993—Help! Three months after we returned from our first trip, a friend of IF from Guatemala came up to plead for help for 23 homeless families he was striving to help.  They had been evicted from the farm where they had worked for years for trying to organize.  They had put some money down on a patch of land, had little jobs, were squatting in shacks of plastic and corn stalks on an eroding hillside.  Could IF and Habitat help?  “Sure,” we said.  Some of us IF people went to meet the families.  Who could resist building a sturdy concrete block house for then $800?

June 1995— Whew!  Several trips later and a long planning/fundraising process, our  workgroup of 12 self-financed, hapless and very generous volunteers begin work with the families on their little concrete-block houses.  The families took over when we left, women doing the heavy lifting during the workweek when  most of the men were at work.  Foto = Black plastic shack

December 1995  The Fatal Question(s)

We return for the very moving dedication of the houses when the families get their key and take ownership with tears and laughter.  We have come to love that vibrant country with its dazzling weavings and beautiful vistas but also its desperately poor and loving people with their warm smiles and brave spirits.   We leave to travel around a bit and stop by a Habitat project of nine houses.  Someone asks what Habitat needs most.  “Land” was the answer.  How much does a lot cost?  Three hundred dollars.  “I’ll buy ten.” “I’ll match you!”  Suddenly IF found itself in the land business with Habitat Guatemala!

The Next Question

How many houses did you build?  Ah, well, we helped with three or four.  Actually our goal wasn’t to speed-build in the five days we worked but to understand the country, the people, their poverty-stricken lives which—as first-world dwellers—we can barely imagine.  And to understand how our lifestyle affects others directly and not-so-directly.  On our last trip in Dec. 2007, we attended a grand celebration of Habitat Guatemala’s House 25,000.  More than a few IF fingerprints can be found in the concrete of many  of those houses.

Looking Back  2007

Fifteen years after that fateful first trip, we had traveled to Guatemala more than a dozen times leading energetic workgroups, going to meetings, raising funds to buy over 400 lots, helping to build houses on land IF purchased.  We’ve learned to tell the story of third-world poverty, to “gently encourage” friends, family, and innocent bystanders to donate and travel with us to help.  And finally we had to hang up our cement-coated work gloves and “retire.”  With a sad look back we say “¡Hasta la vista y muchas gracias!!”  It was wonderful—a vibrant country filled with warm, friendly people.  How lucky for all of us!

But. . . it isn’t really over.  Former worktrip member Dave Schoenwald, right, volunteered at Common Hope, Antigua, just after hosting his second IF fundraiser photo exhibit.  John Robinson helped fund a library in Chicacao, Guatemala.  The saga will continue as compassionate people carry on.