Parker Palmer and the trouble with autonomy

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The psychological work of exercising healthy autonomy is challenging when it is seated in individualism and seeded with identity politics.

Part of a “heritage ride”

According to the Richmond Co Daily Journal, Jacob Mumford decided to hold a “Heritage Ride” after seeing news reports about calls to ban the Confederate flag. He said about the demonstration, “It don’t represent racism. It just represents my heritage, being raised in the South, Southern pride. That’s all it means to me.” He was trying to be someone, the newspaper was reporting it, the country was protecting it.

Mumford was reacting to the great cleansing that began after Dylan Roof murdered nine loving people in an historic Black church in Charleston. In 2015 the National Park Service ordered all Confederate flags and merchandise to be removed from all parks under the agency’s direction, including Fort Sumter and Gettysburg. By 2021 the massive Robert E. Lee statue in Richmond was removed, symbolizing the ongoing deconstruction of white supremacy intertwined with everything American.

The untwining is far from over and the pickups still parade. Alongside the Confederate flag a driver often has the yellow Gadsen flag, as in the picture above. It is the flag with “Don’t read on me” on it. “Don’t tread on me” has been an assertion of national autonomy for over 200 years, and now personal, pickup autonomy. I saw the same display in Lansdale the other day.

Christopher Gadsen designed his anti-British flag in the run-up to the Revolutionary War. The timber rattlesnake on it was something of a Colonial-era meme, evidently created by Benjamin Franklin. The snake is unique to the Eastern U.S. and came to symbolize a new country ready to bite anyone who stepped on it. The symbol stuck around. You can get a specialty license plate with the Gadsen flag on it in nine states. You can say your license plate is about “heritage,” but Gadsden was a slave owner and trader, who built Gadsden’s Wharf in Charleston, South Carolina. As many as 40% of enslaved Africans who were brought to the U.S. first arrived there. You can say it is about southern pride, but don’t leave out the white supremacy and dread people feel when the pickups parade. I felt some fear when I saw one on the Turnpike!

Around the Time the Philadelphia Union was using the flag in 2006, the “Tea Party,” anti-tax Republicans began using it. They used it to communicate the U.S. government had become the oppressor threatening the liberties (I would say the unhealthy sense of autonomy) of its own citizens. By the time it was prominently displayed at the January attack on the U.S. Capitol, white men were flying it on their pickups to communicate they would not be replaced, not be tread on – especially by Blacks and not by immigrants “flooding the borders.”

Fighting for freedom

In the United States, liberty is life. Like the slave-capitalism that dominates it, the powerful dole out freedom to their tribe. But even the lowliest feel a taste for “freedom,”  for individual rights, to be one’s unencumbered self able to make as much money as they can. Even Barack Obama and Bruce Springsteen, whose great wealth and power make them free, echoed this urge in the title their recent book Renegades: Born in the USA. As he was selling the book via NPR, Obama said,

So the truth is that either we tell each other stories that allow us to see each other as fellow travelers and humans, or we have conflict and clash, and whoever gets the most power wins. And I would argue that at its best, America’s been able – with a pretty major exception in the Civil War – to try to make progress and perfect the union without resort solely to violence, solely to power.

I keep wondering if the authors were riffing on Taylor Swift’s “Renegade” in which she sings, “You wouldn’t be the first renegade to need somebody.” They might have subtitled their book, “Meditations on our recovery from ‘Don’t tread on me.'”

I connect the search for freedom in all its perverse and noble forms as part of our drive to achieve the healthy autonomy we need as humans to become our true selves. It is the natural movement Paul describes as leaving the old self behind and taking on the new self restored in God’s image. We all need to have an experience of I AM in relation to God just like Jesus demonstrates His place in the community of the Trinity. The Gadsen flag states “I am an expression of power” the Jesus-follower insists “I am an expression of right relationship with Love.”

Nurturing good autonomy

How we do psychotherapy and relate in other ways requires many choices about how to handle everyone’s need for autonomy and our perverse lust for power.

I think “good autonomy” is when a person gets a sense of their true self operating freely. It is like the experience of getting the training wheels off the bike, feeling your own balance, moved by your own power, and even pedaling out of your parents sight and control. It is the freedom Paul writes about in Galatians: a life not defined by law, but confident in one’s reality as a person made in God’s image, the beloved of God whose life is eternal in Christ. I think of that autonomy as “I am-ness.”

There is a dangerous autonomy, however, lurking in the word. Nomos is Greek for “law”. Auto-nomos mean “makes its own laws.”  It would be great if Palestinians had this political right. It is not so great when individuals assume they are a law unto themselves and must be. One of my grandsons calls his brother the “dictator from the second grade” because he does think he should make all the rules. I think that is an example of what dangerous autonomy can do to community. When we, as therapists, parents or leaders protect someone’s autonomy to be themselves and make their own rules  as if their freedom should be inviolable, we do them a disservice. We may condemn them to be alone, going their own way according to their undisturbed thinking and feeling. We can hope God is disturbing them, which is usually the case, but the weaker among us could get the impression they are on their own and should be, even though they are connected to various communities and are part of creation.

Protecting a person’s personal freedom as a primary goal might be like giving them a bike so they can figure out how to ride it on their own. Personally, I was a bike-stealer as a child. I stole the neighbor’s bike and rode to kindergarten (which was illegal). I parked it in the rack right in front of the principal’s glass-paneled door. I stole my brother’s big bike when I was not tall enough to reach the pedals and crashed it into the curb. My father liked my gall but had to punish me anyway. My parents often left me alone to figure stuff out — and I did. But I also felt alone, which is worse than not figuring things out. And their neglect/appreciation for my independent spirit may have made me a little thief. It is in mutuality we thrive. Subject to a spirit of individualism in the U.S. and painfully alone, a lot of people can’t even give a full body hug because it feels like a violation or improper. What they need more than autonomy is to attach to God and others.

The best autonomy is mutual

The dialogue in the Bible about autonomy is all about having a relationship with God, first of all, then loving others. Jesus followers teach each other to accept every person and love them as they are right now. Such teaching includes freedom but also includes mutuality. My deepest freedom comes from right relationship. In love, my present limitations and boundaries are accepted and maybe even admired. In love, none of us are a law to another; we are all gifts who should be respected.

One of my psychotherapy clients wondered out loud if I knew a lot of thirtysomethings the other day (which I do). He doubted people could connect like I described healthy attachment. But I persist. Parker Palmer helps me persist. He is a gift from the Quaker homeland in Philadelphia. He added to the spirit of what I am trying to say in his well-known essay A Place Called Community. When he wrote his piece in 1977 I was in seminary and about to experiment in autonomy-defying intentional community – which was an irreplaceable education in love, truth and growth in the Spirit.

In his essay, Palmer says:

  1. If we promote autonomy in the individualist, psychotherapeutic and political sense we set up a society of dissociated individuals most suited to authoritarian government
  2. Mental and spiritual health is never just about oneself. It happens in our common suffering in the web of humanity. We build community to encourage health.
  3. Connection always breeds problems. Not connecting and leaving people alone in their autonomy creates even deeper problems.

When you fly the Gadsen flag or react to the flag as if it has power, you might be surrendering your healthy autonomy. Like Obama worries, we could get stuck in a perpetual fight for individual freedom. True renegades end up in friendship and mutual creativity, they appreciate one another’s true selves, and so undermine the endless power struggles of the world.

Fridays for the Future #5 — Catalogs lead to plastic

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Over the pandemic lockdown we did a lot more shopping online. One result of that shopping is we are now receiving  a whole new load of catalogs. Last week I decided to figure out what to do about my bulging mailbox. My journey led me to some places you may want to know about.

I looked in the catalogs themselves for how to unsubscribe. I did not find anything. It was daunting to think I would have to get into every company’s system to get out of it. So I Googled my problem (since I am WAY into that oppressive system).

CatalogChoice

Right away I found CatalogChoice. They are one of the many great ideas people have had in the last decade to combat climate change and pollution. In their case they are “keeping trees in the ground.” They will help you get off catalog lists.

They are a nonprofit and have no capacity to keep the USPS from doing what it does in service to consumer capitalism, nor can they get you off prospecting lists. They suggest you combine their service with DMA Choice. DMA Choice is another nonprofit that helps you curate the mailing lists you’re on or stop direct mail altogether.

Story of Stuff

Like most of my exploration of how to get into climate action (at least every Friday!) there was an unexpected good consequence of engaging. It turns out that CatalogChoice is an offshoot of the The Story of Stuff Project. I have been passing around one of their videos (The Story of Plastic) for a while.

This group of ambitious inventive people, based in San Francisco, have made a difference in how we make, use, and throw away stuff. They list some big fights their worldwide community has won:

Burning plastic

Jon Stewart’s first new show focused on the burn pits the U.S. Military created, especially in Iraq, that not only polluted the atmosphere but permanently damaged the soldiers who are now fighting for VA benefits. I did not know about that. One of the elements that make burn pits so toxic is plastic.

In The Story of Plastic, one fact caught my attention. The world increasingly uses plastic for fuel in its waste incinerators. Plastic is, after all, a fossil fuel. The European Union burns 42% of its waste, the U.S. 12%. Their expensive incinerator plants, which pollute less if properly equipped and maintained, require a constant source of plastic to fuel the constant burn they need to maintain.

The process is not part of a “circular economy” to which the EU is committed – no disposable products and a goal for all packaging to be reusable, recyclable or compostable. “When you take fossil fuels out of the ground, make plastics with them, then burn those plastics for energy, it’s clear that this is not a circle—it’s a line,” says Rob Opsomer of the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, which promotes circular economy efforts.

Another way to convert plastic waste to energy is through gasification, a process that melts plastics at very high temperatures in the near-absence of oxygen (which means toxins like dioxins and furans aren’t formed). A more attractive technology right now is pyrolysis, through which plastics are shredded and melted at lower temperatures than gasification and in the presence of even less oxygen. The heat breaks plastic polymers down into smaller hydrocarbons, which can be refined to diesel fuel and even into other petrochemical products—including new plastics.

Zero-waste advocates worry that any approach to converting plastic waste into energy does nothing to reduce demand for new plastic products and even less to mitigate climate change. “To uplift these approaches is to distract from real solutions,” says Claire Arkin, a campaigner with the Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives — that is, solutions that allow people to use less plastic and reuse and recycle more.

It seems to me that continuing to compromise with giant oil companies (who are hurrying to build plastic manufacturing sites as we speak), delays the process of protecting us from climate disaster. They are committed to getting their product out of the ground and sold. As long as we protect that goal, keeping the temperature from rising past the point of no return seems unlikely. Better pray and work!

Why are the Post-Covid regimes so cruel?

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A few leaders of my church were afraid this post tries say something to them without naming them.  Not so. The entry is directed at me as much as anyone; I lead things, too. My point is that all of us are tempted to be cruel in the post-Covid age of Trump and act the four ways I list. I need to watch it, and if you think you need to watch it, you are probably right. 

Some questions beg for an answer, even though the answer is not easy or even welcome. But I have been asking the title to this piece all week: Why are the Post-Covid regimes so cruel? Here is some of what I hear.

Donald Trump is one big reason everyone is more cruel. Trump may be forever pre-Covid – since he may think the virus is fake news, his recovery from it notwithstanding. But he has greatly influenced what is taking root in the world and may bloom. You run into his disciples all the time. They are cruel.

For instance, Trump’s response to the death of Colin Powell last week was very cruel. I was going to say “breathtakingly” cruel, but he, of all of today’s wicked actors, has done so much to normalize cruelty we all feel a new license to take someone out, to maliciously undermine someone, to build walls against enemies, and to make exclusionary laws. It is all normal. His wickedness no longer takes our breath away. You probably saw Trump’s response, since he is the king of “all publicity is good publicity” and he horned his way into the national honors afforded Powell. I don’t want to repeat it, but you can see it here. It was cruel.

Infamous border patrol picture

Trump is not alone. The country is filled with policies and practices that require people to be cruel. For instance, in a couple of weeks I will be at the southern border with MCC folks. I know I will meet people full of love there. But that love will be more evident because it contrasts with the visible and relentless cruelty of the government.

I am asking the question because of Donald Trump and the border. As a country we are attacked from within and hemmed in from without by a siege of cruelty that is affecting how we think and treat each other. Just witness the incredible popularity of Squid Game.

But more, I am asking the question that needs to be asked because I am seeing the cruel impact of new, post-Covid regimes, inside the church and out, which impact people I know and love: my clients, fellow church members and friends around the world.

Somehow the upheaval of Covid has loosened a new need among a new generation to reform (hopefully, but at least deconstruct) any culture or organization that does not meet a new set of standards. Their passion is often cruel in its application. In so many organizations I hear about, relationships are frayed, leaders are strangely authoritarian, and dialogue is unusually vicious. Here are four stories remembered during a sleepless night that illustrate some of the characteristics of the new cruelty.

Cut off, don’t reconcile

A pastor I know was trying to talk a church member into listening to the struggle of someone reeling from new, “progressive” language about race. She told her pastor, “The hell with’em. Let’m go.” Somehow the new regime has lost Howard Thurman’s way to love, like I said last week, and has decided to perfect the hate. It seems that even Christians, with their “ministry of reconciliation” have perfected the cut off.

Be secret, not transparent

I was in a small group and a pastor told us about the “parking lot meeting” his board had about him last week. In his polity, he is on the board. Outside the church, it is common for accusations to go to HR or to campus committees. The accusations may or may not be true, but sometimes before guilt is established, the accused is hounded out. The spirit of due process is going out of fashion. It is not unusual for someone to get an email notifying them in some oblique way about what happened to them behind closed doors.

Stay safe, not antifragile

In their book, The Coddling of the American Mind,  Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt describe how the new regimes of the new generation have expanded the idea of safety in ways that undermine community and cripple their own development.  They insist that we will be happier, healthier and stronger if we

  • Seek out challenges rather than eliminating or avoiding everything that “feels unsafe”
  • Free ourselves from cognitive distortion rather than always trusting our initial feelings
  • Take a generous view of others and look for nuance rather than assuming the worst about people with a simplistic us-versus-them morality.

An over-emphasis on safety makes us fragile and so in need of more safety. A realistic approach to resilience makes us antifragile, more adaptable, more immune to things that might truly harm us. A hallmark of the “be safe” mentality that took on steam in the 2010’s is a preoccupation with words that make people feel uncomfortable. The new regime protects abstract people from abstract issues, but doesn’t have enough relationship to achieve immunity from the everyday wounds of love. People end up needing to protect themselves from love.

Enact law, not grace

One of my pastor friends in the Jesus Collective ended up on the other side of a pandemic-long, zoom-based fine-tooth-combing of his church’s by-laws. That choice, in itself, is a bit breath-taking. During the hardest thing most of us have ever experienced, the leaders decided to take a hard, virus-ridden look at themselves! They re-oriented the church so much he was, effectively, eliminated and could only see a door out as the way ahead.

There is a new focus on law, and especially laws that protect identity. It is true that such protections are a must in our “slave economy,” as two of my Black clients called it last week. But it is not unusual for everything to be seen through a lens of identity and the power struggle to get a just piece of the American pie. If someone promotes the generosity of God, the rain and sun lavished on the good and bad, they might get called out as giving in to oppression. Jesus could end up looking like some sort of supremacist because he chooses to die for others while others have no choice but to die, and atonement sometimes becomes an endless repentance for collaborating with oppressive systems. One of my newest favorites, Karith Foster, suggests a better way to undo white supremacy with C.A.R.E.ing not coerceing.

Fra Angelico – Paradise

I blame Covid for much of the cruelty happening, right now. In 2023, when we have all had a year of face time, those of us who have begun again might come up with something as breathtakingly beautiful as Donald Trump is breathtakingly cruel. It is a common thought that the Bubonic Plague in Europe caused so many social, economic and religious changes it led to the emergence of the Renaissance, an amazing era for art, architecture, literature and invention. I’m holding out for that kind of movement and hoping the present regimes are precursors to it.

We are not there yet. And you may be suffering under a new regime flexing its muscles and imposing its ill-considered philosophy or theology. I wish I knew what to tell you to do. My own solution leans toward creatively suffering . I am curious about what is coming. I am going to give my gifts to build it. I want to be the presence of love in it. I am going to trust Jesus to be with us through what could be the worst and best of times.

Fridays for the Future #4 — PGW, the PUC and RNG: How gov’t gets in the way of climate action

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Circa 2012

I have a resident expert on sustainability in my life: my friend Paul Kohl, the Director of Planning and Research at the PWD. His LinkedIn page says “PWD” for Philadelphia Water Department and that is the first abbreviation of many in this story. Get ready for PEA, PGW, PUC, RNG, NYC, PJM and maybe more.

It is all government-speak, which often obscures the reality of what is going on (like “Who are we even talking about? And what is ‘sustainability’ supposed to mean?”). These days the torturously slow, maddening pace of government regarding climate change is clogging up the immediate action we need to take.

For instance, I wrote a note to Kenyatta Johnson, the councilman for my congregation’s district in Philly. (I plan to contact everyone, once I find out who is who. I am making you a list). I got a nice phone message from his communications director, Vincent Thompson, who I have met on the street. He told me he was sending me a link for the Office of Sustainability. He said the City Council does not do much about climate change but may pass legislation proposed by the Mayor’s Office in which the Office of Sustainability falls. Kristine Knapp is the director. I am acquainted with her since she used to lead the Passyunk Square Civic Association, I was associated with their board for a hot minute back in the day. She’s great, but if you look at the office’s site, it will be hard to find something that resembles radical action. When Vincent called me again (! — you are on it!) I told him he could have directed me to Emily Shapira at PEA (Philadelphia Energy Authority) which is the brainchild of Darrel Clarke and is an arm of the City Council. It is hard to keep track of all these overlapping agencies. I am not sure they even get along.

Even though it often feels like a dead end, we need to talk to the government, somehow. You can put as many solar panels on your house as you like, which is good. But it is the work of government, not individuals, which is the main problem with the atmosphere. The main corporate polluters have a moral obligation to stop polluting, but the capitalist system under which they function has a deadly logic of its own and needs to be restrained by the government before profit-taking kills us all.

RNG could be part of the picture

My friend Paul knows all about these things as the scientist, engineer, under-affirmed leader and government project manager he has been. He told me a story about PGW (the city-owned energy utility) which demonstrates how government can work but then can be its own problem.

A 2015 report by the Pennsylvania PUC (Public Utilities Commission) found 7,600 total leaks across PGW’s (Philadelphia Gas Works‘) system with more than half being classified as hazardous.  (Good work PUC!) In June of 2021 (yes, SIX YEARS later) PGW announced plans to cut methane emissions 80% by 2050 by modernizing infrastructure and implementing new technology, according to this news release. The leaking methane is a powerful greenhouse gas that contributes to global warming at a rate more than 80 times that of carbon dioxide. There are projects all over the country to cap it or capture it.

The IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change — quoted report is from 2018) and the City of Philadelphia have committed to reaching carbon neutrality by 2050 to keep warming below 1.5 degrees centigrade.

  • This goal my not be enough, but it is the popular goal.
  • The federal government stalled during Trump’s FOUR YEARS (Rex Tillerson was Sec. of State, for one thing!).
  • The pandemic slowed or stopped some serious work.
  • The City has more fights about people having to come back to the office than they do about the best way to save the planet.

But we press on. The 20% of the methane loss they don’t think they can stop will be “offset” through planting trees or other measures, according to Rob Altenburg, senior director of energy and climate at PennFuture, a well-funded (as in Heinz and Pew and downtown galas) nonprofit focused on leading the transition to a clean energy economy across Pennsylvania.

Part of PGW’s plan is to seek “renewable natural gas (RNG) sources for gas supply, along with other RNG development opportunities.” RNG technology is itching to get going. Advanced anaerobic digestors are the new thing. NYC has some. In Philly, there is a proposed project to capture methane from food waste on an old refinery site that finally made its way through the courts in June of 2021 (report). PGW wanted to be purveyors of such RNG so we can keep the natural gas in the ground.

PA PUC Chair Gladys Dutrieuille

By August of 2021, the PUC stepped in and quashed the pilot project (Inquirer story). They did not disagree with the idea of it. But the law that gives the PUC authority to regulate utilities requires it to make sure consumers get the cheapest possible rates. RNG, at this point, costs about two to five times more than natural gas. So a majority of the board interpreted the law to say the small amount of expensive gas PGW planned to buy to get this industry going was not OK.

And some critics say RNG is not the best solution to methane from landfills and might even cause more pollution (article). And there will always be people saying we need to radically decrease consumption, not just try to change technology fast enough to keep up our destructive pace.

The Inquirer could not resist ending their article on the proposed plant by putting the blame on government: “The Republican-controlled General Assembly has demonstrated little appetite for climate mandates, such as the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, which might result in higher consumer costs.”

[BTW — I called the PUC to see why there are only three members right now instead of the prescribed five.  Their phone tree let’s you know what they do! They only took five minutes for the call back! But they could not answer my question and sent me up a level. After a minute and a half I was put into voicemail. Haven’t heard anything in two weeks — they must not have a Vincent.]

Paul’s RNG ideas

I would not say Paul is optimistic about the future, but he has certainly become an expert in providing us one as part of the PWD. He was part of the City’s plan for sustainability as represented in the PGW diversification study  and the PWD sustainability plans.

Paul knows how to capture energy from sewage and had a pilot plant running at one point. It successfully gave proof of concept but had technical issues and fell by the bureaucratic wayside. Two treatment plants, one in Bridesburg and one near the airport, run portions of their processes with methane and heat captured from waste.

In the northeast, the system captures both thermal and electrical energy from wastewater gas. Anaerobic digesters process sludge filtered from wastewater to produce biogas, which fuels engines creating heat and power for the plant. In addition, capturing the heat in the water being treated creates on-site energy that would normally be lost in transmission, increasing efficiency. In the southwest, the biogas is used to heat, dry and pelletize the waste. When you pass one of these plants and see the flares burning, that’s wasting the gas. That outlet is more for an emergency than for regular operation. You should call your Council member and ask why we are wasting gas.

Apart from admiring all the good work Paul and others are trying to do, this week’s exploration feels full of bureaucratic roadblocks and lack of cohesion. That probably seems a lot like your family maybe, or your church — people are people. I came away thinking I had better pray! One reason is so I don’t get consumed with anxiety — I think most of us are practicing not knowing too much about climate change because it is too terrible.  The other reason  to pray is so I take some action in the face of painfully slow progress — as usual, if God does not save us, we will not be saved.

The blessing of your creativity: Apply it to the nearest ailment

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In The War of Art, Steven Pressfield poetically reveals the wall everyone faces when they feel the urge to be their true selves, to give humanity what they’ve got. He names the foe “resistance.”

Our urge to co-create with our Creator meets with many obstacles. Freud even called resistance a “death wish” — a destructive force that rises up every time we want to be good and do good.  One of the great joys of counseling of every kind, of loving someone enough to struggle with them, is witnessing the emergence of a true self, a self not bounced off the wall. The Apostle Paul demonstrates this struggle when he tells the Galatians, “My dear children, for whom I am again in the pains of childbirth until Christ is formed in you, how I wish I could be with you now and change my tone, because I am perplexed about you!” (Galatians 4:19-20). My amplification is: “You stopped creating and clamped the manacles of “law” back on? Why? Where is the true you?”

Why do we tend to do clamp on manacles, as a species? Why do 20%  of scripted dramas on TV have cops in the lead role? Why do parents abdicate their parenting and church members sit on the sidelines of their own body? Pressfield wonders whether humankind is even ready for the freedom they are granted to become their true selves and to give their gifts of creativity to the world.

“I wouldn’t be writing this book, on this subject, if living with freedom were easy. The paradox seems to be, as Socrates demonstrated long ago, that the truly free individual is free only to the extent of [their] own self-mastery. While those who will not govern themselves are condemned to find masters to govern over them.”

Pressfield is also perplexed about us, like Paul. But he is not deterred. He is gives his gift of writing to call out the best in us, to open us to inspiration that sparks our contributions. We are meant to bear fruit, fruit that will last.

“Fundamentalists” and their hate

Galatians is a masterful diatribe against the fundamentalists who promote a safer route than the freedom Paul insists upon. Pressfield says (language uncorrected),

“The fundamentalist reserves his greatest creativity for the fashioning of Satan, the image of his foe, in opposition to which he defines and gives meaning to his own life. Like the artist, the fundamentalist experiences Resistance. He experiences it as temptation to sin. Resistance to the fundamentalist is the call of the Evil one seeking to seduce him from his virtue. The fundamentalist is consumed with Satan, whom he loves as he loves death.”

Does any of that sound familiar? I think it should. The whole world is so distressed, so tired of the relative “freedom” of democracy, that government and all sorts of other institutions are running towards fundamentalism – both in religion and in the political right and left, and running toward authoritarianism — let the rules and rulers steer me.

Several people called me this week — out of the blue, really, to get some advice for how to survive on the other side of communities they cared about. They felt like they fought the law and the law won. One was summarily dismissed from a community group. One was stranded by the leaders of their church in a new “unapproved” territory. One was subject to leaders who are just a “new regime.” One was  subjected to HR maneuvers they did not imagine were even legal. I am not sure I gave very good advice or even demonstrated enough empathy.

But Pressfield has me thinking in the right direction, I think — the Apostle Paul was there for me, too. They both teach it is our innate creativity, freely exercised in spite of fear or criticism, which is the seed of the good we desire. The exercise of our creativity not only makes us feel better, it is the best antidote we contain for the poison of power used for safety instead of community, for coercion instead of trust building.

It is a good day to read all of Galatians 5 again, since the trouble Paul addresses is everywhere, it seems. He says,

It is for freedom that Christ has set us free.
Stand firm, then,
and do not let yourselves be burdened again
by a yoke of slavery.

We’re set up for self-destruction

Capitalism, it must be repeated, is an economy best suited for slavery. The U.S. perfected that principle and became rich. U.S. Christianity has often been slaveholder religion. Most people assume capitalism is reality.

A truism in human development says things like, “The abused abuse.” And I think it is true, “The enslaved enslave.”  So Paul’s admonition is not easy to hear or heed, even though it is innately alluring. There is a lot of resistance to standing firm in our freedom.

Paul goes on to say:

You, my brothers and sisters, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the flesh; rather, serve one another humbly in love. For the entire law is fulfilled in keeping this one command: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” If you bite and devour each other, watch out or you will be destroyed by each other. (Galatians 5:13-15)

It is amazing how many extended families, churches and whole denominations are devouring each other right now! Even serving one another in love can easily be perverted into hate.

Howard Thurman cautioned against bearing the fruit of hate. For the oppressed, hate may be a first step out of slavery and into dignity. But there is no ongoing place for hate in such dignity.

“Above and beyond all else it must be borne in mind that hatred tends to dry up the springs of creative thought in the life of the hater so that his resourcefulness becomes completely focused on the negative aspects of his environment. The urgent needs for creative expression are starved to death. A man’s horizon may become so completely dominated by the intense character of his hatred that there remains no creative residue in his mind and spirit to give to great ideas, to great concepts…

Jesus rejected hatred. It was not because he lacked the vitality or the strength. It was not because he lacked the incentive. Jesus rejected hatred because he saw that hatred meant death to the mind, death to the spirit, death to communion with his Father. He affirmed life; and hatred was the great denial.” (Jesus and the Disinherited)

Live your creativity

Looking back on those phone conversations, I wish I had said better stuff.  My friends were struggling, up against a wall of their own resistance, innate to them but also reinforced by the godless society in which they live. That struggle is an old story Steven Pressfield tries to put in a new poetic form. He ends his book with this encouragement. I hope you can receive it.:

Are you a born writer? Were you put on earth to be
a painter, a scientist, an apostle of peace? In the end
the question can only be answered by action.

Do it or don’t do it.

It may help to think of it this way. If you were
meant to cure cancer or write a symphony or crack
cold fusion and you don’t do it, you not only hurt
yourself, even destroy yourself. You hurt your
children. You hurt me. You hurt the planet.

You shame the angels who watch over you and you spite
the Almighty, who created you and only you with your
unique gifts, for the sole purpose of nudging the human
race one millimeter farther along its path back to God.

Creative work is not a selfish act or a bid for
attention on the part of the actor. It’s a gift to the
world and every being in it. Don’t cheat us of your
contribution. Give us what you’ve got.

Fridays for the Future #3: Lithium is the new secret ingredient

Climate, , , , ,

“The climate is changing! We need to do something!” Put that reality into the media grinder and you get a thousand good podcasts enumerating the problems associated with taking action. I appreciated the first episode of a new podcast associated with the NPR Marketplace show called How We Survive. It starts out with the topic of batteries, which are crucial for storing the renewable energy and sustaining alternative technologies to replace using fossil fuels.   We need a lot of batteries and we need them fast if we want to make a difference — do you think we even have ten years left before it is too late? Batteries need lithium and China controls a lot of it. So of course, people in the U.S. are looking for American lithium.

The story of getting lithium is where this podcast begins its journey. As I listened to it, I wished I was binging it, since it made it clear we don’t have time to spend thirteen weeks finding out how we survive! Regardless, I want to give you a taste of an early episode and some of the morsels it provided.

Getting lithium means mining. In the case the podcast highlighted, it means a new mine outside of Orovada, Nevada near Thacker Pass on lands managed by the Bureau of Land Management. On the last Friday of Trump’s administration, the BLM approved it. The new Secretary of the Dept. of Energy, Jennifer Granholm, is a fan of the plan if the lithium is extracted responsibly (Review Journal). The New York Times, at least, thinks such responsibility is unlikely (their take).

George Ireland, Chairman of the Board

The proposed mine is a project of LithiumAmericas. You’ll probably want to look at their “About” page if you, like me, have little awareness of the people who dominate the land and air, and maybe the future. Their plan includes a hole the area of 5000 football fields. Plus, they plan to bring three trucks an hour 24/7/365 through Orovada full of sulfur for making the sulfuric acid needed for processing on site, then leaving with refined product. They promise they will build a fabulous new school away from the soon-to-be busy highway on which it now sits.

Opposition to the lithium mine

There is opposition to the Thacker Pass project. A couple of men associated with Deep Green Resistance are camped out on the pass to make their opposition known. DGR is a radical environmental group (with whom I have a lot of sympathy) which got organized after Derrick Jensen wrote the book by the same name. I first got wind of them in 2019 and here they are in Nevada trying to do something. They have a website and they have a philosophy. They think trucks running night and day, putting a big hole in native land, making millions of electric cars that produce a lot of carbon to make, etc. is a bad solution. They would rather we dismantle consumer society. We can’t build back the environment better by using the same philosophy and tools that ruined it.

If you want to get into this argument you could visit yet another podcast: This Green Earth where Max Wilbert, another spokesperson for Deep Green Resistance talks about a book he co-authored titled Bright Green Lies – How the Environmental Movement Lost Its Way and What We Can Do About It. The book explores the rift between two (stereo)types of environmentalists. The first being the “deep greens,” who want to protect Earth by cutting back on consumption and restoring natural landscapes, and the “bright greens,” who believe improved technology in the form of solar, wind, and battery storage are all we need to roll back climate change. I did not explore how the binary labels originated, but you get the idea.

So up on Thatcher Pass the decamped men look for allies. They have some among the nearby Paiute/Shoshone folks who have a long history with the whole territory. Other Native Americans are delighted with the prospect of the mine producing more jobs. They have been working in mining for decades. Those who have benefited from mining jobs are happy they no longer live in houses without electricity or running water.

My own experience with lithium centers on how it is the main component of a drug used to help people with bipolar disorder. It is a bit ironic that every goal in the U.S. needing  cooperation ends up with people labeling at least two camps that don’t get along — a bit bipolar? You can see why dealing with the climate crisis is not easy.

If each of us just brings it down to how willing we are to change, personally, in order to bring harmony and hope to the present climate crisis, it probably won’t surprise anyone that government-approved LithiumAmericas trucks will soon be displacing school children and various endangered species while locals wonder about property values. I don’t know what you are actually doing, of course, so pardon my disrespect. I just don’t think we are changing fast enough in general, and I do think we know more about property values than we know about lithium.

We named our church Circle of Hope a long time ago. How about yours? It might be “New Life” since that seems popular.  It takes a lot of positive expectation to follow Jesus in this trying time, doesn’t it! I hope you are banded together in your own protest and solution-oriented response to climate change. Nothing is going to be easy but it is certainly a great time to be a serious Christian in a life-giving church! When have true Jesus followers been more necessary?

Turn around and face your shadow: Before you project it

A life in the Spirit, Psychological growth, Spiritual direction, , , , ,

Carl Jung told this story about how the idea of “the shadow’ came to him. “I had a dream which both frightened and encouraged me. It was night in some unknown place, and I was making slow and painful headway against a mighty wind. Dense fog was flying along everywhere. I had my hands cupped around a tiny light which threatened to go out at any moment. Everything depended on my keeping this little light alive. Suddenly I had the feeling that something was coming up behind me. I looked back, and saw a gigantic black figure following me. But at the same moment I was conscious in spite of my terror, that I must keep my little light going through night and wind regardless of all dangers. When I awoke I realized at once that the figure was my own shadow on the swirling mists, brought into being by the little light I was carrying. I knew too that this little light was my consciousness, the only light I have. Though infinitely small and fragile in comparison with the powers of darkness, it is still a light, my only light.“ (C. G. Jung in Memories, Dreams and Reflections)

I have had my own frightening and encouraging dreams. I often tell about the monster that chased me in my dreams for many nights as a young husband. My dear wife, a little frustrated with being awakened night after night, suggested I stop running from the monster and turn to face it. I was not sure I could direct a dream, but I determined to do what she advised. I can still remember how the terrifying thing kept running at me and then right through me. I was left without a scratch — and I was encouraged to face what lurked in my unconscious.

The integration of the shadow is a great work of holiness. Robert Johnson says, “We are advised to love our enemies, but this is not possible when the inner enemy, our own shadow, is waiting to pounce and make the most of an incendiary situation. If we can learn to love the inner enemy, then there is a chance of loving – and redeeming – the outer one.” (in Owning Your Own Shadow: Understanding the Dark Side of the Psyche)

Owning one’s shadow

To refuse the dark side of one’s nature is to store up or accumulate the darkness. This boiling pot of self-denial is later expressed as a black mood, psychosomatic illness, or unconsciously inspired accidents. I think most people reading that sentence can feel the truth of it. If you show me contempt, the part of me hiding from abuse and unwilling to stand up to bullying critics might numb my whole emotional system, or I might take a weird risk with the car, or maybe I’d take the next day off from work.

Even though we know the work of repression in us, we are still committed to presenting a perfect-seeming self and are offended when it is not respected. Both the secular and religious side of the American experiment are ill-served by a streak of pride and perfectionism that shows a lack of integration. Obama’s “exceptionalism” and Trump’s “greatness” both reflect it. Antiracist radicals and antiabortion radicals both produce the violence and disorder we are experiencing in the name of their perfect political positions. [Listen to David Brooks recently talking about the scourge of “essentialism”]

Any repair of the fractured world must start with people who have the insight and courage to own their own shadow. This should be a well-known teaching of the Bible, since Paul demonstrated it.

I thank Christ Jesus our Lord, who has given me strength, that he considered me trustworthy, appointing me to his service. Even though I was once a blasphemer and a persecutor and a violent man, I was shown mercy because I acted in ignorance and unbelief. The grace of our Lord was poured out on me abundantly, along with the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus.

Here is a trustworthy saying that deserves full acceptance: Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners—of whom I am the worst. But for that very reason I was shown mercy so that in me, the worst of sinners, Christ Jesus might display his immense patience as an example for those who would believe in him and receive eternal life. Now to the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory for ever and ever. Amen. — 1 Timothy 1:12-17

Many read this statement as a one and done: “Once I was a lout, but now, by the grace of God, I am perfected. Now I am perfectly shadowless.” I read it as an ongoing process of development: “I understand I am the worst of sinners and the beloved of God at the same time.” Paul is repeatedly trying to undo the heresy that Jesus makes us perfect in anything but grace (especially in Corinth!).

Doug Savage @ savagechickens.com

Integrate or project the shadow

When we do not integrate our shadows and live with enough humility to recognize our sin and receive our salvation, we project the shadow on others. To avoid this seems like an easy change of mind, but intolerable feelings that have been denied access to our conscious thoughts and actions are never easy to look at: guilt and shame, fury, worthlessness, fear and the trauma that often stores them in deep recesses.

Unless we do conscious work on it, the “shadow” side of us is almost always “projected;” that is, it is laid on someone or something else so we do not have to take responsibility for it. Mates are notorious for asking their spouses, “How do you feel?” when it is they who have a feeling they fear to express. Suddenly their mate feels defensive about a feeling they didn’t even have before their spouse walked in. Their partner should have stuck with having their own troubling feeling, On the other side of things, a weak-feeling partner might compliment their spouse for doing something, like driving or cooking, at which they, themselves, are actually quite adept and like doing. But they would rather give it over to someone else rather than bear the weight of being competent or being subject to scrutiny.

The worst

When we sit in the movie theater we are in the position of the projector, so the theater is an ideal venue for projecting our fears at a horror movie, or our anger and hate in a war movie or our unspeakable desires in a romance or crime drama. The economy makes billions off our disinterest in integrating.

It is easy to see society work out projection. The two political parties in the U.S. have created an image of the other party as terrorists or devils. In a recent NYTimes opinion article, Michelle Goldberg referred to Trump as a “Master of Projection” and noted that many instances of Trump’s projections were uncannily predictive of his future actions as president. He accused others of what he did not want to own as his own traits. Examples include roundly criticizing Mitt Romney for failing to release his tax returns and berating Barack Obama for watching too much TV in the White House, playing too much golf, and overusing Air Force One for “politics and play” (see The Nightmare Stage of Trump’s Rule Is Here. Jan 6, 2020, and this analysis).

Therapists often work with the projections their clients put on them to a good end. The therapy relationship is an ideal place to see what is happening in the shadowy places we can’t see or refuse to accept. Likewise, when I was a pastor, I often called myself a “projection screen,” since I often wore all sorts of unconscious processes instead of having the face-to-face dialogue I prized. Once I was out of the proverbial saddle, my “legacy” ironically became place to project fears and desires; I’ve heard about people using an abstraction of what I represent to make a point instead of owning their own feelings and thoughts. It is easier to “not be the old guy” or “not that less-than-desirable thing.”

The best

Most of the time we think we project the dark, unacceptable part of our selves. But it is also possible to project the best of oneself onto another person or situation. Our hero-worshiping capacity is pure shadow; our finest qualities can be refused and laid on another. A child may idolize an older sibling, feeling they ought to be but cannot be like them. Soon they will be like them and then, as a fourteen year old, they will find someone eighteen with whom to catch up.

Last week included Francis of Assisi Day. My family and friends know he is a hero of mine. When I did not have time for my annual showing of Brother Sun Sister Moon in his honor, I felt a strange lack of guilt, even though I had “betrayed” my hero. Looking back on my unexpected lack of feeling, I think I may have less need for him than I used to. I am more content with my own value and less in need of an aspiration. Being a Franciscan may have been easier than being Rod in some ways. His character and worth are widely respected, whereas I will need to survive the investigation of critics on my own merit.

There is help

God loves your shadow, too! It is you! He may love it more than your sense of self which competes with God’s sense of you. The repressed elements that become our shadow are often positive qualities, ultimately. When we project them on others, God has to be a bit disappointed.

I think God loved how Paul could own his past. He did not repress his murderous intent or his ignorant pride. He did not feel like his opponents were all terrorists or ignorant fools. He knew everyone needed mercy, just like he did. His trustworthy saying was a present tense experience: “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners—of whom I am the worst.” Jesus came into the world this very day, too, still patiently walking with us. Maybe you feel Republicans or Democrats are sinners who need to be eradicated, or believe Lady Gaga is the star you are supposed to be but never will be. Jesus came to help us reel in such projections and learn to be loved — all parts of us, the parts we already own and the disowned parts yet to be integrated.

Fridays for the Future #2 – Running into the commissioner

Climate, , , , , ,

Do you know who sits on your state’s Public Utilities Commission? (Here’s PA). I still don’t know much about mine, but I have at least figured out they have quite a bit to say about whether my state will take any useful, expedient climate action.

Here is this week’s climate action story.

I decided it would be a service to find out what every elected official is doing about climate change (not just what they are saying). I might write every one of them or call them to find out. Maybe I will visit! In order to do that, I needed to find out who they are. There is so much government I am sure you do not know all the people who are leading the action or lack of action on climate change right now.

I began making a doc which I will eventually share with you (and maybe work on with you!) that lists all the officials, links to their sites and gives a blurb about what climate action they have taken or intend to take. I used the zip codes of each of Circle of Hope’s meeting places, which probably covers where you live if you are local. If you aren’t, this doc making would be a fun project for you and your elementary school kids, right? It is their future burning right now, after all.

First meeting March 25 2021

I brought up Governor Murphy’s info in New Jersey and noticed he had appointed members to the New Jersey Council on the Green Economy in 2021. I have to admit, I was rather unaware of the vast unelected government that either runs things or not. My elected officials are supposed to be leading them, but I have to wonder.  This particular Council falls under the Office of Climate Action and the Green Economy. That’s a new office in the Governor’s Office (not housed in one of the 16 NJ departments). The council is tasked with streamlining climate initiatives currently being pursued by various state agencies and leading New Jersey’s collaboration with federal agencies on climate issues. God bless you.

If you want to talk to someone about climate action in New Jersey, the members of the Council might be a good place to start

Joseph Fiordaliso

Jane Cohen is the Executive Director of the new office under which the Council falls. She used to be at Murphy’s right hand as an advisor on climate change. Shawn Latourette is the acting commissioner of the NJ EPA; he’s on it too. Then there is my man, Joseph Fiordaliso, president of the Board of Public Utilities. He has been a Commissioner since 2006 (Remember Governor Codey, who nominated him? Neither do I). Here is his 2021 report to the NJ Assembly. As you can see, I got fascinated by the board of Public Utilities. They make a difference.

Diane Solomon

The NJ Board of Public Utilities is made up of five commissioners. Here are their bios. Commissioner Diane Solomon is one of them. She used to be Commissioner of the South Jersey Transportation authority and is married to one of the New Jersey Supreme Court justices. She, in particular, caused me to imagine the parties these folks go to, during which they are approached by other powerful people to do these powerful jobs.

It took me hours to get a small feel for the government of New Jersey. It is big, and Joseph and Diane have a lot to say about whether Governor Murphy’s initiatives result in much action and how fast we can see something happen. I wrote to the assistants of these two commissioners . One did not have info listed but a Facebook group did! Here is what I asked: “What is the most important thing the BPU and you personally are doing in the effort to keep warming at 1.5 degrees or less?” We’ll see what they reply.

Come as a child: Return to the memory of harmony with God

A life in the Spirit, Poetry, Spiritual direction, , , , , , ,

“Truly, I say to you,
unless you turn and become like children,
you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.”
— Jesus in Matthew 18:3 (ESV)

I am thankful my childhood home life included a lot of music. My father sometimes played his old guitar and my mother was often singing a snippet of a tune. My siblings are all musicians. I latched on to singing like a life jacket, I think. Floating with the harmonies was like a return to Harmony, itself.

a child in joy

When Jesus gives the profound teaching, above, which no one ever forgot, I think he is drawing his disciples back into that Harmony —  just as he demonstrates how to live in harmony and is, in fact, an expression of it. So often we go with many translations which read “turn” as “unless you are converted,” or “unless you turn yourself around and go a new, better direction,” or “unless you repent of your sins” you’ll never get into heaven. The word does imply “turning one’s back” and can be used in all those ways.

However, the older I get, the more I think the simple word “turn” is probably the best way to get at the meaning. Turning is the basic skill of spiritual development. And when Jesus attaches the word to becoming like children, I think he has to mean it more in the sense of “return.” As in, “Unless you return and keep returning to what you knew as a child, to the experience of knowing God’s presence you had, you’ll miss eternity.” Part of what Jesus forever represents is the Son of God, the child of God, even God identified with the lost child of Luke 15, returning to the loving embrace and extravagant care of the Father, who has been waiting and watching for the sight of that lost and longing child coming up the path.

The right brain has a memory of harmony

We tend to read the whole Bible with the left brain. That’s not surprising, since language resides mainly in the left hemisphere and, if we don’t watch it, that part of us can end up fencing off the words from any influence other than themselves.  In that context we could easily think this Bible verse provides a principle for how to get into heaven: one must become like a child, having the traits of that abstraction – trusting, humble and forgiving. This is true as far as it goes. But I was already a child. I don’t need an abstract child to become, I need to return to being myself in harmony with God. That is where I think we start out.

The experience of oneness and harmony for which I keep looking is not only an ideal, or a promise of something I have yet to see, it is also a memory. Before I had language, I lived in the presence of God. I did not know any better. My parents may have contributed to that sense or not. But I wanted them to. I wanted to attach to that trust, truth and grace forever. My parents were my first shot at experiencing such harmony consciously. For most of us, it was a bit of a shock that what each of us needed at the core of us was not fully realized. [Attachment theory explained in the NYTimes].

a child in the tall grass

I am not among the many people I know who cannot remember much of their childhood. I remember a lot. I think I gloss over the troubles of it and retain the goodness — sometimes to a fault. What came to mind just now was laying in the tall grass that had grown up in a housing development that went bust not far from my childhood home. I thought I was the only one who had thought of doing this. Invisible. Ignoring that I was not supposed to be there. Staring up into the sky for I don’t know how long. Feeling secure in the embrace of the earth, entranced by clouds in an endless sky, returning to the presence of God. In harmony. I later attached that feeling to the songs and lessons I learned when I got dropped off at Sunday school. I think I can safely say I learned all I needed to know about God by the time I was in kindergarten.

Iain McGilchrist in The Master and His Emissary gives me some exhaustive science and philosophy to validate my experience. He reminds us that the right brain was the  first hemisphere to develop. It is not an add-on to our more scientific left brain, it is the part of us that developed the left brain and feeds it.

In childhood, experience is relatively unalloyed by re-presentation: experience has “the glory and the freshness of a dream,” as Wordsworth expressed it…Childhood represents innocence, not in some moral sense, but in the sense of offering what the phenomenologists thought of as the pre-conceptual immediacy of experience (the world before the left hemisphere has deadened it to familiarity). It was this authentic “presencing” of the world that Romantic poetry aimed to recapture.

The Romantic acceptance that there is no simple “fact of the matter” – a reality that exists independently of ourselves and our attitude towards it – brought to the fore the absolutely crucial question of one’s disposition towards it, the relationship in which one stands to it. This emphasis on disposition towards whatever might be rather than the primacy of the thing itself in isolation or abstraction, explains the often contradictory accounts of what Romanticism “stood for.” (McGilchrist, 359)

Prayer is returning like a child

When I turn to centering prayer, meditation, even the left-brainish “mindfulness,” I am returning to childlike thinking, just as I think Jesus is encouraging. Meditation is the older sibling of science. When we move into the silence, we still the left brain and experience the holistic, right-now, apprehension of the right — including the longstanding memories of what it was like to know God and feel one with the earth, full of boundless hunger and curiosity, before we were constrained to find our place among others and compelled to consciously turn and turn into harmony.

McGilchrist quotes Wordsworth as a prime example of someone who is good at returning to the wonders of childhood. The art of the Romantics is a conscious turning into the presence of God (at least for many of them). Some are turning into the presence of “presence” itself, which I think is mostly just moving to the fringes of left-brain domination. Their movement, as short-lived as it was, is a good example of how humanity never really forgets who we are. Here is part of the poem to which McGilchrist refers above

But for those first affections,
……………………Those shadowy recollections,
……………Which, be they what they may
Are yet the fountain-light of all our day,
Are yet a master-light of all our seeing;
…………….Uphold us, cherish, and have power to make
Our noisy years seem moments in the being
Of the eternal Silence: truths that wake,
……………To perish never;
Which neither listlessness, nor mad endeavour,
…………………..Nor Man nor Boy,
Nor all that is at enmity with joy,
Can utterly abolish or destroy!

— From Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood William Wordsworth by William Wordsworth

I think Wordsworth is embellishing what Jesus is saying. We have all experienced the “fountain-light” of all our days. It may be dimmed by the messy attachments we have made, but it still has the power to reveal eternity when we turn into it. The enemies of joy may threaten it, but it can never be destroyed.

Fridays for the Future #1 — Greta Thunberg at the Youth4Climate event

Climate, , , ,

I cannot sit back and watch the world boil over while I am waiting to see if it will. I think we all need to do all we can, not only with our personal lifestyle choices, but in order to change the path of the world’s leaders. Last week my friend and I agreed that the glacial pace of government is slower than the rate of glacier melting. It is an appalling response to an emergency.

Thunberg’s first strike in 2018 (click pic for story)

So one piece of what I want to do as my own response is to share a little story every Friday about what I and my friends are doing and discovering about climate action. I want to speak out on Friday because Fridays for the Future, instigated by Greta Thunberg, calls kids to a school strike every week until governments (adults in general) start doing something. I am on their side.

This week’s story is an easy pick. It is about Greta at the Youth4Climate event last Tuesday that preceded the PreCOP26 meeting in Milan which began yesterday. These summits are intricate but we’d better catch up on what is going on, since they are the biggest things happening, government-wise, to stop the warming. A COP is a “conference of parties” in United-Nations-speak. The 26th annual COP on climate change will take place in Glasgow in November. COP21 in Paris in 2015 was the big one so far. In Paris the parties agreed to limit global warming to well below 2 degrees and aim for 1.5 degrees, to adapt to the impacts of a changing climate and to make money available to deliver on these aims.  That was the first time in 21 years something significant resulted. That’s the agreement from which Trump withdrew and Biden rejoined.

Greta Thunberg is an inspiring leader. At the Youth4Climate event she used her fame to demand action: “Thirty years of blah, blah, blah is too much. Your promises are empty. You are destroying our dreams. It is time for the polluters to pay.”  Type in #GretaThunberg most any day and it will take you to a Twitter feed full of #ClimateAction. If you need Bible inspiration, here it is.

I’ve only been to two Friday strike events. But they helped set me on a course toward doing my part – for my grandchildren, for sure. There are amazing people all over the world, many of them in high school and most not out of their thirties, who are on the frontline of this terrible battle humanity is facing whether they want to face it or not.