UPDATE 2021
The lower part of this page is completely accurate as a reflection of my activities during my years in Olympia. In Berkeley, under COVID conditions, the situation has felt quite different though it turned out still to be possible to build community connections. The garden connections continued: I have been working for over a year as a volunteer with garden science teachers in a couple of Berkeley’s elementary schools.
I have also become a member of the Berkeley Rotary. In Olympia, Rotary was a place I went from time to time to give a lecture. West Olympia Rotarians helped us at GRUB to build gardens for families.
In Berkeley, Rotary is becoming a vital connection to community. Perhaps more important, joining has been giving me a chance to really engage with the notion Rotarians call the Four Way Test. From the first time I encountered it, I have seen it as the cleanest encapsulation of the essential elements needed to sustain a peaceable world:
- Is it the TRUTH?
- Is it FAIR to all concerned?
- Will it build GOODWILL and BETTER FRIENDSHIPS?
- Will it be BENEFICIAL to all concerned?
1972-2019
I have a long history of participating as part of the local community in peace-making projects of one kind or another. This began with the Nuclear Weapons Freeze Campaign in the early 1980s during which local involvement developed into national leadership. A regular contributor to Fellowship of Reconciliation TV programs, I have also worked with local police and parole officers on gang issues. In recent years, it has been a particular priority to give workshops and slide shows about events in Japan and Korea. This array of work has also entailed occasional essays for newspapers and radio.
I am devoted to the work of a local organization in Olympia, GRuB, which runs an urban farm. The farm provides employment and CSA food boxes for teenagers, it opens volunteer opportunities for the community, and donates a year round supply of fresh vegetables to the Thurston County Foodbank. GRuB also installs vegetable gardens for low income families right in their own backyards.
Redefining Wealth — a tempting notion, a small community-based study group and a lot of individual work. I have a long reading list but so far have not written anything which can go public. This work was visible at least to some degree in a class fall 2014 at the Evergreen State College: Timely and Timeless Ways of Work towards Sustainability. Working with several others I spent 2013-14 tracking income inequality and the progress being made to analyze changing consciousness on that issue..
I have a long term relationship with the Community for Interfaith Celebration. It meets weekly on Sunday evenings in the Social Hall of the United Churches in Olympia. For 25 years I was also a devoted participant in classes at the Olympia Community Yoga Center. In that place I was able to be student. My teacher Ray Grace, whose gifts are too rich and strong to enumerate in words. Just take a class or better many classes.
The other part of my community life.