A Meditation

Last Sunday at the Church for the Fellowship of All Peoples I presented the following Meditation, which is a shorter, revised version of an essay I posted on Wade’s Weekly some time ago. Since it received a very strong, positive response, I post this new version.

--Wade

Why Some of Us Seek a New Strategy (v. 2.2)

By Wade Hudson

In recent decades the United States has become increasingly ego-centered, task-oriented, impersonal, materialistic, fearful, angry, dogmatic, and undemocratic. Unsurprisingly, progressive-minded individuals, embedded in the dominant culture as we are, often reflect those same characteristics.

We become ego-centered when we worry more about our own status than the work at hand and care more about building our own organization than we do about alleviating the suffering of others.

We become excessively task-oriented when we concentrate on product and ignore process. We use noble ends to justify dehumanizing methods.

We become impersonal when we reduce others to tools. These days more people have fewer close friends with whom they can discuss personal problems.

We become materialistic when we minimize feelings and spirit.

We become fearful when we dwell on risks, agonize over what others think about us, and try to mobilize people by feeding anxieties. The politics of fear leads to burnout.

We become stuck in anger when we scapegoat so-called enemies and try to defeat them rather than reconcile with them.

We become dogmatic when we refuse to compromise and live in an abstract world of ideas.

We become undemocratic when we assume that leadership is determined by the ability to mobilize others to do what the leader wants them to do, that one must always either dominate or submit, that some one person must always be in charge and give orders.

For many people, these methods work fine. They accept being a cog in a machine.

But some of us seek ways that are more meaningful and productive. We aim to grow caring, activist communities filled with contagious joy and compassionate attention to one another’s needs and aspirations.

While working steadily to impact public policy, we want to really listen to others, enjoy each other’s company, and support each other in conscious efforts to become better human beings and more effective activists.

We make a clear commitment to ongoing self-development, which requires us to undo negative conditioning. We admit mistakes and try not to repeat them.

Building our own organization is not the be-all and end-all. We join alliances and coalitions. We focus on the need at hand, rather than our own self-interest.

We work hard but still take time to smell the roses, relax, take care of ourselves, commune with Mother Nature, and enjoy a wide range of human experience. We set realistic goals and accept our limits.

We treat others with respect, practice compassionate listening and nonviolent communication, and strive to know and understand each other more fully.

We acknowledge our feelings and express them freely. Though we have different ways of discussing our spirituality, we recognize that the material world is filled with mystery that cannot be measured. The self is boundless.

We face our fears without allowing them to control us. We speak our mind, do what we must do, and leave the future to the future.

We acknowledge our anger, express it constructively when we need to, and let it go, so we can focus proactively on positive solutions.

We realize that all words are approximations that merely point to reality. By avoiding ideological rigidity, we face life honestly and concentrate on changing what we can change.

We nurture collaborative, problem-solving leadership, work respectfully with others in cooperative teams, and foster democratic management styles.

Through these efforts, we empower each other and ourselves and strive to be the models of compassion, both individual and collective, that a nation needs in order to be a true democracy dedicated to the common good of all humanity.

A Personal Note

As I shift to devoting more time and energy to my fitness, my finances, and my church, I anticipate that, at least temporarily, Wade’s Weekly will take a new shape, with fewer long essays, more brief comments, and more references to various resources.

I’ve recently joined a gym three blocks from my home and go there in the morning Monday through Friday. My priority goal is to continue to lower my blood-sugar level.

I also plan to drive taxi a bit more, 30 hours a week, Wednesday through Saturday, in order to build my cushion for when I can no longer drive taxi. Having voluntarily lived on the edge of poverty most of my life, I don’t have much of a retirement plan.

Sundays are a day of rest, including church activities, socializing, movies, hiking, etc.,

This schedule leaves 20 hours a week for Fellowship Church projects, correspondence, Net activism, and reading.

This work plan involves placing the Tax Fairness Campaign on hold. I still feel there is an extremely pressing need for a national effort to increase tax rates on the top 1%. For one thing, local and state efforts to raise taxes will be sorely limited in how much they can achieve because of “the race to the bottom”—the pressure to lure business by having low tax rates relative to neighboring regions. The American people clearly support higher taxes on the top 1%. And a reasonably progressive tax structure could generate $2-500 billion nationally. But no one has accepted my invitation to work together on this project and I’m reluctant to do more by myself.

So I’m pulling back, smelling more roses, and taking better care of myself, while remaining open to new possibilities. If I become familiar with a project that clearly affirms a holistic approach to political activism, I would likely become deeply engaged with it.

+++++

A correspondent recently sent me an interesting report about a “leadership development” project that decided to expand its goals to more open-ended self-development and mutual support after it became clear during an evaluation session with participants that what most motivated them to stay engaged during the almost year-long training was the personal aspects of what they experienced, such as the development of personal friendships, exploring and learning about feelings and how best to express them, and building a sense of community.

When the evaluators passed on this feedback, the staff of the training agency were surprised and decided to update their brochure to reflect those values. One staff person commented that they didn’t think about communicating those values because they are so common sense, but concluded that it is very important to explicitly state their importance.

Yes, indeed. Putting thoughts and feelings into words can be very constructive.