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We are at an inflection point in history. It almost feels like that moment when Joni Mitchell sang Woodstock in 1967. Hearts and minds are open and standing on the cusp of something big. Maybe we don't even understand how big. And inflection points call for choices and sometimes sacrifices. Please listen to and read the lyrics https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q3SjqGfe-yM WOODSTOCK I came upon a child of God He was walking along the road And I asked him, where are you going And this he told me I'm going on down to Yasgur's farm I'm going to join in a rock 'n' roll band I'm going to camp out on the land I'm going to try an' get my soul free We are stardust We are golden And we've got to get ourselves Back to the garden Then can I walk beside you I have come here to lose the smog And I feel to be a cog in something turning Well maybe it is just the time of year Or maybe it's the time of man I don't know who l am But you know life is for learning We are stardust We are golden And we've got to get ourselves Back to the garden By the time we got to Woodstock We were half a million strong And everywhere there was song and celebration And I dreamed I saw the bombers Riding shotgun in the sky And they were turning into butterflies Above our nation We are stardust Billion year old carbon We are golden Caught in the devil's bargain And we've got to get ourselves Back to the garden This is an anti-war song, but the refrain of "getting back to the garden" and "caught in the devil's bargain" is just as prescient now as it was then. Today's "garden" is equality. Let's be clear, we were not ALL promised equality in our founding documents-- that privilege was just for landed white men. Yet- the simple phrase "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" rings true as a basic desire for all human beings. The promise that each of us can strive and reach our full potential (without the fear that the boot of the state will be on our neck). The economy that the 1% prospers from, and that most upper and middle class people greatly benefit from, was founded on the theft and genocide of other peoples and built on the stolen labor of human beings. This was our Faustian deal, our original sin. We, as people of white privilege, traded the highest moral and spiritual value of human freedom for material riches. A sin this country has never atoned for -- not with truth and reconciliation, nor with the kind of social programs that allow for the uplift of those who were exploited, oppressed, and left behind. America seems to specialize in boots, theft, and genocide. We've kept so many categories of people down (BIPOC: Black, Indigenous, People of Color; Women; Poor people; LGBTQ; and plenty of ethnicities). Over time, we've torn down some of those barriers only to replace them with subtler ones-- such as slavery morphing into the Jim Crow era and then the war on drugs, which was a fancy way to racially profile people of color. Maybe it is time to live up to the creed we seem to hold so valuable and extend that creed and include everyone. We marched today with the Black Lives Matter protest in Chatham. At the end, people of color shared their experiences. No one should have to experience racial slurs and walk through life feeling "less than" and "degraded" because of the amount of melanin in their skin. That very idea is clearly insane and absurd on its face. Quakers have been a devoted presence for good for so long. Not a perfect presence, but a steady one. Some Quakers held slaves. Some Quakers separated Indigenous children from their parents to "civilize" them. The thing is, we have engaged in self-reflection and have and are seeing the mistakes. Today, Quakers are holding the vessel for equality. We stand in a powerful place at this time in history -- as witnesses to the truth of equality. The place we stand gives light and courage to others. It also bends our nation toward justice. Queries we are considering in this moment are:
3 Comments
Ronnie
6/14/2020 07:56:36 pm
Beautifully timed. Thank you, Joseph and Phoenix. 6/15/2020 06:04:21 am
https://www.facebook.com/aaron.shahan.9/videos/1505719022929071/
Bob Elmendorf
6/18/2020 05:00:24 pm
Thanks for elucidating the devil's bargain and for your explanation of today's garden, a key insight. Parts of this well written and spiritually underpinned piece which is followed by pertinent queries remind me of Fit for Freedom but not for Friendship, written by a black woman and a white woman, whose workshop I took at Powell House. There I discovered that their book which is very thick could have been much longer, but was curtailed in the interests of quicker publication. Here is a description of it: Leave a Reply. |
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