Tuesday, May 31, 2016
And What Does QEW Call Us To Do?
The steering
committee of Quaker Earthcare Witness met again at a convent in
the lovely Lincoln Park area of Chicago April 28-May 1. Geeta and I
drove over 700 miles to visit with old Friends, with a strong hope to
effectively share the Pisac Minute (see last post) and enlist QEW's
support in extending that message through the wider Quaker world in
North America. We were scheduled to host a panel Friday night on the
making and propagation of the minute.
QEW is an
organization primarily made up of liberal Friends, affiliated with
Friends General Conference. If you check the link above you will
encounter a rich website exploring resources of a group which
“seek[s] emerging insights into right relationship with Earth and
unity with nature.” It goes on to emphasize the importance of
Quaker processes and testimonies in its work, noting that its primary
calling is to facilitate personal transformation rather than
structural and educational reforms. I have been attending its
conferences off and on since the early days (1990's). Geeta has
joined me in recent years.
A highlight for me
of these gatherings is everyone's sharing the leading edge of their
lives the first night (Thursday). The group includes many seasoned
Friends, both in terms of ecological activism and contemplative
depth. As with all Quaker groups, it tends to be a heady bunch, with
a lot of education and a number of published authors. The sharing was
both powerful and humbling, showing me examples of colleagues who
walked their talk far more than I do. The concern for ecojustice was
matched by a tenderness for each other. As I noted during a group
sharing on Saturday night, revisiting our statement of purpose, this
initial session demonstrated the best of what we human beings have to
offer, what this fragile planet would lose should we go extinct.
Though almost all of
us are liberal FGC Friends, the group is nevertheless diverse. In
its early years, it was named Friends in Unity with Nature, and
though the name changed many years ago to make it sound less pagan,
there is a continuing tension between those who are passionately
connected to the earth and her worship and those of us who are more
panentheist than pantheist. Another related fault line is between
those who favor immersion in the “nature” that is left to us and
those who are willing to set aside that experience in order to
participate in direct action and civil disobedience. Of course some
of us do both, including this blogger.
Two young people in
their twenties joined us, one an evangelical. Their voices were
crucial for me. The young man spoke glumly of how the politicians
didn't care, and the difficulty of finding hope for his generation,
though he had started a service at the restaurant where he worked to
compost hundreds of pounds of food scraps at the communal building
where he and his companion lived. His companion identified herself
as an evangelical with a passion for climate justice, and seemed
genuinely thankful to be among us. I knew of only one other person
present, another first -timer with deep Quaker roots, who identified
himself as a follower of Christ Jesus. Other than a lively woman who
had been with Geeta in Pisac, perhaps in her mid-fifties,
participants were in their sixties, seventies, and eighties. More
young people might help the dialogue and give the organization
perspective. Everyone knows this.
Some of the
leadership have had a serious split with FCNL (the respected liberal Friends lobbying organization) over their signing a
letter from faith organizations in support of the Green Climate
Fund. Experienced financial and policy analysts in our group
continued to educate us about the false promises and dirty
capitalist tricks (carbon markets, for instance, are rigged) that are
embedded within this initiative. They argue that REDD, the global
effort to protect forests in Third World countries through carbon
offsets is deeply flawed, sometimes fraudulent. An old QEW Friend I
talked to in Pisac expressed her disillusionment with the UN after a
dozen years of being a Quaker observer. She was particularly
disheartened when a charismatic Eastern European diplomat in a
leadership position with a clear vision of healing the earth and
forestalling catastrophic climate change was replaced by an
apparatchnik who appeared to be a pawn of the corporate interests
present at the table. She said the UN had been hopelessly
compromised by bringing global corporate entities into the UNFCCC
The counter-argument
from the FCNL climate lobbyist, Jose Aguto, is that one has to remain
part of the conversation in a process where nation states have
engaged with corporate entities in the efforts to forestall rapid
climate change under the aegis of the UN. The compelling
presentations in Chicago appeared to seal the better arguments on the
side of the anti-global finance people, but the willingness to work
with everyone at the table on the part of the coalition of religious
groups, including the “enemy,” remains persuasive for me. This
is the central struggle in the UNFCCC and other international bodies
(like the World Bank and IMF) in the climate wars. Sometimes it is
hard to find the God within those who present themselves as other,
seemingly diametrically opposed to one's own values. But that is our
commitment as Friends. Of course, the question is, where is God in
the structures themselves, the committees, organizations, and
corporations? Unless there are honest, open personal relations among
all sides in these groups, God is unnamed and unrecognized.
The following post
goes into detail about our sharing of the Pisac Minute and what then
transpired at Business Meeting, “Geeta Answers the Call.”
Labels: FCNL, FGC Friends, Friends in Unity with Nature, Green climate fund, Pisac Minute, Quaker Earthcare Witness, REDD, UNFCC
Comments:
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This summary is fair and balanced. While I would have perhaps some other insights, those you express here accord with my perceptions.
Brad Stocker
Brad Stocker
I left a comment on the second post, which I have taken down for revision. Thanks for alerting me to that need. I have asked Geeta to clarify what she put before business meeting, and I will then revise and repost.
A minor historical correction, Friend: The old name for the organization was not Friends in Unity with Nature, but Friends Committee on Unity with Nature, FCUN. I am particularly clear on that because I was the one who suggested that name! I offered as a parallel to Friends Committee on National Legislation (FNCL), American Friends Service Committee (AFSC), and Friends World Committee on Consultation (FWCC); the idea was to make this one more committee bridging yearly meetings around the world, working on the very difficult task of bringing humanity into unity with nature, which it is clearly not in unity with at present.
There were many Friends who preferred to refer to it as Friends in Unity with Nature, FUN, and in New England they were the majority and named their yearly meeting committee NEFUN. I rather felt that this was presumptuous. No Friend already in unity with nature would be flying to committee meetings far away, adding hugely to the greenhouse gas problem by doing so. Bless them, the committee members did wrestle long and hard with that issue, and found various ways of addressing it, but the problem is still not fully resolved.
There were many Friends who preferred to refer to it as Friends in Unity with Nature, FUN, and in New England they were the majority and named their yearly meeting committee NEFUN. I rather felt that this was presumptuous. No Friend already in unity with nature would be flying to committee meetings far away, adding hugely to the greenhouse gas problem by doing so. Bless them, the committee members did wrestle long and hard with that issue, and found various ways of addressing it, but the problem is still not fully resolved.
Thank you for your deep discernment about QEW's challenges and your interesting report on some of the high points the QEW steering committee gathering in Chicago in April 2016. "Sometimes it is hard to find the God within those who present themselves as other, seemingly diametrically opposed to one's own values." In QEW, it looks like the hard part right now is getting above water and into the light what our actual thoughts and values are so we can discuss them and reason things out. It is hard to say what is QEW and who makes the decisions for QEW.
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