Dick Ridenour’s parents were both teachers until family responsibilities led his mother to teaching only as a substitute and economics of the depression years forced his father to change careers. Dick appreciates that his father retained an excellent tutoring style however, rarely providing direct answers to the youngster’s questions, rather guiding the boy to seek out answers for himself so he could better integrate the information. Ridenour’s grasp of this lesson has made him extremely resourceful, even to this day.

He studied history and political science in college then followed a call to ministry, receiving a Masters degree from the Graduate School of Theology of Yale University. Then, with his very first assignment – and last, as it turned out – his courage and innovation evoked a conspicuously unique church community.

Not long after becoming pastor of a small Presbyterian church in Reedsville, Pennsylvania, the fresh and thoughtful pastor began to wonder if following tradition was really the best way for the 120 members to spend their Sunday mornings together. And he had the courage to experiment.

Soon a new kind of service was offered as a three-month pilot program to be carefully evaluated before adoption as a regular practice. Ridenour introduced the concept to his congregation, defining the experiment as an attempt to “deepen our roots.”

The plan required that he train several individuals to be discussion leaders and then weekly brief them on that week’s readings from the lectionary.

On Sundays at 10:30, the entire church community would now meet together for about 20 minutes and then children from sixth grade and younger would peel off to attend their church school.

After listening to a 15-minute sermon, the junior high, high school and adult members would break into small groups to share their responses. Following the service the pastor would meet again with discussion leaders to share how things had gone.

A significant number of congregants showed willingness to “give this a shot.” Some actually stood at church doors to intercept folks who got up to leave. “Are you sure you want to go home?” they’d ask. “Here’s your chance to talk back to the minister. Let him know what’s on your mind.”

And people stayed. Ridenour says the feedback was invaluable to him as pastor. Open discussion of concerns helped him know “exactly where the congregation was and what issues were there.”

The experience proved popular and word spread. “Hey,” could be heard on the street, “There’s a church in town where you can talk back, where you can tell the minister off!” And pews got fuller and fuller. Of the 100 or so who completed the evaluation after three months, only one wanted to go back to the old way.

Ridenour also indulged his passion for lay involvement, getting out of the way as a cleric to empower people in the pews to bring their skills and training into voluntary service to the church.

However, it was the middle of the 60s and the 26-year-old pastor had a broader vision. “Since there was a lot happening on civil rights,” he told me, “being a week-end only clergy person was not the way to be most effective. With a degree in social work, and a background in theology, I could consider any contingent of challenged and oppressed folks to be my parish.

Masters in social work in hand, Ridenour has fulfilled his vision in numerous venues, including as VISTA Coordinator for Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, specializing in welfare rights and tenant rights; in Mexico with a focus on micro-credit and for nine years as Director of the Marin County Department of Health and Human Services.

What most intrigues me in Dick Ridenour’s story, however, is the intensity and beauty of his study of what it means to be a man. His involvement in men’s groups ever since his move to California provides enough material for another column someday. For now, let’s just rejoice with Dick and his friends over the 30th anniversary of a dynamic group that started with an exploration of “What is it like to be male in the middle of the feminist movement?”

He and his steadfast friends have learned more in those three decades about maleness, about life and even about women than they ever could have anticipated. And life is better for all of us because of it.

This campaign against the blockade will continue until the blockade has ended. There’s plenty of room for more passengers. Might they include you?

You won’t qualify for a particular group of ships now preparing a journey to Gaza, unless you’re Jewish. European Jews for a Just Peace (EJJP) did not intend to exclude non-Jewish passengers until so many Jews applied they had to add a second boat and are already contemplating a third.

EJJP is a coalition of Jewish groups from 10 European countries opposed to Israel’s occupation of Palestine who see the Gaza blockade as “immoral” and who “believe there should be a just peace for the Palestinians.” Read more at http://www.huffingtonpost.com/richard-hall/european-jewish-group-to_b_605987.html.

A drash (teaching) offered by Reb Irwin Keller to the Ner Shalom community in Cotati last Shabat (Sabbath) moved me deeply and, with permission, I’ll share some of his words with you. Keller tells me Congregation Ner Shalom “represents a spirited and diverse community of people who explore Jewish-centered paths of ritual, learning, song, community-building and mindfulness.”
When flotilla ships were recently boarded by Israeli soldiers, Reb Irwin was in Boston, an honored guest invited to participate in a Bar Mitzvah ceremony for a special young man. In Irwin’s drash, which you may read in full at his blog: http://itzikswell.blogspot.com, Keller discusses his difficulty with the assignment to read “A Prayer for the State of Israel.”

“Now if I were being asked to create a prayer for the State of Israel,” he told his community, “this would have been an easy request. Israel is always in my prayers. But I was being asked to read the words in the Conservative siddur, which step slightly beyond a plea for safety, survival and peace.” Out of integrity, he took on the challenge.

When Reb Irwin heard of the flotilla incident, he was “filled with sadness and anger and a feeling of betrayal. How can the Israel that I love – and I do love it even when I am outraged by its actions – let this happen?”

At the Bar Mitzvah, listening to his friend’s son chanting a Biblical story about planning for military conquest, Irwin heard characters protesting, “We cannot attack, for the people are stronger than we. The country devours its settlers. The people are giants – and we looked like grasshoppers to ourselves, and so must we have looked to them.

“I sat and listened to the parashah, thinking how we, all these years later, have possession of that very same real estate. So which are we now, I wondered, grasshoppers or giants?

“It seemed to me that as possessors and not the dispossessed, it would be easy to cast us in the role of giants. Certainly much of the world paints Israel that way. But I’m beginning to think that after two thousand years of relentless conditioning, however we might be perceived by others, we still don’t know how not to be grasshoppers.

“To a grasshopper, every encounter with the greater world involves the risk of being crushed underfoot. And hasn’t this been the Jewish experience over the last two and a half millennia? The risk of annihilation at every turn? We tell our tales of exile and pogroms and close escapes and failed escapes. We pray for peace; we pray to God to confound the counsels of those who would do us harm.
“But nothing in our tradition has taught us how to hold power. How to be giants. Instead, we’re left to be giants who think like grasshoppers, or grasshoppers who have grown to gigantic proportions. And it is that constant, deep fear of being crushed underfoot that has informed and, arguably, poisoned so much of our policy in Israel…

“The flotilla was at least as much or more a public relations mission as it was an aid mission, as some people hasten to point out. But so what? Sit-ins at lunch counters in the 1960s south were public relations stunts also. That is how public opinion is swayed, it is how one appeals to the hearts and consciences of the world.

“Using deadly force against a public relations mission is the sign, to me, of government by grasshopper. To Israel this flotilla looked like another shoe about to crush us. Everything looks like a shoe about to crush us. Give a grasshopper a gun, and what will it do? It will shoot. If not today, then tomorrow.

A giant, on the other hand, well, giants are perhaps underestimated. A giant who understands and trusts its own power can afford a far greater range of responses to seeming threats. The use of force would only be one possible response among many…

And so, young grasshoppers, courage is required. Not the courage to use force. But the courage not to. The courage to dream up other paths and to actually risk taking them. The courage to engage in peacemaking – real, non-grudging peacemaking – and earn back the world’s trust. The courage to help our neighbors and former enemies prosper. Maybe we can’t put down the guns entirely at this moment. But surely we can move our fingers off the triggers, even if just a little.

It will take more courage not to use force than it does to use it. It will take greatness. And I still believe we are capable of greatness; of the greatness of giants. We are already giants in military might. Let us soon be giants in wisdom and compassion and vision and patience.

I hope these excerpts will prompt you to read in its entirety: On Grasshoppers, Giants and Flotillas at http://itzikswell.blogspot.com/.

Many of you remember Margaret Trost and her wondrous What If? Foundation. If you’ve missed Margaret on one of her visits to Sonoma, please read her inspiring story in “On That Day, Everybody Ate.” Contact me or Readers Books to purchase your own treasured copy of Margaret’s book.

With the help of folks just like you, Margaret Trost had set up a hugely efficient, effective program providing nutritious freshly prepared meals for thousands of Haiti’s hungry children. When the earthquake hit on January 12, many of us shared her desperate need to know whether friends had survived and whether children could hope the feeding program might not be lost forever.

After several days, Margaret received the wonderful news that all the staff and volunteers had survived. Meeting new needs brought on by the disaster, Margaret guided the staff to make swift decisions in order to traverse challenging new conditions toward once again providing nutritious meals while – to this day – no aid whatsoever came from the Haitian government or any agency. At the same time, Margaret had to seriously ramp up her fundraising as well.

Now she’s returned from her first visit since the quake. She says it was “intense and overwhelming at times, but also inspiring and so affirming of our special partnership with the St. Clare’s community and the work we’re doing together to provide food and educational opportunities to children.”

She welcomes your connection and participation through the project’s website blog, photo gallery, and podcast page. “In a nutshell,” she adds, “the pictures being shown on television don’t begin to capture the scale of destruction, which is widespread and devastating.

“Tent communities with thousands of people living together without electricity, running water and, in most cases without toilets, are located in every open space.  I didn’t see a single bulldozer clearing rubble — just small groups of Haitians working with shovels and their bare hands in the debris.  There is a long road ahead to rebuild Port-au-Prince.  My heart breaks with the magnitude of the suffering, especially as the rainy season arrives.”

Beverley Bell, introduced by this column last fall, is known for dramatic empowerment of the downtrodden to create livable working communities in under-sourced regions. This compassionate, effective community organizer, through her just-released 28-page report, “From Disaster Aid to Solidarity,” provides a perspective similar to Margaret’s, though through a much wider lens.

The following “Executive Summary” may stimulate your desire to go online to read the entire report.

“The international response to Haiti’s earthquake, involving billions of dollars and led by the U.S. and U.N., comes with many problems. Notable ones are control of aid dollars, imposition of economic reconstruction plans, and militarism. Moreover, the Haitian state and grassroots have largely been denied formal opportunities to shape, or even engage in, the process.

“Nevertheless, ordinary Haitian citizens are engaged in their own humanitarian aid. With no more than their own hands, their slim resources, and their commitment to community, citizens have comprised the bulk of search-and-rescue teams, first responders, and ongoing aid providers. Behind the gestures are philosophies of solidarity, mutual aid, collective resilience, and resourcefulness.

“Some grassroots groups have taken the same impulses and turned them into organized programs. They are offering shelter, medical care, community mental health care, food, water, children’s activities, leisure activities, and security. Some of the programs also offer education and a supportive social structure, while others provide a launching pad for community organizing to shape their country’s future.

“This report explores ten of these aid and support initiatives, which are only a small subset of those now underway throughout Haiti. Together, the efforts offer a different vision and practice of what ‘humanitarian’ means. And they serve as a guide to what a society which privileges mutual aid over profit, and democratic participation over domination, could look like.”

Plan International has had an effective humanitarian aid program in Haiti for many years with an emphasis on community building and children’s education and empowerment. When I visited their headquarters in Port-au-Prince in 2006, I was well impressed by the efficiency, collaboration and dynamism I observed, and was deeply moved by the policy requiring all staff persons, with the exception of the executive director, to be Haitians.

Their enthusiasm regarding my visit was inspiring, and they made extraordinary efforts to connect me with the child I’d been supporting for some years through Plan International. When my crowded schedule as a member of a human rights investigative team blocked any opportunity for me to visit Almeda in her home village, Plan brought the youngster to me. On my final day in the country, an extraordinary staff member served as interpreter while I enjoyed breakfast with Almeda and her older sister before I left for the airport.

That Plan headquarters I’d visited was completely destroyed by the earthquake and while the organization quickly reactivated many of their programs, many of us sponsors have had to wait and wonder about the survival of those particular families we support because, as you can well imagine, all the records were obliterated on January 12 when the quake hit.

While I know that Almeda’s village, Croix des Bouquets, was severely hit, I’m somewhat encouraged by Plan’s latest newsletter. It shows a photo of sweet little girls in Croix des Bouquets jumping rope outside their new classrooms: sturdy tent roofs neatly aligned and ready for eager students.

Web sites to reference: 

www.whatiffoundation.org

www.otherworldsarepossible.org

www.planusa.org

Just imagine the nation’s post office workers handling, processing and distributing the mail free of charge. What if all the libraries were run by unpaid staff? How about an all-volunteer army with no monetary compensation? Can you picture a hospital with no paid employees that functions well because skilled professionals donate their services? Imagine all such professionals happily accepting an occasional ready-for-slaughter chicken or a basket of tomatoes rather than a salary.

This, dear readers, describes early America. The colonizers of this land did not bring basketfuls of money when they fled oppression in their homelands. Thus, to make this new society work, they just had to provide free services for each other. Thereby, volunteerism was spawned in the “land of the free.” Europeans, I’m told, actually have a hard time understanding why anyone would want to work without getting paid for it.

In “We the People: The History of Volunteerism in America,” author Susan Ellis tells us, “Almost all institutions that benefit society today were started by volunteers before America won its independence.”

While the most basic areas of our social system have long since shifted to paid employment, volunteerism continues to grow and thrive in countless areas of need. And here in Sonoma opportunities for volunteering abound. Yet, sometimes would-be volunteers are flummoxed, not knowing quite how to approach an organization for volunteering or how to select a volunteering opportunity that suits the individual’s interests and abilities.

Enter Denise Wilbanks. This long-time Sonoma resident remembers well the happy outcomes from a Volunteer Day sponsored by her church a few years ago. People found very satisfying options for the time they wanted to give and organizations happily welcomed fresh and eager recruits.

Wilbanks knew about the services of the Volunteer Center of Sonoma County but recognized that not too many people living here wanted to drive all the way to Santa Rosa to check out ways to give service in Sonoma, if they even know a volunteer center exists in Santa Rosa.

So this energetic and compassionate citizen took it upon herself to work with the Santa Rosa office to develop a pilot project right here in Sonoma. Starting May 1st, Volunteer Now Sonoma Valley welcomes you to “Connect with your community by putting your talents and experience to good use!”

Whether you’ve never volunteered for anything before, or you’re getting a little disinterested or downright bored with what you’ve been doing for a while, or you do some volunteer work that’s only occasional and want to give additional time, Denise Wilbanks awaits your call. She’ll work with you to find a match of your interests and skills with one or more just-right volunteer opportunities.

Wilbanks hopes to visit the many local groups employing volunteers in order to be personally connected and to update information currently at hand. She’ll also be on the lookout for additional situations not yet listed in her data bank.

Another great gift to the community is the support offered by the First Congregational Church. Donated space among church offices for this volunteer recruitment/matching project provides a convenient central location and ample off-street parking for anyone wanting to seek out a personalized placement in a satisfying volunteer activity. Church offices are located off the back parking lot of the First Congregational Church, 252 West Spain Street in Sonoma. Look for the sign: Volunteer Now Sonoma Valley.

Contact Denise Wilbanks at 707.480.8319 or Dwilbanks@volunteernow.org for an appointment.

And, if you haven’t already guessed, Denise is providing all of this as a volunteer. Which qualifies her to be the first of the “joyfully generous” to be celebrated occasionally on the “just joan” page of The Sonoma Valley Sun. Watch for enlightening, heartwarming, amusing or mystifying stories of local people making a difference by dedicating time and resources to worthwhile causes.

To suggest someone (or yourself) for a future issue, write me at joan@justjoanonline.com.

At age seven, he knew for certain that one day he’d be helping people get out of pain. It took many years and significant physical challenges to reawaken that awareness and propel Ralph into the healing profession he has practiced in Sonoma for some 30 years.

Ralph’s grandpa helped raise him with compassion and wisdom and when this patient relative suddenly died, the seven-year-old was devastated. Feeling helpless, his father sent the grieving boy to a nearby field, to lie in the grass and simply watch the clouds going by. In that state of loneliness and longing, the Vision began.

The grandfather for whom he so grieved came into Ralph’s consciousness, followed by his great grandfather and others. The youngster found himself communicating with these beings without any language, rather with a telepathic connection. Central to the wordless conversation was a consideration of a society where people did not feel free to touch each other and how Ralph might follow his healing mission under such circumstances.

With a clear sense of having been guided and supported, Ralph Scott came out of the meadow glowingly knowing that in the future, he would teach people how to become pain-free without going through a lot of pain to get there.

At age 12, Ralph began scuba diving, taking his young lungs beyond their capacity. Three times those lungs collapsed. Uncomfortable and frightening, this did eventually keep Ralph from the Viet Nam war.

At 14, Ralph plunged headlong into the printing business. He studied in a trade school and worked diligently in a print shop hand-setting type and hand-developing film for some years. When automation came along to wipe out his job, he moved to northern California and took up construction work.

Upon entering the Baja 500, a friend invited Ralph to serve on his pit crew. He jumped at the opportunity, but this little trip to Mexico produced a painful life-changing event.

The friend was driving them along an unimproved road to another part of the track in a dune buggy, faster than wisdom might have advised, when the little vehicle went out of control, flying directly into a large tree stump. Both men were knocked unconscious and miracle-of-miracles, the seven cans of gas they’d strapped to the front of the dune buggy did not blow up or even catch fire. When both fellows regained consciousness within moments of each other, they crawled out to discover the severely bent axle rested perilously close to the gas cans.

The sudden stop from 70 miles/hour had driven the seat belt buckle deep into Ralph’s abdomen while innumerable other body parts, mostly internal, were severely damaged. The brush with death made a profound impression on the young adventurer.

He managed one visit to a chiropractor where, rather than reveal he’d been in an accident, he simply designated the part of his back he wanted adjusted. His thinking told him this one visit would take care of everything. The “rude awakening” would come much later.

Believing he had a strong back again, Ralph continued construction work, spent six months hauling around a 50 pound back pack in the Hawaiian Islands and made other unwise choices.

After roofing his parents’ home, he was stretching out his muscles through yoga when, upon getting out of a posture, his entire body collapsed into a severe twist and froze there. Unable to stand, Ralph crawled, in excruciating pain, for the next two weeks, sometimes completely losing all feeling in both legs.

A student of his own body, Ralph paid close attention and took no pain pills, as he searched for the pain’s source. He noticed when a shock of pain went through his back or legs, instinct caused him to hold his breath for protection and then discovered he could prevent his muscles from contracting into deeper pain by consciously breathing out instead.

Still, the pain remained severe and he sought help once more from a chiropractor. Ralph, upon seeing an Xray: “I couldn’t believe this was my spine; it reminded me of some prehistoric animal. Arthritis was growing all over it, and for the first time, I was really scared.”

Doctors told him there were bone spurs in his neck and his sciatic nerves on both sides had so much arthritis that if he turned too quickly to either side the nerves could be severed and he’d be paralyzed for life. They also told the stunned 26-year-old he would never improve, only get worse. They did not know Ralph Scott.

Guided by a library book of back exercises, Ralph was walking again in a few weeks and began training in massage, practicing his new art on assorted housemates. An unusual telephone request led Ralph to show up at a Novato address at 1 a.m and work throughout the night on a drummer’s body, in spasm from head to toe. This began a seven-year career as exclusive body worker for the Grateful Dead. Marathon sessions of 4 1/2 hours or more characterized Ralph’s style during these years.

At this time, Ralph encountered Tom Hanna, Director of the Novato Institute for Somatic Research and Training. This guide and teacher trained Ralph through the reawakening of a mind’s control of movement, flexibility and health.

As his mind did take charge and Ralph gradually grew healthy and strong, he enhanced his capabilities through extensive training in various energy modalities. In addition, he developed the capacity to condense his powerful energy work into 1 1/2 hr. sessions.

Ralph Scott has seen the wonder again and again; arms, shoulders, knees and hips come back to life without surgery. I myself watched a friend, on a two-month visit to Sonoma, depart without the limp that had plagued her for many years.

Reach Ralph Scott at healsnow@vom.com or 707.996.3836.

All just joan columns since 2006 are posted, in categories, at www.justjoanonline.com. Contact Joan Huguenard at joan@justjoanonline,com. Joan is a popular speaker for book clubs and service organizations and has helped folks get organized in their offices and homes for 35 years.

Many know of the struggle of the 1960s for racial equality in our land but have no real understanding of what that was like, who was involved or what were their strategies.

Many others remember very well what took place because they participated in the struggle. Two of our Sonoma residents will share stories next week of their involvement in the Civil Rights Movement. They are hopeful many audience members will tell us of their experiences with racism as well.

On Thursday, April 22, you’re invited to gather with us – cost-free – from 7 to 9 pm at Burlingame Hall, 252 West Spain Street in Sonoma. And do please bring along your children, from maybe age 9 or 10 up.

A one-hour film “Come Walk in My Shoes” will amaze, educate, move and inspire you and should lead us into rich discussion. We’ll watch a thoughtful youngster join up with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and we’ll find that lad five years later, at age 23, addressing thousands assembled in 1963 for the famous March on Washington, D.C.

We’ll follow that same activist, now an eleven-term representative of Georgia’s fifth congressional district and the only surviving speaker from that momentous occasion as he retraces his steps in the Civil Rights Movement and invites us to walk in his shoes.

John Robert Lewis says it took a very long time to return to the scene of his painful memories where he was brutally beaten as he led a march for the right to vote. Now he annually takes busloads of congressional representatives, from both House and Senate, on an enlightening, uplifting and yet heartbreaking journey through Alabama cities that had been central to the movement. Through this movie, we have the privilege of tagging along on Lewis’ 2007 pilgrimage.

Why do 21 st century Sonomans need to know more about the civil rights movement of the 1960’s? Because it is very important to know a completely non-violent effort was successful in bringing radical social change to our land. Because learning details of the planning, strategizing and courageous actions involved in that non-violent effort gives hope and vision to folks struggling with the inequities and unfairness entrenched in our present reality. And because, unfortunately, there are far too many indications that racism is again–or still–flourishing in our country.

A highly recommendable revelatory book about rampant racism in just one arena of our culture is “The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness.” Noting that our prison population has multipled nearly six-fold in the last thirty years, author Michelle Alexander argues that our present system of incarceration “operates as a tightly networked system of laws, policies, customs, and institutions that operate collectively to ensure the subordinate status of a group defined largely by race.”

Along with the disabilities associated with the label “felon” as a result of these incarcerations, Alexander argues, these have served, metaphorically, as the new Jim Crow.

More from the book’s jacket: Examining with systematic care each stage of mass incarceration (i.e. criminalization, investigation, prosecution, sentencing) as well as the many collateral consequences of a felony conviction demonstrates how and why each of these has operated to the detriment of African-Americans.

The April 22 film presentation and discussion, hosted by the First Congregational Church of Sonoma, is offered as a component of “The Big Read of 2010.” Sponsored by the National Endowment for the Arts, The Big Read encourages reading throughout the country of a single literary work.

This year, “The Adventures of Tom Sawyer” has become part of the curriculum for thousands of students, the study of book clubs throughout the land, and the focus of innumerable community activities through churches, cultural centers and a plethora of organizations.

Big Read events still ahead include a book discussion today, April 15 from 4 to 5 p.m. at Readers Books; another book discussion on April 24 from 10 to 11 a.m. at the Sonoma Library; one more reading by “Mark Twain” from “The Adventures of Tom Sawyer” on Sun FM 91.3 from 6 to 7 p.m. Sunday, April 18 and a Youth Art Exhibit at Sonoma’s Community Center from April 20 through May 1.

Hope to see you from 7 to 9 p.m. on Thursday, April 22 at Burlingame Hall, 252 West Spain Street in Sonoma for “Come Walk in My Shoes” and more.

A reminder: Many of us will walk the CROP Hunger Walk this Sunday, April 25. To support my walk, contact me or go to www.cropwalkonline.org/goto/jjwow. Or snag any of the other dozens of walkers to make a contribution.

For the first time, and I’ll wager not the last, our wonderful Valley is joining the annual world-wide CROP Hunger Walk on Sunday, April 25, 2010. Local organizations, including churches and interfaith groups, have been joyously busy organizing in happy anticipation of seeing hundreds and hundreds of Sonoma’s great-hearted folks walking together for such a worthy cause.

Nearly 2,000 other communities in the U.S. are participating in the 2010 Crop Walk as well. Why? The answer is two-fold, as this Walk has two primary purposes: (1) to raise awareness about people around the world who must walk to find food, water, firewood, freedom and other necessities of life; and (2) to raise funds to help stop hunger wherever it exists.

Now those are two ambitions I can stand firmly behind and even agree to walk three miles in this year’s CROP Hunger Walk. And whether or not you walk with us, you’re cordially invited to become a sponsor. The quickest and easiest way, if you’re computer-active, is to “Walk On the Web (WOW)” and donate online: http://www.cropwalkonline.org/sonomaca/. To be a sponsor of just joan specifically, go to www.cropwalkonline.org/goto/jjwow. I’ve set an excruciatingly high fund-raising goal for myself of $1,000. Can you contribute to the joy with which I will report the totals for funds raised by just joan (in excess of $1,000?) and by the entire Sonoma Valley?

An alternative way to donate funds is to hand your checks or cash directly to any local CROP-Recruiter, adding your name to that person’s Donation Envelope. Checks made payable to: CWS/CROP may also be mailed to any Crop Walker you know or sent to First Congregational Church, attn: CROP, at 252 West Spain Street, Sonoma, no later than May 15th. Designate a particular CROP walker, if you wish.

Last year CROP Walks raised over $16 million to make big differences in the lives of people in the United States and in more than 80 countries worldwide. When we’ve added in big-hearted and generous Sonoma Valley, in spite of, or perhaps because of the current economy, I’m guessing the results will exceed $17 million this year. What do you think?

Most of the funds go to Church World Service (CWS) to continue their amazing work in Haiti, both before and since the earthquake, and in poverty-stricken countries all over the world. It was Church World Service, the disaster response, refugee assistance and development program of 36 member denominations, who first designed the annual CROP Walk some years ago and continues facilitating logistics today. (Small world department; in researching this column, I was tickled to discover this vibrant organization is headquartered just a few miles from my home town in Indiana.)

On Sunday, April 25, 2010, walkers will register at the First Congregational Church, 252 West Spain Street at 1:30 p.m., and begin the walk at 2 p.m.

Please consider walking yourself, coaching all your friends and neighbors to become sponsors or even to become CROP walkers along with you. You’ll have your choice of a 3.1-mile walk or the slower and shorter route of 1.6 miles. Both will begin at the Congregational Church at 2 p.m. on Sunday, April 25.

Organizers are eager for employer/corporation sponsors as well and will happily accept matching gifts, in-kind donations, and sponsor donations.

For More information, you may contact: Judy Landa, walk coordinator, judyL8@comcast.net or Vy Nguyen, Assistant Regional Director of CWS, 510-848-7024, or go to the Website: www.crophungerwalks.org/sonoma/.

We walk because they walk! How about you?

Actually, let’s start in the 1490s when Columbus claimed for Spain an island 600 miles from Florida. The beautiful, fertile land was home to Arawaks, a quiet, contented tribe.

Fast forward a few centuries. Arawaks, who’d lasted, once enslaved, less than a decade, were replaced by continuous ranks of imported African slaves who also successively succumbed to the ignominious brutality of their keepers. Meantime, Spain gave France a third of the island, land so lush it grew more produce for Europe than all other colonies combined. Produce grown by slaves, of course. That gifted land is known as Haiti.

Trouble for colonizers began when Haitian slaves took them on in a dozen years of battle, defeating local armies, a Spanish invasion, and British and French expeditions of 60,000 each, proclaiming their independence in 1804. And the Haitians have been consistently punished for such audacity to this very day.

First, the United States, entrenched in its own slave system, refused to acknowledge the sovereignty of Haiti and placed an immediate international embargo on all trade with the fledgling country.

Second, under threat of renewed warfare, France demanded billions of dollars in reparation. Imagine former slaves being asked to compensate the French for their loss of slaves and homes! And the Haitian government did pay in full over the next 140 years.

Third, the U.S. invaded Haiti in 1914, occupied the land for nearly twenty years, treated residents as sub-humans, created an unnecessary Haitian army. At this time, 31-year-old Franklin Delano Roosevelt rewrote Haiti’s Constitution, reversing, among other protections, the policy prohibiting foreigners from owning land. Soon companies from abroad started building factories.

I remember watching years ago a film from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce touting Haiti as a most lucrative place to do business. Flourishing poinsettia plants and sandy beaches filled the screen with beauty while the commentator gushed over the abundance of willing workers and extremely low labor costs.

Because we’d rewritten the tax laws, manufacturers are not required to source any materials from the host country nor to pay any taxes to that country for their first nine years and then only a slowly rising rate.

Fourth, for nearly 30 years we supported an intensely brutal dictatorship. Dr. Jean Claude Duvalier, “Papa Doc,” formed his own private army, the Tonton Macoute. Drafted from the dregs of society, the Macoutes were given, instead of a salary, permission to extricate funds from the populace by any means they might devise.

We sent preposterous amounts of “Foreign Aid” to Haiti during the reign of Duvalier and the son he appointed to succeed him, “Baby Doc.” The populace did not get schools or health care or infrastructure. But it exploded the private wealth of Papa Doc and Baby Doc who took millions to France when he was deposed in 1986. So the people eked out a living as best they could, building shacks among the mud and sewage.

Meantime, more assembly factories hired more sweatshop labor. By the time I first went to Haiti in 1990, over 200 factories were in operation there, including one where Figgie International produced every baseball used in major league games in our country.

If you ever studied a baseball, you likely assumed it was machine-made. But each baseball is sown by hand. A woman gathers the stuffing materials and the precut leather strips (both from U.S. suppliers) and holds these together between her feet. Because stitching must be done with one continuous filament, she threads two needles and holding one in each hand, bends down to feed the filament through, then brings the needles the full length of her upward reach. One stitch completed. Bend, reach, bend, reach until half-way finished. Then the work continues from table height.

No breaks are allowed in the workday, and she’s working piecemeal under quota. If her quota isn’t fulfilled by quitting time, she won’t get paid a dime for the day’s work. On quota she gets about a dime for each ball – someday. There’s no regular payday. And to even get the job, she likely had to grant the foreman sexual favors.

Fifth, the U.S. constantly interferes with Haiti’s economics and politics. Case in point, I watched U.S.-subsidized rice delivered to a hidden dock to be sold below market value, thus sabotaging local agriculture. For years, Haitian haven’t been able to afford locally grown products. If they can afford anything. Many subsist on mudcakes. Picture grave unemployment and no governmental services, though all workers pay taxes.

Sixth, when Haiti held it’s first free and fair election in 1990, the U.S. was outraged that a populist candidate got 67% of the vote when we had invested millions in the campaign of another candidate. Significant members of our government tried to convince Jean Bertrand Aristide not to accept the Presidency. They failed and he was not allowed to succeed.

Though he accomplished much with few resources, including building many schools, a medical college, substantial housing for some of the poor, a first-time medical system, he also tried to raise the minimum wage from 38 cents to a dollar per day.

So we kidnapped Aristide in 2004, sent him into exile. The medical college immediately became a military base and the people suffered even more. Then came 4 hurricanes last year. And this year, the earthquake, for starts.

Thousands of Aristide supporters, clustered around the collapsed government center under tented bedsheets and rags, have received not one bottle of water, morsel of food, or drop of medication, though tons of relief supplies have been shipped to Haiti from around the world. These folks had, and retain, the audacity to hope.

Remember Beverly Bell? On November 13 we profiled this visitor to Sonoma who’d gone to a church camp in Haiti at age 14 and responded to the abject poverty with a commitment to somehow become part of the solution.

She’s spent the rest of her life in Haiti and many other world destinations making a huge difference as she empowers folks to bring life-giving change to their communities. Many of Bev’s friends and co-workers perished in Haiti’s earthquake. And, of course, many did not. From Haiti, Bev sends some survivor stories of which I share just three:

Nico is eleven, as thin as a blade of grass. He is standing outside his new home, this one made of a blue tarp and sticks. One wall is completely open to his tens of thousands of neighbors who live in the same park beside the collapsed palace. His voice is so soft I have to lean against his ear to hear. He tells me his story in single lines, each in response to my next question. His story is this: “I was trapped in the house all day long, until nighttime. My house was in a three-story building and I was on the first floor. We all started running toward the garage. Some people got out but I didn’t. I couldn’t move because when the building collapsed, cement blocks fell on my legs. My godmother was in the room with me, and I called to her but she was dead. 

I kept calling out for help but no one heard me.  Finally that night, after 10:00, my father pulled some blocks up and found me there. He’s a coffin-maker and he got back from work. My mother helped him. They pulled me out.” 

Nico admitted he’d been scared and when asked what he was thinking about while he waited for help, he said, “I was lying there calling for someone and I thought I might die.  But I didn’t want to die, and I thought maybe God would save me.”

Bishop André Pierre recounted for Bev what happened to him. “I was on my way to a meeting…in the Port-au-Prince Cathedral.  I waved to a friend up on the gallery and started running up the stairs.  Someone stopped me to say, ‘Oh hey, I haven’t gotten to wish you happy new year yet.’ That greeting saved my life, because at that second everything went black.  I thought I was having a heart attack.  I shifted to the left, I shifted to the right, and then I went up in the air.  I said, ‘Oh no, it’s an earthquake.’

“Then the building fell on top of me.  I said, ‘André, move.’ I rolled and crawled.  I couldn’t see anything; it was black. It was like being under water except it was earth.  I ate so much dirt I can’t tell you. It took me about 45 minutes to get out.

“You couldn’t see my clothes, my face, anything – I was just one solid mass of earth.  Someone came by to wipe my face off and said, ‘Oh, it’s you.’

“There were wounded people everywhere. I shouted ‘Bring the wounded.’ I couldn’t open the front door of my car – the car was damaged – but I got in through the back. We loaded people up, a lot of them, to take to the hospital, but there was no more hospital. So I took them to my neighborhood and we created a clinic there.  I called my brother who’s a doctor, and he came over and treated people.”

Gerin Mathieu told Bev his story: “I felt the ground shake and I knew an earthquake was coming. I’d heard you were supposed to get under a solid structure, but the best I could do was jump into my baby’s cradle.  When the shock hit, it turned the cradle sideways and shot me out into the air. I landed and was about to run, and then I suddenly had the idea that if I ran, I could die.  I stopped and let the dust settle until I could see, and that’s when I saw that I wasn’t on the ground, I was on a roof. If I had run I would have fallen off and maybe died. I was standing there in just my boxers, holding my cell phone, which I had in my hand when the event happened.  I pulled two big shards of glass out of my feet, which I hadn’t even felt.

“That night I slept on the sidewalk on Delmas Street without a sheet or anything.  When it started to rain, everyone jumped up.  The man next to me didn’t get up, so I shook his shoulder, ‘Hey, come on. It’s going to rain.’ That’s when I realized he was dead.

You may want to follow up on Beverly Bell’s insightful blogs being published on various sites: Michael Moore, Yes! Magazine, Common Dreams, and other sites. For all of her blogs, go to her journal on Pulsewire.

To learn more about one of the important organizations Ms. Bell has founded and/or donate, contact: www.otherworldsarepossible.org.

For the first time, just joan is providing space today for a Guest Columnist. Confident readers will support this decision … I’m offering a piece of prose written by a friend in New York.

Jacqueline Jill-Rito, a single parent and entrepreneur with diverse skills, has managed to keep afloat throughout the vicissitudes of life. Now a first-time homeowner in her late fifties with her daughter’s college expenses to cover, she anguishes at never managing to get ahead. She always has barely enough to cover outstanding bills.

Last month as she finished writing the monthly checks, she sank into the usual funk. Suddenly, however, her thoughts shifted and you’ll read what happened next.

I’d met Jill-Rito a few years ago at an intensive training event for Compassionate Communication. Ever since, Jill-Rito receives a weekly link to the “just joan” column. When those published on Jan. 21 and 28 arrived, she decided to send me the piece of prose which had flowed for her on the day described above. She added a wish for me: “I hope you feel it as I did.”

I extend the same wish to you.

Empathy
by Jacqueline Jill-Rito

Sitting paying bills, fine-point pen in hand, feeling the fatigue of the workday, alone and afraid, I search for answers about making ends meet and increasing income … no money left, mind clouds and eyes blur. Why have You forsaken me?

I fade in and out of the moment. Words murmured to myself become increasingly muffled as sounds blend into the cracking walls that surround and a stabbing pain shreds through my right arm, extended, groping, pushing against a slab of cement that pins me to the ground…

My skin has turned from a pale cream to a coffee bean brown. The words I utter are no longer familiar to me, but they flow like a bastardized staccato French. Ban mwen, souplè …

My plump white flesh has withered to bare muscle and bone. My arm aches … trapped and irrretrievable. Nou bezwen… Screams and cries deafen me in this language. Kisa pi nou fe? … Names are whispered somewhere in my mind, evaporating amid the wails – Ketty, Brunel, Genevieve, Emmanuel, Mireille – their souls fine spun, rising into the heavens.  Sickness, despair, pain and pressure close me into shadows.

Years of political usury cripple my strength. I breathe in dust, cement and dirt.  Toupatou … Heavy hands of dictatorial oppression squeeze my narrowing throat. My mouth will not open, the words fade into soft moans. I don’t feel my body complete – it is in pieces, scattered, surging pain then numb, as if hacked by machetes. Kote nou ye?… But my mind is racing, sifting in and out, several dimensions, all feel strange, but all familiar, as if I have dreamt these passages all before.

Dust scrapes the inside of my nose. The gritty taste of mudcakes scratches the corners of my mouth. My lips swell parched, cracked and cut. My bones protrude like spikes from the depth of my soul. I smell hardened blood and death on me, around me. Only the Lord can reach me where I am. Only He knows where to find me. My mind darkens. I try to take a breath, inhale, rattling my throat, weak, fading … then …

A burst of strength from who knows where forces me from the padded armchair in front of the computer and I drop the pen. I rise and walk around, shaking off this inexplicable moment of transfiguration, unsure of who I am, where I was, when and how it will once more envelope me.

©28 janvier 2010

When I wrote Jacqueline seeking permission to publish her work, she was magnanimous, as expected. She said she only wishes she could do more, “writing about, going to, being a voice for those who can’t or don’t have the means and being a conscience for those who can’t yet or refuse to see and feel …”

Please write for permission if you wish to use her masterful work. She welcomes comments at jjill21@yahoo.com. Personally, I would feel gratified if some of you had writing assignments for her so she might, for once, have a bit left over at the end of the month!