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Forrest Craver has
been doing men’s work for more than 20 years.
He was senior interviewer for Wingspan: Journal of
the Male Spirit for many years. He has led or
co-led more than 40 retreats or workshops for men
including The Mankind Project, Men in Recovery, and
regional clergy retreats for United Methodist and
ELCA denominations. He is a lawyer and a nationally
recognized fundraising consultant for nonprofit
groups. He is the author of a short book of
Spiritual Poetry entitled “This Well Has No
Bottom” and is finishing a book about
intergenerational breakthrough approaches for boys
and men in American culture. His websites are
cravercreativeservices.com/and
transitioncolorado.ning.com/profile/forrestcraver
or eMail.He
lives and works in the Denver metro area.
Collective
Action: A missing element in the green
movement
Conflagration
Invocation
The Necessity of
Collective Action in the Green
Movement
The Power of One
Reflections on the
transition movement: Confessions of an activist
Elder Facing Up to the Fierce Urgency of the
Now!
Robert Rodale - Pioneer
Advocate of Organic Farming and Family
Health
Ten
Years After
Columbine
A Tribute to
Thomas Berry
Young Men Today
– Looking for a Path Forward in the Long
Emergency
The Necessity of
Collective Action in the Green Movement
The power of the collective action: a missing
element in the Greem Movement.
Amish farmers, working in Lancaster, Pa, are
following a centuries old tradition of collective
action going back to Western European roots. The
good news is this was last year. The bad news is
that 99% of the action of barn raising or home
construction or any kind of neighborhood
construction is done by “paid experts.”
The individual owner of the building lacks
emotional and spiritual ownership because he is
excluded from the task. The larger problem is that
we have turned over our health care, nutrition,
child care and financial independence and our
marriages to “the paid experts. The paradox
here is that while cherishing our individuality, we
have dis-empowered our selves by turning to experts
to handle many domains of our personal
existence.
Richard Niebuhr and his brother Reinhold
Niebuhr, two of the most prominent Protestant
theologians of the 20th century, wrote extensively
about the problem of “individualist
overemphasis.” They considered it in “the
big four sins of Western culture—along with
racism, militarism and economic imperialism. My
experience as a writer on enviironmental causes for
thirty years and two years in the Transition
Movement is that “the greens” by and
large are tone deaf and visually impaired when it
comes to seeing the absolute for collective team
action. More recently the books of Scott Peck,
especially People of the Lie, address this issue in
contemporary culture.
There is a huge briar patch out there which is
thorny and hard to navigate. Four primary parts
making up this briar patch of difficulty s are the
following:
FIRST, the breakdown of inter-generational bonds
within each gender line making cooperation between
older and young males more difficult. The same is
true to a lesser extent for women.
SECOND, is the tension and distrust between men
and women which makes corporate team action by men
and women working together on a team more
difficult. This is the residual shadow of feminism
and a still partially unresolved patriarchal
culture.
THIRD, is racial distrust and vast cultural
differences. Denver, for example has a vast Native
American population. I am told there are 30,000
Navajo in the Denver metro and many Lakota people
and other tribal groups. The engagement of these
populations within the green movement is almost
non-existent.
FOURTH is the fear driven quest for maintaining
middle class life styles which cuts the nerve of
volunteerism and financial giving to non profit
causes.
Notwithstanding all of these briar patch issues,
there is no way into the future without corporate
action. I say this in light of the darkening clouds
of our future rooted in depletion of oil and gas,
climate change and accelerating economic
instability.
What I mean by corporate action is a team of men
and women showing up on the ground at a specific
day and time. They are on the same page. They see
the need and they do the deed. They share the same
core values and they are friends in the best sense
of the word. In past essays I have addressed the
issue of movement building. See
transitioncolaroado.ning.com/members/forrest craver
for numerous blog essays on Building the
Movement.
Not only the transition movement but many
nonprofit and voluntary groups do the first stage
of movement building –Awakenment –fairly
well. New people come to an event and see a new
paradigm image for sustainable community and they
get excited.
But then the local green group fails to step
into stage two of movement building
–formation. FORMATION is about forming people
into task forces, committees, pods and work teams
formed through personal affinity – that is the
people self select their specific mission for
future engagement. People work together mainly
because they enjoy and like the people they are
working with. In the awakenment process, the
standard wisdom is that “openings
close.”
In other words, if awakened individuals are not
followed up with, they turn away and find something
else to engage their time. In the Gospels, Jesus
alludes to this issue by saying if he casts out all
the demons, and the person, previously possessed,
does not step into the New, and embody the New
Paradigm of transformed living – he then ends
up worse off than before.
I often tell the story of Lifespring, a training
group across the USA which did in depth
consciousness trainings. Lifespring had 800, 000
grads of weekend, six month and other trainings.
And two years ago they filed for bankruptcy. My
wife, son and I did the entire Lifespring process.
And my wife, Susan was on the national board of
trustees of the Lifespring Foundation.
What happened with Lifespring is illuminating
for the Green Movement and for the trainings on
heart and soul the transition movement is now
doing. The breakdown in Lifespring which led to its
extinction, is that everything was always about
Lifespring. Unlike Rotary International which turns
outward and takes on eradicating polio and smallpox
worldwide, Lifespring always made their mission
about recruiting more people to take their
trainings. They never got to the third stage of
movement building – DEMONSTRATION.
Demonstration is about putting an inclusive
model on the ground in a specific neighborhood
where people can come and see the New. The majority
of middle class folk in our country will not go
“dark green” unless they can see the new
model of human settlement, the new and better way
of living, the new and healthier way of growing
local and buying local. Your neighbors have to see
your retrofitted house, your hoop greenhouse where
you grow thousands of seedlings to plant with your
neighbors.
They need to get a personal witness from you
that you are saving money on your fuel bills, that
you are eating better and healthier with your
backyard organic garden, that your children are
engaged with you and the entire family in planting
and harvesting wonderful veggies, fruits and herbs.
Nothing can ever replace the power of direct
personal experience. This is the key learning from
the field of accelerated learning, open space
technology and leadership groups from the field of
organizational development
So then what can we do about reclaiming
corporate action in our time. I believe from forty
years as a volunteer, participant and consultant to
many social movement groups that the answer is
already present is we are willing to heed the
wisdom of the past. The four keys to building
corporate action come from great social movements
and from the fields of group social work, marketing
and fundraising.
THE FIRST KEY IS RECENCY. This principle means
that your activity and productivity on a team is a
function of how recently you have been involved.
People who are creating a community garden are most
motivated if they are currently engaged in the
work. As the weeks go by without their engagement
they become much less motivated. I was part of a
national men’s organization which studied
attrition and fall off in hundreds of our groups.
We found that groups meeting weekly had the very
highest retention rates. The rates dropped for
groups that met twice a month. And most groups that
met only monthly went out of being within three
years.
THE SECOND KEY IS FREQUENCY. This principle is
highly correlated with recency. It means that the
more frequent your engagement in a local green
group, the more likely it is that you will deepen
your engagement in on the ground action, in
participation on task forces and in giving money to
your local group.
THE THIRD KEY IS SEASONALITY. Earth Day USA got
this right by picking April 22nd for its thousands
of local earth day celebrations. People give the
most money to causes between Thanksgiving and mid
January due to Easter and other religious and
cultural celebrations. People give the least money
from June 15th to Labor Day when most of us kick
back, put our nonprofit mailings aside and go on
vacation. In the green movement with its focus on
being outside growing food, retrofitting houses,
the spring, summer and early fall are the very best
times to advance the movement.
THE FOURTH KEY IS SEGMENTATION. Did you know
when a new book arrives at Borders bookstore; there
are two and sometimes three or four different and
distinct book jackets. The publisher is using
segmentation and testing of the marketplace to see
which book jacket attracts the larges number of
buyers. Within the green movement, segmentation
could be used to build task forces based on
affinity – for example middle school children
and their teachers and parents creating a school
garden. Or another example would be creating a task
force of women on Preserving and Canning fruits and
vegetables. Segmentation relies on affinity
“birds of a feather flock together”. A
good example of this is African American worship.
Although racism has been significantly reduced in
religious denominations, the reality is that even
in highly integrated neighborhoods, most African
Americans prefer to worship in black churches led
by black pastors. Style and culture often seem to
us to be invisible – but they are as hard as
steel.
In conclusion, how is your local green group
showing up in terms of attendance at meetings?
formation of task forces? and sustained engagement?
How are your team members doing in terms of
enjoying working together? Are you retaining
loyalty of volunteers and financial donors to your
cause? Your comments and feedback are welcome. Send
them to forrestecraver@gmail.com. And good luck as
you move forward in building the movement for a
better world.
A Tribute to Thomas
Berry
Father Thomas Berry, a member of the
Passionist order,
died June 1, 2009 at the age of 94.
The author of eight books and countless essays,
Berry liked to be known as a cultural historian and
“Earth scholar.”
The Dream of the Earth, published in
1998, fundamentally changed the entire conversation
about environmentalism and eco-psychology.
One of the best-selling books in the entire
history of the Sierra Club, The Dream of the
Earth brought forward the core worldviews and
understanding of indigenous cultures.
This book inspired an entire generation of new
environmental activists with a more complex and
heart-centered approach to the Earth and all
creatures and energy systems of the universe.
His book stands with Silent Spring as a
bright light and foundational legacy for the
environmental movement and eco-psychologists.
Although he published later works, The Great
Work: Our Way into the Future, published in
1999 provides “the other bookend” to the
seminal vision of The Dream of the Earth.
In The Great Work, Berry lays out a clear
challenge for current and future environmental
activists and an overarching mandate for the next
century. Our overall task, according to Berry, is
to repair the wide-ranging damage to the Earth
created by what world renowned mythology Mircae
Eliade described as “the fall into the
modernity.”
Berry clearly understood and amplified what
Eliade meant when he said” The fall into
modernity is the single most catastrophic event to
ever afflict the human spirit.”
In The Great Work Berry tells us that the
four threads that will help us recover and heal
ourselves and the Earth from the pervasive damage
of the Industrial Revolution and come together to
weave the fabric of our future are
First, indigenous worldview
Second, women’s consciousness and love of the
earth
Third, the gifts and intellectual clarity provided
by modern science and
Fourth, the wisdom of the classical religious and
spiritual traditions.
Here is a memorial tribute from his niece, Ann
Berry Somers:
“Thomas understood the great value of human
reasoning as expressed in the scientific endeavor,
but at the same time he also understood, and helped
me understand, that reasoning alone does not reveal
all that is real. The sacred nature of the universe
is real, not something added on to the physical.
Not only is it real, but it is the deepest aspect
of reality.
Reasoning alone will not give us what is needed
for finding our way into the future. For this, we
need the knowledge only accessible to us through
other means such as the direct human experience of
love, passion, enchantment, joy and terror. It is
the role of artists, poets, and musicians, not
scientists, to help us explore this type of
knowledge.
The Great Story
The moon was shining over the bay
And Thomas asked the moon “What should I
say?”
The moon answered “Tell them my
story”
He asked the wind “What should I
say?”
The wind answered “Tell them my
story”
He posed the question to the red oak, “What
should I say” and
The answer was the same “Tell them my story.
Tell them the mountain story, the human story, the
river story, the sacred story. Tell them the Great
Story.”
Thomas told The Great Story as the moon,
wind, and oak entreated him to. It is the story of
the Great Self and the small self. A story which
bears telling and retelling as if life itself
depend on it.
The Great Story weaves our lives into a
fabric of a narrative larger and more important
than ourselves. It is both an old story and a new
story. It is new in that important details have
been revealed by science, such as the depth of
time, the nature the energy transformations, and
how new forms emerge from other forms.
The story is old because the most fundamental
part of the story emerged spontaneously as an
original impulse of humanity, sung and danced by
the earliest musicians and hunters and artists at
the dawn of human consciousness, offering a way to
apprehend and know our own being.
Thomas knew the story of the moon and the rivers
and the earth and the humans were all the same
story. And that the deep pathology of our time is
to consider our story to be different from that of
the others.
One of the consequences of such thinking is that
we begin to think our future will be different from
that of the old forest or the salamanders, wetlands
and meadows. Such thinking dissolves into absurdity
when one is conscious of The Great
Story.
The Great Self
During our meetings, I enjoyed challenging
Thomas and often tried being provocative, sometimes
because I had a question and sometimes just to see
what he would say. He seemed to enjoy this and
greeted my questions with good humor. For example,
when he would talk about a Universe full of
meaning, I would ask: “Well, what does it
mean?” He would laugh and say, ah, that is a
good topic for us today!
He would go on to describe the universe as the
Great Self and ourselves as the small self.
“Every being has these two dimensions: its
universal dimension and its individual dimension.
Where the meaning or value is, is in the attraction
between the Great Self and the small self.
The satisfaction we experience when we lay down
in the forest, see a turtle nest on a beach, or
become mesmerized watching the flow of the river
– these are tangible encounters with the Great
Self, the source of our inspiration, and the
dimension where we experience fulfillment. It is
the same with music, or building a house. The
different components don’t make sense by
themselves; the parts only make sense
together.”
Thomas also understood death as integral to the
process of life and existence. When asked about his
views on death in an interview, Thomas responded
“We are born of others; we survive through
others; we die into others. It is part of a total
process, a community process, which is what the
universe is.
It is the world of the living - of birth, life,
death. I think of it like a symphony,” he
said: “There’s nothing that happens in
time that does not have an eternal dimension. That
is, like music, it is played through a sequence of
notes or a sequence of time, but must be understood
outside time. It must be understood
simultaneously.”
“The first note and the last note have to
be understood as the simultaneous experience of
melody. And so the whole universe, in a certain
sense, is played through in sequence but it also
exists outside this sequence.”
“So we are as old as the universe and as
big as the universe. That is our Great Self. We
survive [death] in our Great
Self.”
The future and our capacity to find our way: As
regards the future, it may be useful to consider
that recovering our awareness of the universe as a
communion of subjects – not a collection of
objects – is available to each one of us as
our minds awaken to a world of wonder, our
imaginations to a world of beauty, and our emotions
to a world of intimacy.
We all have the capacity for acknowledging and
working toward the larger fulfillment of the
community which is the Great Self and fostering the
relationship between the Great Self to the small
self.
For within this awakening is a new spirituality
– one that Thomas says “requires no
prophet or priest or saint” though the
teachings of the prophets, gurus, sages and
philosophers - are immensely important --- and to
that we would add the teachings of Thomas Berry.
The new spirituality is guided by the Great
Self.
So the symphony that was Thomas Berry has come
to its natural end and today we commend him to The
Great Self.”
Robert Rodale - Pioneer
Advocate of Organic Farming and Family Health
Robert Rodale, an exponent of organic farming and
the head of a publishing empire whose magazines
offered the world the very best information in
gardening, health and fitness, died in 1990 at the
age of 60
“What can be more valuable now than a
small garden, free of synthetic fertilizers and
pesticide poisons, yielding food that tastes as
good as the vegetables and fruits we were able to
buy in markets years ago? Valuable not only to the
body but to the spirit” –Bob
Rodale
At the time of his death, Rodale was in the
Soviet Union –working to establish a
Russian-language edition of The New Farmer,
one of several publications of Rodale Press devoted
to an approach in farming that reduces reliance on
chemicals.
A prolific thinker and writer, and activist,
Robert Rodale wrote more than ten books including
his classic work, Composting,,The Best Gardening
Ideas I Know, Good Bug Bad Bug, Rodale Press Guide
to Organic Living, Rodale’s Organic Gardening,
The Prevention Guide to Better Health and Organic
Way to Mulching.
The Rodale Press was founded in 1942 by J. I.
Rodale, Mr. Rodale's father. The son joined the
business in 1949 and built it into an
internationally known publishing concern.
Their magazines included Prevention, Organic
Gardening, Runner's World, Backpacker, Bicycling,
Men's Health and American Woodworker.
Robert “Bob” Rodale was chairman and
chief executive of Rodale Press. He devoted much of
his time in recent years to the Rodale Institute, a
nonprofit organization seeking to use existing
resources to make agriculture more profitable and
biologically sound. Few people know that Bob
competed in the Olympics in rifle shooting and was
inducted into the U.S, Bicycling Hall of Fame in
1991.
He formed a nonprofit – The Institute for
Regenerative Agriculture -- I was privileged to
work with Bob on the Institute’s membership
development, direct marketing and fundraising.
A warm, light-hearted man, Bob’s enthusiasm
was contagious. In private conversations with me,
he would talk openly about the spirituality of
gardening and the wonderment of seeing
transformation from seed to plant to the
fulfillment and Joy of Harvest Time!.
Decades before his time, Bob, the great
visionary anticipated the the need for urban
farming and considered spiritual communities and
local congregations the ideal platforms for organic
food production in large cities.
Rodale Press grew out of the ideas of J. I.
Rodale, who grew up in New York City but became
passionately devoted to the science of
agriculture.
He was working as an auditor for the Internal
Revenue Service in Pittsburgh in the late 1930's
when he read about organic-farming research in
Britain.
He bought an abandoned farm in Emmaus, Pa. to
experiment with organic practices and soon he
developed his doctrine of regenerative agriculture,
which seeks to save and rebuild soil worn out by
conventional farming.
The following year the elder Rodale began
Organic Gardening & Farming, his first major
publishing venture. Prevention magazine was started
in 1950 and New Farm followed a few years
later.
Sophisticated Marketing: Rodale Press became
known for its sophisticated direct-marketing
techniques that promote not only subscriptions to
the magazines but the sale of books published by
the company.
While most publishers seek out the young and
affluent, Rodale had great success pursuing
middle-aged and older readers. Although the company
has sought in recent years to broaden its base
among younger readers, the majority of Prevention's
copies go to subscribers over 50 years of age.
Mr. Rodale traveled around the globe seeking
ideas for his publications. In 1973, in China, he
chanced upon a book on ear acupuncture. Against the
advice of colleagues he had it translated and
published in the United States. It went through
several printings.
In recent years he returned to China seeking to
persuade agriculture officials to reverse their
quest for chemically aided farming and to return to
ancient organic methods.
Bob also conceived the Prevention Index, an
annual survey conducted by the Louis Harris polling
organization that tracks changes in the preventive
health behavior of Americans.
Although the Rodale family became wealthy from
its publishing ventures, Bob who attended Lehigh
University before joining his father in publishing,
continued to live in a modest brick house
surrounded by his beloved gardens.
At the Rodale Institute, a 305-acre experimental
farm in Maxatawny, Pa., a staff of agronomists
developed farming techniques that have attained
worldwide use.
Robert Rodale, the son of J.I. Rodale-- founder
of the organic movement in the United States --
grew up in a very exciting time. The organic
pioneers worldwide were developing an idea they
never knew would have such an impact on the world
today.
In the United States especially, J.I. and Bob
Rodale were key leaders in this pioneering group,
helping to design the blueprint for today's
burgeoning organic food acceptance and market
expansion.
They were able to persevere and succeed during
these challenging years because they found strength
in each other -- strength came from an
understanding, love, and respect for the soil and
for nature it.
"I will always remember J.I. Rodale not only as
my father, but as a man who taught me to think of
myself as an organic person, trying to live in
nature, striving always to improve the environment
while working to improve myself, too. That was the
message to me, and it will live on for a long
time."
This philosophy was developed from the practical
experience of working with the soil.
“My father lived on the original Organic
Gardening Experimental Farm in Emmaus,
Pennsylvania. He designed this diversified farm
with the primary goal of growing enough organic
food to feed his family.”
“A secondary goal was to conduct
experiments that would help evolve and define
organic gardening and farming techniques. And
finally, J.I. wanted the farm to be a place where
people of all ages could come and learn firsthand
about the principles of gardening and farming
organically.”
“But perhaps even more importantly, the
original Organic Gardening Experimental Farm was
the perfect training ground for what my father was
to become: the world's greatest organic journalist.
That farm experience -- living, working, and
personally experiencing the connection between
soil, human, and environmental health helped him
develop his insight into the world around him."
“Through all of his practical experience --
whether making and applying compost on the farm or
writing about the people he actually visited and
learned from – this would remain the
foundation of his work and vision. And I was
privileged to continue his work and expand his
vision throughout my life.”
The Power of One
In New Jersey, Alice
Paul, a Quaker, saw the need to agitate first with
women and wake them up. And then to agitate against
the government. She knew the pain first hand of
having her creativity and brilliance blocked over
and over again. She became an officer and a leader
in several national women’s organization
–traveling through blistering heat, snow and
rain. Driven by dauntless resolution, she rallied
women from all over the land. One woman acted and
through 12 years of persistent toil, she helped win
passage of the 19th Amendment to the U.S.
Constitution and all women in America won the right
to vote – launching a women’s rights
movement that would change America forever.
In South Africa, a
young man from India was working as a lawyer and
traveling on business with a first class ticket.
Although he was dressed in a three piece suit,
white shirt and tie, he was thrown off the train
for refusing to move to the colored section. The
injustice of it burned in his heart and he resolved
to fight “this terrible prejudice.”
One man acted and the liberation of the nation
of India had begun.
In Chicago, more
than a hundred women and girls were locked inside
the garment factory to prevent them for leaving for
smoke breaks and to get some fresh air and
sunshine. One man acted recklessly, locking the
doors day after day. A fire sparked from defective
burst forth. A Chicago newspaper reporter told the
story in all its tragic depth. His story
chronicling the horror of innocent girls and women
burned to death alive galvanized the heart of
working people across the land – and the great
American Labor Movement was born.
In Montgomery
Alabama, Rosa Parks, a domestic worker was
tired of being on her feet all day washing clothes,
cooking and clean white folk’s houses. On a
public bus home, her legs aching from her labors,
she refused to relinquish her seat to a white
person. Her courage galvanized an oppressed black
community. One woman acted and the civil rights
movement was born.
In Maryland a
nature writer and biologist walked the beloved
meadows near her home. She was alarmed that she saw
no birds and ached to hear their blessed chirping.
The silence troubled and angered her. As a
professionally trained scientist, she thought she
knew how this silence came about. She began work on
the book. She called it Silent Spring.
Persevering through the latter stages of breast
cancer, she knew she was dying.
She worked on despite her pain. The release of
her book, Silent Spring, created a firestorm of
outrage against the government and the manufactures
of DDT. One woman acted on her pain and the
American environmental movement was born. One
individual acted in response to the pain and
injustice of the people.
On the Pine Ridge
Reservation, a Lakota medicine man, Frank
Fools Crow, saw the need of the young men at Pine
Ridge Reservation and trained them for years to
overcome centuries of oppression of the people of
the good red road. Warriors of the heart, these men
knew the power of the sweat lodge and the sun dance
through years of direct experience. Frank Fools
Crow acted.
His pain was the massacre of more than two
hundred starving Lakota women and children gunned
down in cold blood by the U.S. Calvary in December
1890 One man acted and AIM – the American
Indian Movement was born.
In New York City,
on June 28, 1969 police raided the Stonewall Inn, a
favorite bar for the gay community. Police
oppression led to violent demonstrations which
continued the next day. Gay men came together and
organized for their rights – and the national
gay liberation movement was born.
In the great American
West, Mitch Snyder was hitch-hiking to
California.He was arrested for auto theft and
sentenced to two years in federal prison. He served
time from 1971 to 1973. While in jail, he met
fellow prisoners Father Daniel and Father Philip
Berrigan who befriended and mentored him.
Their energies and radical faith had a profound
impact on the future directions of his life. He
became involved with the Community for Creative Non
Violence and over time became its symbolic leader.
He and others would stage mock funerals in front of
the White House and Congress to dramatize how many
homeless men and women were freezing to death on
the streets of Washington D.C.
Arrested numerous times, Mitch once walked out
of a court arraignment without permission, went to
the White House, and was arrested again arrested
for climbing the fence to talk to the President. He
wrote a book—Homelessness in America, which
served as a wake up call to the consciousness of
America. During the Reagan era, he occupied a large
unoccupied federal building less than a half mile
from the Supreme Court and Congress. He was
arrested, served time and was released. He then
went on a prolonged fast approaching the point of
death.The publicity around his fast and possible
death forced Reagan’s hand and the building
was turned over..One man acted and a national
movement for the homeless was born!
In Washington, D.C,
Marine platoon leader Bobby Muller came home to an
angry and divided nation. In April 1969, while
leading a marine platoon assault in Vietnam, a
bullet entered his chest and severed his spinal
cord, leaving him partially paralyzed from the neck
down He was angry by what he had seen in Vietnam.
The appalling human waste and the poisoning of
innocent civilians with Agent Orange. He saw that
he would face a protracted legal battle in coming
years. After winning his law degree he gathered
other wounded vets together. They worked tirelessly
forming Vietnam Veterans of America Foundation and
won federal legislation banning the use of Agent
Orange. One man acted on his pain, and the modern
veterans’ rights movement was born.
In California Candy
Lightner got a call that her 13 year old daughter,
Cari, was killed by a drunk driver while walking to
school by a drunk driver. In her grief,and anger,
she moved to investigate the laws of her home
state. She gathered other mothers from her state
and around the country who had lost sons and
daughters at the hands of drunk drivers.
One woman acted and persisted – and MADD,
Mothers against Drunk Drivers was born.
In Apartheid ruled South
Africa, a native one had lived with the
shame of Apartheid for too many years. He gathered
others together and formed the African National
Congress. Imprisoned for 13 years, he was offered
release by the government. He refused, even though
he had already won over the hearts of the prison
guards on Robson Island who would bring him candy,
free fruit, books and newspapers. As the violence
and terror on the streets grew in intensity he said
“I will not leave this prison until my people
have full bargaining rights at the table with the
government to create a new, free South
Africa.” He waited and waited. And finally the
new president of South came outside for a brief
press conference telling the dominant Afrikaner
public that he was releasing Nelson Mandela and his
movement the African National Congress would have
full bargaining rights to meet with the government
and create a free South Africa.
One man acted and a nation was liberated. And
the liberator became the new president of a free
South Africa.
In the fullness of
time, one woman in Denver decided......one
graduate student in Boulder decided..Others were
drawn to their energy and their vision. They were
fed spiritually by digging in the earth and seeing
the emerging birth of the New.
And the rest, you will find in the history books
in some far distant future. It is all about the
power of one – one powerful seed, one
powerful, loving man or woman who sees the need and
does the deed.This is why all great stories begin
with “One upon a time, in a magical
place.”
Collective
Action: A missing element in the green
movement
Amish farmers, working in Lancaster, Pa, follow a
centuries old tradition of corporation action going
back to Western European roots. The good news is
this picture was taken last year. The bad news is
that 99% of the action of barn raising or home
construction or any kind of neighborhood
construction is done by “paid experts.”
The individual owner of the building lacks
emotional and spiritual ownership because the owner
is excluded from the task. The larger problem is
that we have turned over our health care,
nutrition, child care and financial independence
and our marriages to “the paid experts. The
paradox here is that while cherishing our
individuality, we have disempowered our selves by
turning to experts to handle many domains of our
personal existence.
Richard Niebuhr and his brother Reinhold
Niebuhr, two of the most prominent Protestant
theologians of the 20th century, wrote extensively
about the problem of “individualist
overemphasis.” They considered it in “the
big four sins of Western culture—along with
racism, militarism and economic imperialism. My
experience as a writer on environmental causes for
thirty years and two years in the Transition
Movement is that “the greens” by and
large are tone deaf and visually impaired when it
comes to seeing the absolute for corporateness and
team action. More recently the books of Scott Peck
address this issue in contemporary culture.
There is a huge briar patch out there which is
thorny and hard to navigate. Four primary parts
making up this briar patch of difficulty s are the
following:
FIRST, the breakdown of intergenerational bonds
within each gender line making cooperation between
older and young males more difficult. The same is
true to a lesser extent for women.
SECOND, is the tension and distrust between men
and women which makes corporate team action by men
and women working together on a team more
difficult. This is the residual shadow of feminism
and a still partially unresolved patriarchal
culture.
THIRD, is racial distrust and vast cultural
differences. Denver, for example has a vast Native
American population. I am told there are 30,000
Navajo in the Denver metro and many Lakota people
and other tribal groups. The engagement of these
populations within the green movement is almost
non-existent.
FOURTH is the fear driven quest for maintaining
middle class life styles which cuts the nerve of
volunteerism and financial giving to non profit
causes.
Notwithstanding all of these briar patch issues,
there is no way into the future without corporate
action. I say this in light of the darkening clouds
of our future rooted in depletion of oil and gas,
climate change and accelerating economic
instability.
What I mean by corporate action is a team of men
and women showing up on the ground at a specific
day and time. They are on the same page. They see
the need and they do the deed. They share the same
core values and they are friends in the best sense
of the word. In past essays I have addressed the
issue of movement building. See
transitioncolorado.ning.com/members/forrest craver
for numerous bog essays on Building the
Movement.
Not only the transition movement but many
nonprofit and voluntary groups do the first stage
of movement building –Awakenment –fairly
well. New people come to an event and see a new
paradigm image for sustainable community and they
get excited.
But then the local green group fails to step
into stage two of movement building
–formation. FORMATION is about forming people
into task forces, committees, pods and work teams
formed through personal affinity – that is the
people self select their specific mission for
future engagement. People work together mainly
because they enjoy and like the people they are
working with. In the awakenment process, the
standard wisdom is that “openings
close.”
In other words, if awakened individuals are not
followed up with, they turn away and find something
else to engage their time. In the Gospels, Jesus
alludes to this issue by saying if he casts out all
the demons, and the person, previously possessed,
does not step into the New, and embody the New
Paradigm of transformed living – he then ends
up worse off than before.
I often tell the story of Lifespring, a training
group across the USA which did in depth
consciousness trainings. Lifespring had 800, 000
grads of weekend, six month and other trainings.
And two years ago they filed for bankruptcy. My
wife, son and I did the entire Lifespring process.
And my wife, Susan was on the national board of
trustees of the Lifespring Foundation.
What happened with Lifespring is illuminating
for the Green Movement and for the trainings on
heart and soul the transition movement is now
doing. The breakdown in Lifespring which led to its
extinction is that everything was always about
Lifespring. Unlike Rotary International which turns
outward and takes on eradicating polio and smallpox
worldwide, Lifespring always made their mission
about recruiting more people to take their
trainings. They never got to the third stage of
movement building – DEMONSTRATION.
Demonstration is about putting an inclusive
model on the ground in a specific neighborhood
where people can come and see the New. The majority
of middle class folk in our country will not go
“dark green” unless they can see the new
model of human settlement, the new and better way
of living, the new and healthier way of growing
local and buying local. Your neighbors have to see
your retrofitted house, your hoop greenhouse where
you grow thousands of seedlings to plant with your
neighbors.
They need to get a personal witness from you
that you are saving money on your fuel bills, that
you are eating better and healthier with your
backyard organic garden, that your children are
engaged with you and the entire family in planting
and harvesting wonderful veggies, fruits and herbs.
Nothing can ever replace the power of direct
personal experience. This is the key learning from
the field of accelerated learning, open space
technology and leadership groups from the field of
organizational development.
So then what can we do about reclaiming
corporate action in our time? I believe from forty
years as a volunteer, participant and consultant to
many social movement groups that the answer is
already present is we are willing to heed the
wisdom of the past. The four keys to building
corporate action come from great social movements
and from the fields of group social work, marketing
and fundraising.
THE FIRST KEY IS RECENCY. This principle means
that your activity and productivity on a team is a
function of how recently you have been involved.
People who are creating a community garden are most
motivated if they are currently engaged in the
work. As the weeks go by without their engagement
they become much less motivated. I was part of a
national men’s organization which studied
attrition and fall off in hundreds of our groups.
We found that groups meeting weekly had the very
highest retention rates. The rates dropped for
groups that met twice a month. And most groups that
met only monthly went out of being within three
years.
THE SECOND KEY IS FREQUENCY. This principle is
highly correlated with recency. It means that the
more frequent your engagement in a local green
group, the more likely it is that you will deepen
your engagement in on the ground action, in
participation on task forces and in giving money to
your local group.
THE THIRD KEY IS SEASONALITY. Earth Day USA got
this right by picking April 22nd for its thousands
of local earth day celebrations. People give the
most money to causes between Thanksgiving and mid
January due to Easter and other religious and
cultural celebrations. People give the least money
from June 15th to Labor Day when most of us kick
back, put our nonprofit mailings aside and go on
vacation. In the green movement with its focus on
being outside growing food, retrofitting houses,
the spring, summer and early fall are the very best
times to advance the movement.
THE FOURTH KEY IS SEGMENTATION. Did you know
when a new book arrives at Borders bookstore; there
are two and sometimes three or four different and
distinct book jackets. The publisher is using
segmentation and testing of the marketplace to see
which book jacket attracts the larges number of
buyers. Within the green movement, segmentation
could be used to build task forces based on
affinity – for example middle school children
and their teachers and parents creating a school
garden. Or another example would be creating a task
force of women on Preserving and Canning fruits and
vegetables. Segmentation relies on affinity
“birds of a feather flock together”. A
good example of this is African American worship.
Although racism has been significantly reduced in
religious denominations, the reality is that even
in highly integrated neighborhoods, most African
Americans prefer to worship in black churches led
by black pastors. Style and culture often seem to
us to be invisible – but they are as hard as
steel.
In conclusion, how is your local green group
showing up in terms of attendance at meetings?
Formation of task forces? Sustained engagement? How
are your team members doing in terms of enjoying
working together? Are you retaining loyalty of
volunteers and financial donors to your cause? Your
comments and feedback are welcome. Send them to
eMail
And good luck as you move forward in
building the movement for a better world.
Conflagration
For the Dream of the Earth held by Thomas
Berry.
Tree people roots in mother Amazon, burned
alive
crucified with whirling blades of steel
whipped with chains
Blood sap oozes onto the face
of the crying mother of us all.
Tree people dragged by massive caterpillars
shamed with no explanation
Caterpillars crawl across sacred ground,
hungry,
relentless, bright electric eyes burn through the
night
devouring, addicted to wood
their steel scoops could eat your entire house
in a single bite!
"Why is mother earth being burned
alive?" The tree people ask
each other, weeping.
Deer people huddle in council with raccoon and
squirrel.
Bird people forget their ancient prejudices and
circle up,
crow with eagle and owl.
Now earth mother is burning...conflagration
Conflagration! Have the two legged ones gone
mad?
Messages coming to us from the other world.
Messages of earth and heart. Shift the letters.
Same word.
Earth. Heart. Heart-Earth.
As heart dies, mother earth dies.
Wake up sisters and brothers.
Go the the lodge of the heart.
Ten thousand ancestors stand in a circle of hearts
on fire.
Drumming, chanting, invoking.
The ancient ones call us back to full heart.
Back to loving our mother
Spirit and blood of sun dancers mingles with
grief of pipe carriers.
Grandfathers and grandmothers in lodges across the
stomach
of Mother Earth pour spirit water into the flesh
and bones
on ancestors soon to be.
The sun rises. Water pourers open the door to
the East,
to the creator.
Ten thousand shaman light their sage, cedar and
sweet grass.
Invoking, praying, doing give away.
A spiritual war is coming.
Fire must yield to water.
Tears of the grandfathers. Sweat of the
creator.
Soul waters come pouring in.
A mighty storm is coming to heal the
conflagration.
From This Well Has No Bottom: A little
book of spiritual poetry
Invocation
A miracle is the wholehearted
invocation
of the Divine, combined with suspension
of all disbelief
Allowing the Other World to
Shatter and reconstitute this world.
Through Invocation, the dead are raised
and the blind see again.
Invocation is how the multitudes of the hungry are
fed
and all good deeds come to full fruit.
Brothers and sisters, let us not be like little
children
and invoke our puny ego self
or that of our colleagues
when so much more is waiting to be called
forth.
Let us resort instead to the full power of our
Creator
Invocation is surrender to the Divine Will
allowing your flesh to be the Altar on which
The Will of the Holy One Reigns
This is why the Ancients say the Holy Ones
are Hollow Bones.
Forrest Craver from This Well Has No
Bottom, a little book of spiritual poetry
Young Men Today –
Looking for a Path Forward in the Long
Emergency
“By Time and Age many things are taught. Time
growing old, Teaches all
things.”--Aeschylus
I get to know a lot of people in Denver and
Boulder at meetings and community events. Although
I am clueless about women, I am a 65 year old man
and have learned a few things about manhood.
I’ve been around men of all classes, races
and ages –at retreats, in personal
friendships, business relationships, and various
spiritual communities, men’s groups, and 12
Step groups. Over the course of six and a half
decades, as a son and a father of two sons,
I’ve learned a few things about how men think,
how they smell, what they like to eat. and what
their unfulfilled emotional and spiritual yearnings
are all about.
My sense is that something has profoundly
changed for young males in the 20-25 age range.
Robert Bly says in his book, “The Sibling
Society”, that adolescent males don’t
really come into their own until they are thirty
years old.
And Bly’s book was written twelve years
before the global economic meltdown. What is
missing for young men according to Bly is
mentorship by older men. I am speaking here not of
technical or professional mentorship, like dental,
medical, legal, corporate or scientific
mentorship.
Rather I am talking about psychic or spiritual
mentorship. Only older men can provide the organic
nutrients younger men yearn for – whether
those young men realize it or not. It’s hard
to go looking for what you need-- if you are
clueless about what you really and truly need.
Carl Jung, Joseph Campbell, Robert Bly, James
Hillman, Michael Meade, Robert Moore and others who
have studied masculine psychological structure and
the male archetypes point out that the biological
father can play a significant role. And yet, in the
final analysis, far more is needed by the young man
than a good Dad. The reason is that the father-son
relationship is too intensely rooted in biological
connections and family dynamics. “Psychic
contamination” is the phrase Carl Jung
used.
In the last two years, I’ve encountered
many young men who are adrift. Or at least they
sure seem that way to me. I could be wrong. And
yet, I have a deep feeling that they know at some
level of consciousness why they are drifting.
In their gut they are aware that the Long
Emergency is descending upon them in a very up
close and personal kind of way. “In your
face” is the feel of it for a young man today.
For the context and implications of the Long
Emergency, see the author of the book with that
title, James Howard Kunstler.
With 70 percent of Americans fearful of losing
their jobs, according to recent polls, what is a
young man to make out of the future that is coming
his way at ever-accelerating rate and
intensity?
My observation and reflection from experience
with some of these young men is that the deeper the
consciousness of the young man, the more
disorientation he experiences. In the 60’s,
many young men said a profound “NO!” to
the corporate America way of life. They dropped
out, tuned out mainstream culture and turned on
with drugs.
For young men today, it often comes out as
“holy shit” or “what’s going
on?” Being overwhelmed by economic meltdown,
the response may be to turn off the economic
realities of life and drift. And yet, it is a
subtle kind of drift. Not a full blown depression
-- but a deflation, likes “someone burst my
balloon and I never saw it coming. What
happened?”
It’s like waking up and for a few moments
not knowing where you are. Young men who are well
educated and awake,” get it” that the
foundations are shaking. And what I see is that
“the best and the brightest” young males
are getting pounded by their own depth
consciousness.
Whatever “the American dream” has been
– it is clearly in the process of foundational
deconstruction. I would hasten to add that all of
us are at risk. Therefore, we fervently hope and
pray that reconstruction and transformation are
coming some place down the road.
But the facts are troubling indeed. In one
month, 57 people die in mass murders here in the
USA, all committed by men.
According to the National Institute of Mental
Health statistics, males are four times more likely
than women to take their own lives. And males 20-24
are six times more likely to commit suicide.
If you read Bly’s “The Sibling
Society”, you understand the double bind all
men are in. He characterizes the majority of men in
their thirties and forties as adolescent males in
older bodies-- lacking the full capacities of
mature manhood.
Therefore, our problem is that you can’t
give a younger man what he needs if you don’t
have it yourself. And the lack of capacity within
older men is compounded by the economic meltdown
that Kunstler characterizes as “The Long
Emergency.”
This combination of factors is our “double
bind” and our dilemma.
What then is our way out and our way forward as
men? How do we practically retool emotionally and
spiritually?
One solution I propose is to form small groups
of 8-10 men who live in the same neighborhood or
community. These small men’s groups would meet
at least twice a month. The conveners would be a
man in his 20’s and a man in his
60’s.
The wisdom of the older man borne out of
standing near to death’s doorway cannot be
overemphasized. At the age of 60, most men wake up
to the fact that they are standing in the sunset
time of their lives.
Simple chronology dawns on a man with a rude
awareness when he reaches 60. More of his life has
been lived than is yet to be lived. Some of his
intellectual and physical powers begin to wane.
This can be an epiphany for an older man.
As Robert Kennedy said, quoting The Greek poet
Aeschylus: “And even in our sleep, Pain that
cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the human
heart. And in our own despair, against our will,
Wisdom comes to us by the awful grace of
God.”
The role of the older man is to cool things
down, reassure, and bless the younger man. The role
of the younger man is to fire things up. This is
the alchemy of male soul work and restoring the
inter-generational bond among men that was cut
asunder with the rise of the Industrial
Revolution.
As the famed mythologist and historian of
religion, Marcie Eliade said:
“The fall into modernity has been the
single most catastrophic event to ever afflict the
human spirit.”
What he means is that when we moved off the land
and into urban areas, we lost our sacred connection
to the Earth, animals, plants, and our own
consciousness of being one with the Earth.
The second solution I propose is for national,
regional and local mentorship groups to get gender
specific. The elephant in the room is
“political correctness.”
Yet the biological and psychic facts are that
men and women are hard-wired in fundamentally
different ways. And if we are to strengthen and
deepen mentorship programs across the United
States, we need to own up to and implement a gender
specific context which will have salience and
impact.
There is a fierce urgency to the Now -- for
communities across our country struggling to retool
and realign economic structures and public
services. And there is a fierce urgency for older
men to mentor young men who are seeking a path
forward in The Long Emergency.
Ten
Years After Columbine
Sunday, April 19, 2009 marked
the tenth anniversary of the school shootings at
Columbine High School in Colorado. Shortly after
the shootings, I wrote an essay about the incident
which is attached with this update
perspective.
What have we learned as a
result of the innocent loss of thirteen lives and
numerous serious injuries in Colorado ten years
ago? Well, we’ve tightened school security
nationwide and made it more difficult to get guns
into schools.
But what have we really
learned about why young men go off the deep end
with terrifying violence. My sense is that as a
nation we still have not addressed in any
meaningful and sustained way what is happening
today. See Young Men document attached.
Rather than decreasing,
homicide and suicide among young men are on the
rise. It is rising for white, Native American,
Hispanic and African American males. But I
don’t see or hear about the national education
and psychological associations addressing this
issue in any kind of focused and sustained
way.
The facts themselves are
alarming. Suicide is the third leading cause of
death for males ages 16-24. Males are four times
more likely than females to take their own lives.
Today in the United States, we have twice as many
deaths from suicide than from HIV/AIDS.
A sign that all is not
well with young men is this shocking fact—in
the last decade there has been a dramatic rise in
suicides by males aged 10-14. The male nature of
both suicide and homicide is evident in the
following statistics.
Native American males aged
15-24 account for 64% of all suicides by Native
Americans. Of all homicide victims in the United
States, 86% are males. In Pennsylvania in a recent
year, with a total of 490 African American
homicides, 441 were African American
males.
The conclusion from the
data is clear. Young men are killing themselves
with increasing frequency and the problem has now
spiked sharply with the 10-14 year old males.
The other conclusion is
that young men are killing other young men with
increasing frequency.
Where do we go from here?
We have the Violence Policy Center which keeps good
statistics on suicide and homicide. But its main
focus is gun control and more regulation of guns.
But I believe we as a
nation must face up to the truth that the breakdown
among young men cannot be explained away by the
availability of guns in the culture.
Why are young men killing
themselves and killing each other with increasing
frequency. And why is suicide steadily rising in
the pre-teen male?
It can’t be explained
away by social class arguments. The Columbine
shooters were upper middle class suburban youth.
And many of the recent mass shootings by men
against the innocents were done not by poor men but
by middle class men with education and conventional
life styles.
Perhaps the answer is to
be found in the paralysis of feeling among young
males. The inability to open their hearts to the
pain of life in their own family and their
community. Men are taught not to feel. Men
don’t cry. Suck it up! Act like a
man!
Models of vibrant and
healthy masculine behavior seem to be in short
supply in American culture. Urbanization and the
disconnectedness of life in suburban America create
a sense of emptiness and aloneness. Loneliness.
“What do I have to live for” seems to be
the question more and more boys and young men are
asking themselves these days.
My experience is that
young males feel disconnected and alienated from
older males. Rather than seeing mid-life and older
men as “wisdom keepers” and mentors,
young men tend to view older males with suspicion,
indifference or scorn. Our dilemma as a society is
that boys and young men can’t fix their own
problem – nor is it realistic to expect them
to “pull themselves up by the
bootstraps.”
Perhaps it is time for
Rotary International to make this their number one
national priority. Maybe the bishops and clergy of
the Catholic and Protestant church in America need
to step up and make this their priority.
I would personally like to
see the American Psychiatric Association, the
American Psychological Association, the National
Education Association or the National
Association of Social
Workers make this their priority.
Why not have the Obama
administration create a czar for the “survival
of the young American male.”
We have an excellent
national mentorship program called
“America’s Promise” -- headed by
former Secretary of State Colin Powell. Maybe
saving the young American male could be their
priority? Will anyone step up? When Betty Freidan
wrote the ground-breaking book The Feminine
Mystique which ignited the women’s movement in
the United States in the 1960’s, she described
the plight of middle class women as “the
problem that has no name.”
Today, we again have
“a problem that has no name.” It is all
about boys and young men and our failure as adults
to give them what they need.
Reflections
on the transition movement: Confessions of an
activist Elder Facing Up to the Fierce Urgency of
the Now!
I was sitting in a first of its kind meeting in the
Louisville, Colorado library about six months ago
when Michael Brownlee, the presenter, from
Transition Boulder, began to talk about “The
Long Emergency” and “The Energy Descent
Plan.” He definitely got my attention and I
squirmed uncomfortably in my chair. What I had felt
intuitively for a couple of years was now being
confirmed by hard science and irrefutable data.
There’s a big hole in our lifeboat, and the
whole planet is in that one lifeboat!
Getting it right today has a fierce urgency in
virtually every aspect of our lives. Nowadays, the
margin for error and the cost of our individual and
collective errors carries a heavy price. Well now
I’m 65 and when I started driving, gasoline in
my home town of Gettysburg, Pa. was 28 cents a
gallon. I could go to a Saturday matinee for 50
cents and have enough money to buy a bag of popcorn
and a soft drink too! Talk about living in a
fantasy world of “more is better” and
unlimited industrial growth!
Throughout my adult life, my professional
challenge has been to cut through denial and
motivate people to give money to save lives
–like getting people to give money to six
million starving Ethiopians when it is the tenth or
so time we have had this issue to confront as a
moral and humanitarian issue.
I’m writing this to you to beckon you
forth. I’m impressed by the transition
movement –as the most hopeful and rapidly
growing social movement in the world. I say this as
an activist who was deeply involved in the peace
movement, the women’s rights movement, the
nuclear weapons freeze and peace movement and the
environment movement. I’ve also written about
these movements professionally for 30 years as a
fundraising copywriter. I say all this to you so I
cannot be accused of suffering from naïve
bliss and enchantment. Brothers and sisters, this
is the real thing! Check it out!
Other movements wax and wane over time. But not
this time. Not with transitions. How come? Because
history is breathing down our backs at every
moment. Here’s my gut truth -- If we are to
have life, we will be in transition as far as we
can read our collective future. As the comics like
to say: De-nial ain’t just a river in Egypt.
Americans in cities and small town are getting
blasted –like inhaling ammonia accidentally!
It shocks you, it penetrates your body, and it is
very unpleasant, and if you’d done it, like
me, you don’t do it again!! We need to get
over and get beyond our small ego selves!
Remember Small is Beautiful from the 1970’s
and the mantra “Live Simply So Others May
Simply Live”? Smallness and living simply have
shifted from theoretical values and principles into
hard, practical necessities. History, rather than
our personal whims, is clearly calling the agenda
and will do so for coming generations after us.
So what I know from being involved with the
transition movement in Colorado is that the social
and economic context of this movement is right on.
And the grassroots, from the bottom up, open-ended
approach to change and constantly adapting the
movement are also right. Transition is
post-partisan, trans-religious, local/global,
inclusive and inter-generational – and fun!
Refreshingly, for once, it is clearly not an
American thing. But it is a very local thing and it
is also a movement built on volunteer time, vision,
money and energy. But most importantly, it is built
and runs on heart.
Because I’m a “Curious George”
type of guy, I went to the internet and did a key
word search of “peak oil” “climate
change” and “economic collapse”, the
three pillars of the transition movement. Each of
these phrases has tens of millions of listings on
the web. So it’s clear to me knowledge is not
our issue.
I lived in Detroit just 12 blocks from where the
riots erupted. I had just left the U.S. Army and
Fort Bragg, North Carolina and settled into an
apartment. Shortly thereafter, I saw my own 82nd
Airborne Division on West Chicago Boulevard in
front of my home in armed personnel carriers with
machine guns and all the rest. Talk about a wake up
call! As bad as that experience was, I believe what
we experience today is much more complex,
troubling, insidious and pervasive.
James Baldwin in his book The Fire Next Time
quotes scripture: “God gave Noah the rainbow
sign. No more water but the fire next time.”
Then Baldwin, being a poet, coins a new term
–“historical vengeance”. Sometimes
we reach a point of no return. This is where all of
humanity stands today – literally on the brink
of historical vengeance. We act – and act
boldly – or history will solve the problem
brought on by our stiff-necked denial and refusal
to act.
In his noted “Letter from Birmingham
Jail”, Martin Luther King, Jr. first used the
now historic and compelling words “the fierce
urgency of the now.” And so, my brothers and
sisters, we come full circle. I am an elder
confessing to you it took me a long while to wake
up from the trance of industrial growth culture and
my addiction to affluence. Now I humbly bow my knee
before the cosmic realities of peak oil, climate
change and economic collapse. History has a claim
on me – and on you too.
My life is different because of the wonderful
men, women and children I’ve met on the
journey of transition. I’ve been cared for by
witnessing the truth-speaking and simple living of
my transition comrades in arms. I invite you to
come along. Have fun with us, learn, and serve with
us and your neighbors near and far. The prophet
tells us “For everything there is a season,
and a time for every purpose under heaven.”
Now, most certainly is the season. A season of
being in this world that never ends! Ours is a
Journey of Endlessness. And so, I bless you on your
journey. Until we meet in person, I take my leave
from you with these inspiring words adapted from
the English poet, Christopher Fry:
“Dark and cold we may be. But this is no
winter now. The frozen misery of centuries --
cracks, breaks, begins to move. The thunder is the
thunder of the floes! The thaw! The flood! The
upstart spring! Thank God, our time is now. When
Wrong comes up to meet us everywhere, never to
leave us until we take the longest stride of soul
folk ever took. Affairs are now soul-size. Our
enterprise is exploration into the human heart.
Where are you making for? It takes so many thousand
years to wake. But will you wake for pity’s
sake? But will you wake for pity’s
sake?”
©2009, Forrest
Craver
* * *
Man becomes great exactly in the degree to which
he works for the welfare
of his fellow man. - Mahatma Gandhi
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