Spirit in Action

Sustainable Spirit-led Activism

Greg Elliott is helping the American Friends Service Committee to launch a program, innovated by Unitarian-Universalists, and adapted to Quakers to help avoid the burn-out & lack of results which result from un-centered, though well-motivated, activism. With an approach that ties together spirit & action, using worship, story-telling, & deepening relationships, we are helped to remember the ways in which we can be faithful to our work of world-healing, without giving in to a exhausting and unfocused treadmill.

Duration:: 55m
Broadcast on:: 12 Jul 2015
Audio Format:: other

(upbeat guitar music) ♪ Let us sing this song for the healing of the world ♪ ♪ That we may hear as one ♪ ♪ With every voice of every song ♪ ♪ We will move this world along ♪ ♪ And my lives will feel the echo of our healing ♪ - Welcome to Spirit in Action. My name is Mark helps me. Each week, I'll be bringing you stories of people living lives of fruitful service, of peace, community, compassion, creative action, and progressive efforts. I'll be tracing the spiritual roots that support and nourish them in their service, hoping to inspire and encourage you to sink deep roots and produce sacred fruit in your own life. ♪ Let us sing this song for the dreaming of the world ♪ ♪ That we may dream as one ♪ ♪ With every voice of every song ♪ ♪ We will move this world along ♪ - One of the reasons that we bring you Spirit in Action is not only to inform you of the important peace, justice, environmental, and other issues needing your attention, but to help find what motivates and supports people doing this good work. That question of what allows people to engage in the work over the long term and what sustains that kind of effort is absolutely crucial. So I'm very pleased to have with us today Greg Elliott, who is involved in a pilot program to promote sustainable social action, action that is not only effective in terms of its outer goals, but which supports its workers in such a way that the process is self-rewarding and therefore a less apt to result in burnout and bitterness. Greg is the Friends Relations Associate for the American Friends Service Committee, AFSC, and he joins us before an audience today at the Friends General Conference Gathering being held at Western Carolina University in North Carolina. Greg, thanks so much for joining me today for Spirit in Action. - Thank you for having me, Mark. So this week we're on campus of Western Carolina University. Have you been here before? Do you travel a lot doing this work? - I've been traveling a lot this year. This is only my second gathering though, so I'm excited to be here. - And tell me what you've been hired to do. This is with the American Friends Service Committee, Friends Relations Associate. Is Associate just another name for employee or does that mean something else? - The two people right now working in Friends Relations are Lucy Duncan, who's the Friends Relations Director, and myself who's the Friends Relations Associate. So I suppose maybe that's just so that it's clear who is in what position. We're also very excited to have Jennifer Vivek Rowe as a Quaker Voluntary Service intern who's gonna be joining us in September. But what I've been working on largely is the Quaker Social Change Ministry Pilot Program, which we're very excited to be introducing to Friends, which is where I've been traveling and talking about in various contexts. - And I think this is kicking off in just a month or two. So you've been building up to it for a year or two. Is this something you got special funding to do? Is there all kinds of planning and intensive creation that goes into making this happen? - Sure, well it all kind of began when Lucy Duncan, the Director of Friends Relations, was speaking to AFSC program staff in Denver, specifically Jennifer Piper, who works there in our Immigrant Justice Program. And she's actually the interfaith organizer there. And she had been working with a variety of congregations in the area doing immigrant justice work. And there was this team of Unitarian Universalist Ministers, Kelly Dignin, Kirsten Homeblatt, and Deborah Holder. And they were doing some incredible work, design this model that they called Small Group Social Change Ministry. And so when Jennifer let Lucy know about this and felt like it might be effective for you among Friends, Lucy, then over, at this point it's been over a year and a half ago, began to introduce it to Friends and start to develop it. And when I came on in December, I wasn't that there was any new funding per se, but that it really felt like this was a, after Lucy had been introducing this to Friends for some time, that there really was a moment of feeling like Spirit really is calling us as friends to do social justice work in kind of a different way, although I think it's familiar in other ways. And that this model is, I think, a really powerful way to help facilitate that. And so over the past year, I've been working on molding it more to the context of Friends. And we actually got a chance to meet with Kelly and Kirsten. And they're incredible, they do incredible work in Denver. So really just kind of helping to shape it for the Quaker audience and adapt it to our situation. - I think Unitarians, you used Unitarian Universalists are pretty known for their activism. Quakers certainly for some centuries are known about this. I assume that there's other religious groups or non-religious groups that would use this as well. Is that true? - Sure. I think it's one of the really powerful things about this model, which we're calling in our context, the Quaker Social Change Ministry Program, is that it really is adaptable. And really what I think it acknowledges is that in order to do the necessary social justice work that needs to happen, we really need to create community that can sustain us, where we can learn from each other, where we can grow together, where we are invested in each other's growth as activists, while also building relationships and being connected to organizations and groups that are led by folks who are most impacted by systemic injustice and systemic oppression. So it's really based off of an accompaniment model of doing social justice work, but also with the understanding that we really need to be creating these spiritual kind of foundation and support necessary to sustain us for the long haul. - Are you familiar with Gamaliel Foundation and its organizational pieces with respect to the states? - In Wisconsin, we have a statewide group called Wisdom and Locally in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, where I live. They have Jonah, and there's an organizational technique, and this is something that Barack Obama, I think, was part of with Gamaliel in his organizing days. So is this related in any way, shape, or form to that? - Well, you know, I'm actually not familiar with that work, but one of the things that I've loved in introducing this model and talking about it with folks is how much this type of work is really showing up in a lot of different places and a lot of different people, someone who's been a mentor to Lucy and a number of friends and a dear friend of Lucy's as well. And the only span, you know, her work is very similar. I think we're seeing in social justice work, especially out of an interfaith context, on or out of a faith context in general, this real need to create communities that can support the kind of courageous tasks that we're being asked to make. - You know, I suspect for some folks, corporations, they're in it to make a profit, and if they make a profit, then they've got their nurture feedback loop, and I guess perhaps, maybe it's not quite so obvious in social justice work, what's your feedback loop? I mean, is it only if you win the great victory that you actually get some positive feedback? Is that part of the issue there that we don't have some automatic feedback that supports us? - I think that kind of, as an activist, trying to go from movement to movement and, you know, victory to loss to loss to victory, I think that that can be really exhausting and being sort of, I mean, there's a lot of incredible people who are willing to take that exhaustion, but I think one of the things that this particular model is trying to do is really model what the beloved community looks like, and really try to live that out in our own relationships right now, and try to model what restorative justice looks like right now, rather than kind of always feeling like we're working for some future goal, which we are, but also learning how to transform our communities today and really live in a way that is trying to bring what we are trying to create in a larger way to a more small, close-knit community. - I usually, for spirit and action, try and look at the positive end of things. You know, there's more than enough doom and gloom in the world, and there's people failing and people upset, and I don't think we can ignore any of that, but what we still need to do is see the way forward. Still, it's helpful to look at some of that downside, so I'm wondering if you can think of, perhaps social movement, social justice efforts, that suffered from the lack of the beloved community to support itself, so this is how it works wrong. Here's how maybe we want to do something different. - Sure, well, I think that actually Quakers, I think are a pretty good example of how the civil rights era and all of the many movements that were a major part of that suffered an immense repression from the powers that be, as it were. You saw a lot of terrible things happen to a lot of really amazing leaders, and a lot of movements that were infiltrated, and a lot of movements that were kind of taken apart from the inside, and suffering all those blows, I think shows the real need to create a community in which, of course, there's no way to really, I mean, how do we deal with something like that? I mean, those types of events are very traumatizing, and yet I feel as though Spirit is calling us to do what we can, to, I've been very influenced by the teachings of Jesus spiritually. I kind of came to it through a Quaker lens of just kind of wanting to learn more about Jesus's teachings and philosophy and everything, and I think one of the beautiful things about his teaching is his notion that the beloved community or the kingdom of God, as he said it, but beloved community, I think, is a phrase that folks are familiar with, is as much a here and present reality that we can live into as it is a future time, and I think that that to me is our task, because I think if we're not living into the beloved community now, and we're always just kind of hoping for it, working towards it, sometimes exhausting ourselves, sometimes losing loved ones along the way, that alone will just, it's too much, it's just too much, the challenges of social change work and the way in which all of that takes its toll on not only an individual, but on a community, I think requires us to be creating communities and environments in which we can breathe, which we can take a deep breath, we can feel at home, we can feel loved, cared for, somebody can put their arm around us and we know that they're with us, where we can share our anger, and our frustration, and our sadness, and our joy, and our hope, and our vision together, you know, a place where we can really speak what too often goes unspoken, and I think that that's really what this model is about, and I think that, generally speaking, I think this model just fits into what I think Spirit is calling us to in a larger way, which is really the need to live out that beloved community in the now as much as we're able. - And I've been an activist for, I don't know, 35, 40 years, and so I've seen some things that I thought worked well and some things that have worked not so well, and I have some suspicions of what the downside of not doing a beloved community type model are. What do you think happens to people who are really committed to social action, who participate but don't have this kind of nurturing feedback loop? What happens? - As a white person, I think that we white folks, especially if we are not really seeking out the wisdom and guidance of people of color, folks who are most affected by injustices, and not asking them to teach us or to kind of say, "Oh, what can I do?" But to educate ourselves, and to also build relationships that are built on trust, that are built on a real engagement, on a willingness to be changed ourselves, I think that's one of the key elements. I think that building those relationships, and also having that support within your own community, let's say within having, say, a white's confronting racism group that you're also working with, or in this model, you would be having a group in your Quaker meeting that could kind of support that. I think that's really key, and I think if we don't do that, then we make mistakes, we hurt movements, we get in the way, we can cause a lot of issues, and I think that just speaking beyond what happens for white folks, I think that just generally speaking, I think that the last kind of, who knows how long, 30, 40, 50 years of activism, has learned more broadly speaking that all oppression is interconnected, and all liberation is interconnected. So I think that this model is really timely, and really comes out of that, what I would call continuing revelation, that having a single issue focus misses the broader piece, and that building relationships with folks who struggle as connected to ours, but may not necessarily be a part of our immediate community. I think it's really vital, and I think the more we do that in whatever small way, the more that builds, I think the more there's that feedback loop, and I think the more that we're really able to make our movements more effective, and really be able to make change. What I was going to guess would be some of the effects of a non-nurturing feedback loop, would be bitterness and burnout, so that someone might actually get burnout and say I'm dropping out of it, but they might actually continue working in it, but with a lot of bitterness and hate and anger, building up it, whoever the adversary is of the moment, is that kind of thing that's actually documented, and somehow this model is going to enable us not to do that? Yeah, well, actually I can tell a little bit of a story about that. I used to be a facilitator for a great program through the Fellowship of Reconciliation called the Peacemaker Training Institute, and a lot of incredible people worked in that program, unfortunately it no longer exists, but we would have these week-long trainings that were focused on anti-oppression and non-violent social justice work, and they were really powerful, really intense, and we would try to do as much as we could to really get at that intersectionality of social justice work, so we would try to address racial justice and LGBTQ issues and patriarchy and all these different things. People would be sharing from a really deep level and a lot of motions would come up, you know, a lot of really powerful things to be shared, a lot of difficult things to be shared, and this one particular training, there was a woman who had a very large, kind of verbal meltdown in one of the groups. I mean, really just people felt unsafe. It was, I think, a lot of that rage and anger had kind of built up, and it's built out, and this person kind of left for a while as we kind of gathered ourselves, and as we were gathering ourselves, what pulled us through was that we had created this, you know, it wasn't perfect by any means, but we knew that we, in order to move through that difficult moment, we were going to need to model what I've been referring to as the beloved community, we were going to need to model this kind of way of relating to each other that comes from a place of love and presence and humility and a sense that we're in this together, and we were able to move through that moment, and by the end of the week, you know, we were having a closing ritual together, and that person was able to rejoin, and we were able to welcome her, and so I think that to me that just showed the power of community, because there was this moment where we thought to ourselves, we were really able to come back from this, you know, I mean, she left, we didn't know where she went for a while, there was this kind of crisis, and it was because we had fostered these relationships over the, you know, just four or five days that we'd been together of sharing deeply that we were able to move through that, and I think that if we hadn't done that work, that moment probably would have broken us, I don't know if we would have been able to recover, and so for me that really showed how this work is so necessary, and if you stretch that out along a lifetime where you have bitterness and burnout and frustrations, because it's so easy, I mean, we all see so much need, so much injustice, so much terrible news, and that just the difficulties of working together to make change, I mean, it's hard enough to work together to throw an event, let alone make change, and so, yeah, this type of work is not easy, and it's not a simple, clear-cut path, but I think that this supporting each other, this sharing, this coming from a place of humility, and presence, and openness, and listening, and doing our own work, and doing the work within community, can really turn into this beautiful dance in which that cynicism and that burnout can find some healing. I think maybe it's time to get down to some of the nuts and bolts, because this sounds good, I mean, I'm happy, I'm excited, I'm saying if all these social movements had this kind of thing, we wouldn't have to die off and go diffuse energy, we could have this possibility, and not just Quaker groups, of course, I mean, you were talking about Fellowship of Reconciliation, this comes from UU context, it doesn't have to be a faith group, but obviously there has to be something knitting the group together, so nuts and bolts, lay out for us what you're doing maybe in the Quaker context, but I'd really be interested in knowing what it has applicable to all of the listeners out here, and we've got listeners all across the United States, soon, I think, in Canada, why is this going to be helpful to them, and how does it work? So, Quaker Social Change Ministry is based on the small group, Social Change Ministry model that Kelly Dignon, Kirsten Homblet, and Deborah Holder co-created in their UU congregations in Denver, and really, it's got a number of layers. It's about creating a group at a congregational level, or using it with an existing group, where the group comes together around a particular issue, in this case, we're encouraging folks, particularly, to work on issues that are related to the work of the American Friends Service Committee, which is who I work for, and so that would be, you know, immigrant justice, racial justice, mass incarceration, a just peace in Israel, Palestine, creating hospitable communities for confronting Islamophobia, various things of that nature, and so you want to come together on a particular issue, and one of the interesting things is right up front, you're going to form a covenant with the group. And now, this is actually a practice that happens a lot in workshops. A lot of times, you know, if you come together as a group, a lot of times the facilitator will say, "Okay, let's write up some community guidelines "for how we're going to be sharing our time together, you know, "listening deeply, being willing to take feedback, "staying in the room, even when things get difficult, "these types of things." Well, this covenant is really about that. It's really about kind of saying, "What are we committing to with each other?" And that's a group process, and that document can be changed over time. It's also a great way to include newcomers, because I think a lot of times when new folks come into a group, you know, they've missed whatever the story has already been, and so to help catch those folks up having this document and saying, "Hey, well, you know, these are the things that we have agreed to as a group "that's guiding us. How does this look to you? "You know, we can change some things, we can add some things, "but this is really something that is helping to guide us." And then when things get tough, we can say, "Well, you know, "we've been asked to stay in the room when things are difficult, "so I know this is hard for everyone, but can we do that right now?" So it's sort of a way to kind of create our shared commitments and make them visible to the group. So that's a process the group engages in. Now, once that process has gone on, the way that meetings are kind of formatted is really in a part one and a part two. The part one is really with emphasis on spirit and relationship building within the group. And so in that time, you're going to have somebody who's going to share a spiritual practice. It can be a journaling, it can be a poem, it can be a song, it can be anything, and have a bit of worship together. Whatever your faith community, in this case, in a Quaker community, you might have some meeting for worship. But whatever your faith community would spend some time in fellowship together in that way. Then, there's a very clear emphasis on allowing one person in the group each time to share a story of a recent experience they've had working on whatever issue is going on. And so that's a really important time for someone to really share something maybe they've been struggling with or a joy or something that's been coming up for them. And the rest of the group can help process that with them. It can really dive into the bones of the story. And we actually had the great pleasure of sitting in with a group in Greeley, Colorado, who's using this model. And it was really amazing to see how the group was able to really have a conversation around a story that was shared and grow together. And really, that's what that storytelling is about, is it's about growing together. I think it's also kind of an interesting way to kind of fit in workshopping with each other in a way that doesn't feel so much so formal like a workshop. Where you can actually get into, well, you know, what would a accompaniment really look like in that situation or what types of maybe systemic oppression or in play? You know, what are the dynamics of that story? You know, I'm really having that time to process that together and making it a welcoming environment where the person who's sharing the story really feels heard and invited and then the folks in the group are sharing from their own experience. And then also having some more worship as well at that time I think is really valuable. So really, that would be kind of the part one of the meeting is having time for spirit, for worship, for sharing covenant with each other, for having a spiritual practice and for storytelling. And then the part two is where the actual work of the group starts to happen. And so as I said before, this really is based off of the accompaniment model that really believes that the people who are most affected by systemic oppression need to be the folks who are leading the way, who as allies, as people who are accompanying them, walking with them, that we're following their leadership, listening, and that we're also kind of walking arm and arm. You know, I think one of the really beautiful examples of this that happened recently is I think that an incredible act that Bre Newsom, the woman in South Carolina, who took down the Confederate flag. Well, there was a young white man who was at the bottom of the pole spotting her. To me, that just really showed the power of the ally ship, you know? I mean, the spotlight wasn't supposed to be on him. You know, I don't even remember his name. I remember Bre Newsom's name. And I think that that really is a great model for what an ally can do, is really kind of take risks and also be the support necessary to build movements, etc. So in the second part of the meeting, that's where all those things are getting worked out. And having that part one as the core at the basis, I mean, I think probably your listeners have had many spiritual experiences in a group, maybe going to their congregation or whatever, in a Quaker context, maybe experiencing a very gathered meeting where, you know, you really feel the presence of spirit and you really feel that connection with people. To do social justice work from that place is different than how we usually do it, I think, to really kind of make that an equal part of the work as doing the work itself. And I think that creates an invitation to folks who may not usually be drawn to activism. You know, in Quakerism, we say sometimes folks, there was this recent "Friends Journal" article about mystics, activists, and pragmatists. Well, I think that this model is kind of a way to kind of say, you're all invited to the table. You know, everyone's welcome. And I think that it has built into it these very simple, it's not complex, it's very basic. But the form, you know, what we've seen and what we're excited about, I think, facilitates taking greater risks. I think facilitates growing internally. I think it facilitates building relationships with organizations and movements going on locally for social justice that are led by communities most impacted. And I think that it's something that we're seeing happening and this is a way to help facilitate that. So you've talked about some of the places. You're actually not going to be starting to do this training or rolling out this program fully until September is, I think, when you're aiming for. So what's going to happen at that point? Are you going to go to 200 different places and teach them this method or what's the plan? Sure. Well, we do have a few groups that are already starting to, as I've been going around and telling folks about this, some folks are saying, "Well, we're already ready to go. I mean, this feels like something we need right now. Can we start to use the model right now?" And we say, "Sure." And what's great about this is that it's, because it's a pilot program, the groups that are joining us now are really going to have the opportunity to help shape this and to really help it become something that is powerful for friends. So we have folks at North Meadow in Indiana. We have some folks in Durham Friends meeting that are starting to use this model. And so what's really going to be happening in September is we're really just trying to get a kind of a quorum, just a nice kind of, you could say, like first class, as it were, five to 10 different meetings where we can start to do some trainings at a distance, some in person, and also provide materials to help guide the meetings and really just making myself available to act as a support to help guide different groups through this process, create a way for these different groups to communicate with each other and support each other and teach each other and learn from each other. Because I think that that's one of the powerful things, is that we as friends oftentimes are kind of, especially at a monthly meeting level or an individual church congregation, or social change witness at that level. I think what we've found anyway, and a lot of friends, meetings, and churches, is that that very local witness at the monthly meeting or church level, has been a real challenge because there's so many different issues, there's a lot of burnout, it's kind of been the same people over and over and over, and we're doing the work rather than being able to kind of grow anything. A lot of places are laying down their peace and social concerns committees, not everybody, but it's something that we've kind of seen as it's, as the challenge of having a local corporate witness presents itself. And I think that this model is a way for friends to connect with each other, to share, to realize they're not alone, to learn from each other, to help support that, and really try to help that grow. And so, starting September, we're also going to have monthly conference calls, where we're going to be having different guest speakers of various sorts, share information about the model or about various issues that AFSC is working on. We have a lot of things that are in the works for the pilot program. We'd love to be able to get folks together, you know, a national gathering, you know, the different pilot groups have some representatives there. We're also, next year, the American Friends Service Committee Corporation, which is sort of one of the governing bodies of AFSC, and it's a little confusing, but it's entirely made up of friends, and they meet once a year to do business and learn about AFSC. Well, that is going to be open to the public this coming year in March. And so, we're really excited about that, having that as an opportunity for friends to come, get trained also in the model, if they like, and learn more about AFSC. And so, really, this is going to be an ongoing effort. Gearing up towards September, I'm just really excited to get some different groups at the monthly meeting or church level who are interested in trying it out for a year. We're just asking folks to try the model for a year, and really, it's about meeting, you know, once a month around a specific issue and trying it out. And I think that what we've heard feedback-wise is that people are really excited, and it's been really exciting to work with North Meadow, and with Durham friends, small groups at each meeting. It's not necessarily at the whole meeting level, but starting with a small group that has a particular interest. And it's been really great to start to see some of these things come into action. I've got a lot more questions for Greg Elliott of the AFSC, that's American Friends Service Committee. AFSC Friends Relations Associate is what he is, and working with Social Change Ministry, originating from the Unitarians. But first, I want to remind you, you are listening to Spirit in Action. My name is Mark Helpsmeet. I'm your host for this Northern Spirit Radio production. We're on the web at northernspiritradio.org. You can listen to us via a number of stations across the nation, so you might find one in your local town where we're being broadcast, as well as accessing it from our site anytime you care to. On our site, you'll find information, links to our guests, so you can find a way to AFSC via the web. Also, you'll find comments, and we welcome that you add your own comments and questions, and we like to make this a two-way communication. There's also a place to make donations. That is how we support this full-time work. Just click on support, and even more important than contributing to Northern Spirit Radio, I want to remind you to support your local community radio station. They provide you a slice of news and music. You get nowhere else on the American airwaves, and so please start by supporting those local folks doing good work in your community. Again, Greg Elliott is here. His job title, Friends Relations Associate, that means he's second in command, and he's doing some really good work, a new program that's being rolled out, originating from Unitarian Universalists over in Colorado, and social change ministry is the objective of what we're doing. I'm going to go into some specifics of this, Greg, because a number of things have occurred to me along the way. Again, I've been doing social justice work for quite a while myself. One of the things, for instance, that occurred to me is you're talking about the Quaker meetings in this companionship, this kind of accompaniment work, so people who are suffering from social injustice are being walked with in this process. It strikes me that as a privilege to middle-class American, you and I might have different motivations, need different feedback and support, than a person who's oppressed. You know, I can't vote, I can't walk in my community, I'm in danger of having my church burned down. There's a pretty direct motivation, and when I get to vote, or when I get the freedom of association throughout my community, or when my buildings don't get burned down, I feel like I've had a positive feedback loop. So, are there difficulties in working together when you have different, I guess, feedback that you need to continue on? And part of my question was, do the people who are being accompanied participate in making the same decision in the group? Are they there from the start, or is this like you go out and find partners? You may already be aware of who in your community, or your city, or town, or wherever, is doing work that you would like to accompany, but yeah, you would go out and you would find organizations to work with. And that process, as far as the pilot program, is something that I'll be supporting folks as they kind of walk that road, because it's a challenging road. And, you know, I think that's one of the powerful things about this model, as simple as it is, is that, I think you said it perfectly, in that the folks who are doing the accompanying need a different kind of support and feedback loop, and community of accountability, than the folks who are doing the work who experience social injustices, because the needs are different, the experiences are different, the motivations are different, the histories are generally different. And so that's one of the things that's built into this. And as far as that process of figuring out who these groups will be accompanying, it's going to come down to what organizations in your community maybe already are interfaith, already have coalitions, already working with other folks, what organizations are looking for allies, are calling for allies, what organizations maybe you already have relationships with, somebody in your meeting or church is connected to in some way, and start there, you know, start with where the invitation is already being made. And I think, too, one of the interesting things in Denver, this accompaniment model and accompaniment in general, has been really valuable in the work for immigrant justice and for working, especially with folks who are being detained, detention centers, etc., and really accompanying them and walking with them. And, you know, in that context, accompaniment becomes quite literal, where you're visiting the detention center to keep somebody's hope and spirit alive and to provide them some sense of solidarity and of being with someone during that process or supporting a family, you know, giving somebody a ride to maybe have to go to some, who knows, whatever, you know, maybe their job or any number of things. So, you know, the accompaniment will really vary depending on the situation. I mean, I think Lucy Duncan, the director of friends relations, I mean, she does incredible work, and one of the things that she's doing right now is she's providing the space and technical assistance that the local Philadelphia organization that formed, you know, around the Black Lives Matter movement called the Philadelphia Coalition for Real Justice. Lucy is providing the space and technical support for, like, microphones and whatnot for them to meet. That's because, you know, they were going to have to find a new place. They were meeting somewhere and they had to change places, and so Lucy thought to herself, well, they could maybe come to a friend center in Philadelphia, so she, you know, was able to make it happen, I'm sure, with the support of other folks, but just that simple thing of providing space, you know, a lot of organizations might not have a place to meet, or, you know, maybe they do need a place where they can have microphones or things of that nature. So a lot of the work, too, is about what can you in your group offer? That's something I haven't really spoken on yet, but it's an important part of it. You know, what, getting together in your small group ministry, you know, you want to figure out what can we really offer a group? Do we have space? Are we willing to go to marches? Can we help further a letter writing campaign, you know, are, you know, just, and kind of really figuring out, really, realistically, what can we offer? Because that's an important part of doing this work is finding an organization that has the certain kinds of needs that you can, you know, help to offer. Building those relationships over time, I think, is just really powerful, because it's just transformative. I mean, we were able to meet with this incredible place in Denver, also called Casa de Paz, which is this incredible creation of a woman who was inspired from seeing a similar model in Georgia to just provide a place for parents who are visiting loved ones who are detained to stay overnight, because, you know, a lot of times these attention centers are not easily located. There might not be a hotel nearby, not to mention the financial barrier there, so she provides a space for the families to stay while they're visiting their loved ones and a detention center. I mean, that's just like a beautiful, simple thing that is so necessary and so vital, and over that time, you know, she stays in touch with the families, the relationships build, trust builds. I mean, we live in a society that doesn't really foster trust, it doesn't foster relationships across difference, it doesn't foster, it doesn't ask us to stretch in ways that are going to make a more loving community and world, and this is a way to kind of help facilitate that over hopefully the course of many years. So, do those being accompanied and the company years make a covenant together? Are they both part of that, or is that only the social change ministry folks who do that, and then the other people being accompanied, are they in on that part? Yeah, no, that's internal, that's within the group. I mean, I think as the relationship builds over time, you're going to want to introduce, you know, especially if you're starting a new relationship with an organization that you've never met before, I think one of the things, you know, that maybe you haven't been involved in, I think one of the things that's really important is, first of all, you know, being really clear, you know, introducing yourself, saying, you know, this is, my name's Greg, I'm coming from this monthly meeting, and we have a small group that would like to work on, you know, immigrant justice, and we've really admired what your organization is doing. Would we be able to come to a meeting, would be able to, you know, just kind of sit down and just get to know you, and you may even just want to start off by just attending whatever public events that organization has, just as a regular tender, and just start building relationships, and just letting them know that you're there, and providing support, you know, there's often rallies or different things going on that you can tap into that are public that are already available. But yeah, the covenant and the small group social change ministry model really is for supporting the work of folks at that congregational level within the group to accompany, and I think that how the impact works the other way is I think that, unfortunately, a lot of times, I think organizations are disappointed by allies or folks who want to accompany who maybe come in for a short period of time and then disappear, or who maybe try to take over, try to say, hey, well, you know, this is what I think should happen, you know, all these different ways in which we can make mistakes, and I'm not saying this model is going to take away all that, I mean, I know that, you know, everybody's still going to make mistakes, but this is creating a model in which we're hoping to build the capacity of these movements for racial justice, for ending mass incarceration, for immigrant justice, of helping folks really get kind of trained up and provide a system that actually works, that actually gives more power and momentum to a movement rather than detract or, you know, really, it's really relationship driven. And as that happens, I think, I mean, the effects really aren't quantifiable, they aren't measurable. Seeing the way in which building relationships of trust and integrity and accountability really is transformative. And it's something that I've experienced in other contexts, and it's been transformative for me, and I know it's transformative for a lot of people. And then once again, this simple model is just a way to try to make that a little more concrete. And so Greg, how long does this training take or how long is it going to be taking? Is this a one time, you know, one day workshop kind of thing with maybe feedback later, is it for installments? Are there various levels? I don't know how this works? Well, I'm kind of like the personal support staff for these groups. And I'm going to be kind of accompanying them as they learn to accompany others. I'll be on the phone with them. You know, we can schedule a visit if that seems appropriate. It's going to take place over the course of a year. We're going to be providing trainings throughout the year on various topics, providing trainings on accompaniment, providing trainings on the covenant, providing trainings on mass incarceration, largely done through the web and through conference calls, things like that. But also like we said, like I said earlier, we are interested in having a, you know, a national gathering of these pilot programs. We hope that takes shape. And really, I think one of the powerful things about this model is that it doesn't need to take a whole lot more time than what you're already doing. That's one of the things that we heard from feedback from, you know, some of the groups that we're already working with is that folks live busy lives. Folks have a lot going on. But folks also want to make change and want to be involved. And this is kind of like a way of kind of providing a simple structure that if you have facilitation experience, if you have experience working in social justice work and in faith communities, it's a lot of it's going to feel intuitive to you. And it's not going to ask too much commitment from folks so that, you know, once again, you have folks dropping out because they can't do it. You know, the idea is, you know, it's kind of long haul, longer vision work rather than trying to get a bunch of people together to do one action. It's really about sustaining it over a long period of time. So, yeah, we'll be providing things throughout the year and developing different aspects of the program as it continues. Is there, though, an initial training period like you show up for a day or a half day or a weekend or whatever? Well, that's really based on the needs of the groups. Really how this starts is I'll start a, you know, if someone listening, you know, who's a member of a friend's meeting and is interested, you know, how that'll start is they can just give me a call or send me an email, you know, you can find my information on the website for this interview and we'll start a conversation, you know, because every, all the groups are in different places. You know, right now, you know, the racial justice group that we're working with in Durham and the racial justice group that we're working with in North Meadow, you know, they were already meeting and already going through things and they had already identified facilitators and they had already been coming together around this issue for a while and saw this model as a valuable way to further their work. They may not need me to come in and give a training because they're kind of already along the way, but, you know, maybe if you're getting things together for the very first time and folks who are new to this, you might need a little, you know, extra help. So, it's really, it's kind of done on a kind of case-by-case basis. Really kind of, you know, see what needs are there and really assess if this is a good fit, you know, because we're aware that, you know, this isn't for everybody. There's already great work going on at a congregational level, you know, there's already a lot of other ways in which people can get involved, but what we hope to do is to have this offering as a way for folks at the congregational level to have a social change ministry that feels alive and vital while also not feeling too overwhelming. And that's one of the great things about accompaniment is we realize that, you know, it's not up to us to end mass incarceration. You're part of a larger movement. It's also a way to kind of, I think a lot of friends tend to work in isolation and kind of, as it were, you know, reinvent the wheel when we get passionate about something. We say, like, let's do this and, you know, we try to figure it out in our committees and in-house when there's already a lot of great work going on around us that we can just tap into and support. And then it doesn't feel like it's all up to us, and we feel like we're part of a larger community and we're building relationships and makes lots of things possible. It strikes me that this feels kind of counter-cultural. Of course, I'm already a Quaker, so I'm used to being kind of counter-culture or anyhow. But it strikes me that it's counter-culture in multiple ways. One thing is that people who are doing social justice work sometimes feel the dire press of that. So we got to cut everything out except get right to the nub. We got to get out here and do the action. We've got to do that. So I can imagine even from people very much involved in social activism getting pushed back, I can imagine from a company to people getting pushed back saying that, no, this isn't how it works. Is that something you've anticipated? What's the result? You know, is that a big thing we should be worrying about? Well, I think that whenever we take the risk of getting involved, of saying, you know, I've been moved, I feel the call to work for social justice. Whenever we make that decision, there are a lot of risks. There's a lot of, you know, in a sense, nothing's guaranteed. But I think that grounding this, I think, particularly through its faith association, you know, being at a congregational level and also having that internal community, as I was saying before, about like, you know, being able to kind of weather the storm. You know, you might have an organization or a person that you're accompanying who says, no thanks, who says, you know, this isn't what we're looking for. And that may happen. And that would be something for the group to process within itself. Why did that happen? What do we do wrong? What could we have done differently? To create that kind of give and take and to be able to learn and change over time, I think, is really one of the strengths. And I should also mention, too, the Central Philadelphia is Committee for Racial Justice. I'm not sure exactly what their acronym is. But they're also interested in joining with the program. And I think that they're really figuring out what does it look like for them, you know? And I think that the fact that this is so adaptable, I think, is really one of the strengths. And I think that that also reflects on kind of as you start to build these relationships with organizations and some of them may work out and some of them may not. The adaptability, I think, is really key because if anything doing social change work, we need to be willing to adapt and change over time because it's almost like a kind of constantly evolving terrain out there where various things are happening and we have to have a community that can support all this uncertainty and all this change because it can feel very uprooting to have somebody say, "Sorry, we're not interested," or, "Oops, you made a mistake." And to have a community that can support that, I think, is vital. So you're hired, particularly by the American Friends Service Committee, and this is a Quaker-focused program, you know, your friends' relations associate. Does that mean that if I have listeners out there who are part of UCC or Methodist or Presbyterian or maybe they're just connected with fellowship of reconciliation, they're saying, "That sounds like something we need to do." If they called you up, would you tell them to buzz off, or, "Well, how would you deal with that?" Because I see this, it would obviously serve the efforts of the American Friends Service Committee to have more people concentrating on all these different issues of concern that you've already identified. What about them? You know, I mean, certainly I wouldn't tell anyone to buzz off. One of the things I'm trying to do is make all of our materials accessible through the Internet, and all of our, you know, conference calls and things of that nature that our recordings will be able to be found on the AFSC website. And so, you know, this already is built off of the work of those three Unitarian Universalist Ministers in the Denver Boulder area. And, you know, their work was so inspiring to Lucy and myself, and Jennifer Piper and others and people in their own community that we said, "Oh, this is so amazing. Can we bring this to our community?" And they said, "Yeah, you know, like, you know, why don't you use that?" And so, one of the things that I'm certainly very interested in is having as much as possible available on the web for groups who are interested in doing something similar, or maybe, you know, something exactly the same. Because I work for the American Friends Service Committee, you know, we have our own particular focuses. And, you know, my work is to help build substantial relationships between AFSC and the Society of Friends. So, that's my particular focus. But I quite love it. Hearing phone calls from folks who may be hearing what we're doing or may or may not be involved or in something different similar. And, you know, to me, it helps me feel like we're doing something that is vital. And also, it's great to hear that these great ideas, you know, that started with three ministers in, you know, Denver Boulder area, and, you know, is now spreading. And I think that that's really powerful. So, you know, any part that we can play at that, I think is great. Let me press you just a little bit further, Greg. So, someone on Lopez Island over in Washington State listens, or someone who's over in Massachusetts, one of the places where this is broadcast, or down in Houston, where sometimes they're programmed to broadcast. Some's listening. They're not Quaker, but they get the materials you got online, and they say, can we pay for you to come down and do some training with us? Is that something that's acceptable, or are you going to get fired for that? Well, I think that since this is a pilot program, you know, it'll be, I'll be curious to see what happens. I'll be curious to see who shows interest. I'll be curious to see how it grows. I mean, you know, my particular position at AFSC, you know, is to serve the Society of Friends and to build that relationship. I'm happy to have conversations with anyone who, you know, reaches out to me as much as I'm able. Like I said, we're a staff of two, about to be a staff of three with Genevieve Becro, who I mentioned the Quaker Voluntary Service intern that we're going to be having on board in September. So, we're a small little crew right now, but I think that, you know, AFSC at large is aware that we're piloting this program through Friends Relations, the board and Corporation, and we also serve as part of the Friends Relations Committee, which is a subcommittee of the Corporation. So, there's a lot of folks who are interested to see where this goes and who should, what the interest level is. And, you know, I think, depending on how things move, I mean, who knows what shape this will take place, you know, that this will take in the future. I also wanted to know some things about you, Greg. So, when Lucy was looking at this resume from Greg Elliott, you know, he possibly be considered for this, were you hired because you're a smooth talker or because you have vast history with activism or teaching organizing? What was it that got you to the point where this is the job for you? Gosh, yeah, I don't know if I ever asked that question. Like, why did you hire me? I was raised Quaker in northeastern Pennsylvania. I grew up attending a meeting at a very small Quaker meeting in the Poconos called North Branch Friends Meeting. And I grew up going to a very small family run Quaker summer camp up there, Junies End Farm Camp. Hey, Junies End. Those were incredibly formative years that are irreplaceable to me and anyone who, you know, there's so many people I spent that those years with that were just some of the most amazing people. And then as I grew into adulthood, you know, I started to work with the Fellowship of Reconciliation in their Peasemaker Training Institute program. And that was really powerful for me because I experienced anti-oppression work as very spiritual. It was a diverse group of co-facilitators that I was working with. And to be building those relationships and to be learning and to be vulnerable together and to just be around such great wisdom and all these things, I think it really drove home that social chains work is spirit work. And that's kind of what I've brought to my life ever since, is that I don't see them as separated at all. I think that spirit really calls us to transform ourselves and to be one part of this vast, beautiful network of people who are making change together in the world. And I think that, you know, that's what I try to bring to this position, although it's a challenge like every other. I try to bring it to my life. You know, I think that for me as like somebody who's a white cisgendered male from Factoryville, Pennsylvania, I don't know what I'm learning to do. And I had a lot of amazing teachers and I continue to learn and I still continue to have amazing teachers. And that work of becoming aware of the history of this continent, the realities of white supremacy, of patriarchy, of heteronormativity, all these different issues, while I'm not an expert by any means, has changed me. And not just at a political level, but at a spiritual and a personal level. I think that that's what I try to bring to this work. And I think that's what I try to bring to my interview is and resume, you know, is that, you know, no matter where I am or what I'm doing, I'm always interested in how spirit is calling us to be changed. It's something we really need in this world. I think if this grows within Quaker circles and UU circles and everywhere else and probably fellowship reconciliation, every other group, if this kind of witness and work together grows, I can't help but believe we're going to end up with a better world. People not being burned out and bitter, but rather people feeling energized and therefore the long term, because I do see this as a long term program. So I'm really excited about what you're offering, what we've already got gifted to us from the UU's and which I hope will grow throughout our country and our world. So thank you for spearheading this effort, Greg, and thank you for joining me today for spirit in action. Thank you very much, Mike. Again, we've been speaking with Greg Elliott. Friends Relations Associate with the American Friends Service Committee, AFSC.org is where you find them on the web. There's links on nordinspiritradio.org. Thank you so much and we'll see you next week for spirit in action. The theme music for this program is Turning of the World, performed by Sarah Thompson. This spirit in action program is an effort of Northern Spirit Radio. You can listen to our programs and find links and information about us and our guests on our website northernspiritradio.org. Thank you for listening. I am your host, Mark Helpsmeet and I welcome your comments and stories of those leading lives of spiritual fruit. May you find deep roots to support you and grow steadily toward the light. This is spirit in action. [Music]