Fear?

Hello Maggie,

Hope you are having a fulfilling weekend, with lots of positive happenings.

I went to meeting for worship for the first time in years.  I have maintained my connection to my meeting, and I serve on both monthly and regional committees.  But with no car, and with responsibility for the baby, I simply have not gone to meeting.  My daughter hurt her leg at work, and can't go to work, and so we had the freedom to go to meeting.  She has repeatedly said she wants her daughter to be raised Quaker.  My daughter's opportunities and lessons and connections through Friends have been very important to her. She wants the baby to have the same.

The messages I got today stemmed from the upcoming march. Next weekend many Friends will be in New York City to march against climate change.  I have to work and so I will not go. But I read something that affected me a lot. One of my favorite activist/philosophers, Derrick Jensen, warned that we need to consider what we are marching for.  If we are marching for sustainability, it can't be to sustain the current culture, which is fundamentally unsustainable. We have to become something different.

In meeting, I thought about not having a car.  Do I want one?  Yes.  I want to be involved.  I was an effective activist.  Do I want one?  No. I don't want to participate in the current petroleum addiction.  I would like to get an electric-assist bicycle and a trailer.  I would definitely use that during the temperate months.  But what about the events I miss because of not having a car...My mind got lost in sustainability and the resources I use, the resources I think I need.  I heard messages about change and balance or I will notice...change and balance.  And so I will listen.

I worked yesterday - still trying to recover from not being paid while I went away. (European benefits are so much more humane than ours!)  I spent an hour and a half working on conflict resolution with someone.  I had a revelation.  Suddenly I realized that the root of all violence is fear.  If we can identify and verbalize what we fear, maybe we will lose the need to be violent.  Could it be so simple, or am I at the beginning of a new idea...Made me think I should study mediation...

I love you, I miss you...Sending hugs...

Clare