Spirit in Action

War Taxes, Injustice in Palestine, Racism - A Life of Faith, Joy & Service

War tax resistance, immigration, Middle East, intentional community, books & plays, public office, divestment - Bill & Genie Durland have been called & led to address these concerns and many more. With the Center on Law & Pacifism, Pendle Hill, Christian Peacemaker Teams, the Virginia House of Delegates, and elsewhere, Bill & Genie have walked a faithful life of witness. Order their plays by email at durlandwe@gmail.com.

Broadcast on:: 25 Aug 2013
Audio Format:: other

[music] Let us sing this song for the healing of the world That we may hear as one With every voice, with every song We will move this world along And our lives will feel the echo of our healing [music] Welcome to Spirit in Action. My name is Mark Helpes 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 food in your own life. [music] Back to the beginning of July, I was down in Greeley, Colorado, at the University of Northern Colorado As part of the annual roving event called the Friends General Conference Gathering Always a lot of fruitful workers for world healing there And this year, I had the privilege to sit down with Bill and Jeannie Durland Folks I've known of since back in the 1980s For their leadership at the Center on Law and Pacifism But really, that's only one of so many venues for their intersection of faith and activism You'll hear about that and their work in the Middle East And fighting racism and so much more in the course of this hour Plus, on the northern spirit radio.org website You'll find some great bonus excerpts that I just couldn't fit into the radio broadcast So be sure to listen to those as well and post a comment when you visit the website Also with me, co-hosting today's spirit and action interview is Madeline Shafer She's covered for me from time to time for spirit and action and always adds a lot to an interview Right now, let's head to a university classroom in Greeley, Colorado To visit with Bill and Jeannie Durland Bill and Jeannie, and of course Madeline, I'm so pleased to have you all here today for spirit in action Thank you Thank you Thanks Bill and Jeannie, I was so excited to see that you were going to be part of the Friends General Conference gathering this year I've never met either of you, but I've been influenced by Bill's work Or at least his was the name I knew from back in the 1980s when I first got involved with war tax resistance So I have to start with a great big thank you for something that was transformational for my life Well, you're certainly welcome and we're happy we were able to do that for about ten years straight And Jeannie, your name doesn't appear on the documents, but I suspect you had a vital role in the work I would like to know what you were doing, not in the limelight, so to speak I realize that Bill has the law degree, but you're the mastermind, right? Well, I don't think I can claim that, he has the law degree and his role in the national center on law and pacifism was to do legal research and legal representation not only for war tax resistors, but for people that were involved in other forms of civil disobedience religiously motivated, spiritually motivated civil disobedience Because in most cases such people if they go to court are not expecting to manipulate the law in order to get a win They want to use the courtroom as a forum for witness And there are very few lawyers who are willing to allow their clients to control the case to that extent As far as my role goes is I was the editor of all the stuff that came out in writing Especially the newsletter that I don't know if you remember, we had a little journal that we called "Centerpiece" I was primarily responsible for that, it came out bi-monthly for about ten years And Mark, when we started it in '78 in Philadelphia, it was moved to Colorado Springs in '80 It had a broad base, but it was primarily war tax resistors as you and Rick's friend who's in the audience Remember, but we called it poverty pacifism in prisons And the reason for that was that ACLU cases that they couldn't take were dropping through the holes so to speak And so we handled cases that might not get a lot of publicity, but really helped people a lot And it was the same on prisons and poverty People who qualified for some governmental programs but still didn't have enough money and needed legal services and help And I think we integrated the legal with the religious and spirituals, so we tried to make it a holistic, not just a legal entity You know, I want to go through the many concerns, the faith-driven concerns that the two of you have worked on And then I want to have us expand first on more tax resistance You of course started with the Center on Law and Pacifism You then spent some time at Pendle Hill, which is a Quaker Retreat Center outside of Philadelphia You did terms with the Christian peacemaker teams I understand Bill that you served time, and I don't mean like in prison, but as a representative in the Virginia House of Delegates And there's so many other items that we could have had to that list He's also served time in Pendle, not all lawyers do that Which is the story if you want stories And we do want those stories, but I want to start with war tax resistance How did you get connected with this? Was it part of being a good Catholic growing up? Yeah, I was a good Catholic, I thought, and there was some truth to it, I thought, that being a Catholic and American was a good balance Rex and I were both Catholics at the time we were doing war tax resistance together, and he still is But I saw Quakerism as a compliment to that I have no hard feelings about Catholicism as a Quaker I just feel that it was an extension of a kind of theology that I thought was foundational to all Christian theology So that's what drew me from those Catholic roots to expand upon it, I guess When I first got involved with war tax resistance, I was in Milwaukee And there was a diverse group of people who were part of that war tax resistance group Some of them were even a bit religious phobic, in my opinion I think you must have run into that in your work I mean, you're trying to put faith and war tax resistance This witness about time and money and where it goes, military or not You're concentrating on the intersection of faith in this type of action and witness Were there people who said, why don't you just keep this religious stuff out of the mix? Yeah, we ran into that because we did travel around the country and do a lot of workshops And our workshops, we tried to not just concentrate technically on war tax resistance, but on nonviolent action in general It often, I will say, came down to burnout issues for people that have been in the peace movement for a long time Our message from our own experience about that was that you can't sustain a life of resistance Outside the mainstream without a deep spiritual well to draw from If you're just doing it for political reasons, you're going to burnout I mean, that's my opinion and that's been my experience So we tried to convey that reality to people without plugging some form of religion Yeah, we had a religious orientation, unlike War Resisters League and some of the other groups that were around But we didn't limit ourselves to that, we limited ourselves to the people who have a deeply moral or spiritual attribute to that So that didn't run into so much of a problem One of the problems was what was called effectiveness or does it work, sort of a pragmatic approach And that would transcend whether they were religious or secular And that was if it doesn't work, don't do it And we had people we ministered to who said that conscientious objection, civil disobedience is counterproductive It's wasteful, even war tax resistance, if you hold all the money back Then you are more effective, but you're holding money back from good things that you want to do If you do it the way some other people do and pay what they feel they need to pay to government But hold back a percentage, then we were told, well that percentage would just be figured out in the same way So you may be witnessing, but you weren't effective Our answer to that was probably a spiritual answer, and that is we feel what is significant And let the effectiveness or whether it works comes as an end and not a beginning in your kind of philosophical values And that creates a feeling of a spirit That is, spirits usually are not identified by concrete borders And that's the kind of spirit we had, the center of law and pacifism And we had some cases that were effective But the idea was we took our cases for people and we let people creatively work out their cases With our legal advice for them to accept or reject I heard from some attorneys that I was violating men legal ethics Because legal ethics say that you should never knowing that the case has precedent against it And it's not going to be a win that you shouldn't go to court Well, that Martin Luther King in the civil rights movement said, well I've already decided Separate but equal is constitutional in the 1800s We just don't go to court, but they did And they lost and we went and we went for those reasons In the course of your work, did you have any particularly stunning victories or advances? I know in the years that you were working with the center of law and pacifism That the law about what was called frivolous filing was passed and invoked And I think it increased the amount of fear, things like, okay, I'm trying to witness about $10 or more taxes not paid But now they're going to slap me with a $500 or even a $5,000 penalty Well, I think it did have an effect on the movement But to jump several decades forward There's been a brand new win in that area Right here in our yearly meeting A member of an inner mountain yearly meeting has been refusing her taxes and was slapped with a $5,000 fine And Bill's going to have to explain the process, but she actually won her case and they gave her back her money She won that at what level? At the tax court level, was it? Yeah, the details are not as important in this case because they were transitional They weren't a final legal precedent as I see it What it turned out to be, and you find this quite often, and that's why there are some wins When they just don't collect and leave you alone It's because they make a political decision And it's not worth their money to go after this money When they recognize as we do, there are a lot of corporations that are not paying any of their taxes So why are they wasting time actually trying to frustrate us, which they did with this frivolous penalty They came in when we were overseas in Israel and Palestine in '83 And it was Reagan and it was $500, now it's $5,000 But if you persist on a witness, you don't know what's going to happen We have had not big successes, but we've had plenty we could tell you about And I also didn't answer your question how we got started, so we'll cover that somewhere along the line Because it's a good, quick release story That was actually going to be my question, is if we could go back Maybe just how you got started in activism Why you decided that this was something that you wanted to dedicate your life to So both how you came to the realization that you needed to dedicate your life to not only resistance, but justice And then also how you both met, because I'm sure it was a passion for both of you And then you kind of joined forces I'll get the kind of dicey part over with first And say that we met at a time when both of us were married to other people And our marriages were in trouble anyway You're on the radio? I know But I was divorced and had gone through that Because my first husband was a physician and an investor and he was very wealthy And the wealthier we got, the more I realized that the wealth owned us And it drove a huge wedge between us As far as I'm concerned, being wealthy ruined the marriage and took away any commonality we had So anyway, we were divorced and I was trying to redirect my life I really didn't know what I wanted to do So I went back to school We were living in Indiana at the time I went to the Indiana Purdue University campus in Fort Wayne And I discovered that there was a new professor there who was heading up what they called The Center for the Study of the Person and was teaching key studies and women's studies And things like that, wow, you know, this is 70, what was it, 74 And so it was early on for that kind of thing My professor was Dr. Bill Duraland and one thing led to another And we did connect eventually As pacifists, as religious pacifists, that was the base of how we got together And then figuring out together what to do with that, what that meant for our lifestyle And our activities I knew there was something really wrong with my lifestyle I couldn't figure it out on my own, frankly, I don't know, maybe I'm just stupid But it was this study of religious pacifism that brought it all into focus for me I realized where what the evil is for me about extreme wealth Not even extreme wealth, I mean just being extremely privileged in terms of having a lot of money Being able to do whatever you want to do, hire somebody to clean your house That kind of thing, you know, I just, you know, it made it all clear What was wrong with that lifestyle? The course was named Jesus Gandhi and King with the subtitle But we started with Tolstoy where my experience started And also had a bit of Dorothy Day and there The way it happened to me was quick and very accidental I read Gandhi and King and other activists pacifists And I supported them but I wasn't one of them I was in Northern Virginia and I had just got out of the legislature I went to the serendipity bookstore at Christmas Because I looked under the Christmas tree and here was this empty spot All it needed was a few dollars to fill it up and make me feel like it was symmetrical, I guess And so before dinner, just before Christmas I went down to the serendipity bookstore and they had this vertical rack of all red books Well I was still, I was a liberal in civil rights but I was not a liberal in war making I was very patriotic and still supported the just war and those kind of things And here's this red, red was enough to set me off And then the first book I picked up was the excerpts from Mao Zedong Well I put that right down at that point, I wasn't interested The second one was on Leo Tolstoy I picked that up because it was a long movie from Hollywood Or a long book, I should say, that it's hard to get to the end of And a movie in Hollywood that didn't do it justice And when I picked it up, it was put together with strings so to speak So that the pages opened up And when the pages opened up, it said, of old it was said, and I for die And a tooth for a tooth, but I say unto you, resist not the evil doer, turn the other cheek, walk the extra mile And I wondered why I hadn't heard this in any church, much less Catholic church And that almost, just like that, said, this is what Jesus was saying And this affects my legal career, my political career, my religious understanding And from that point on, that's what did it And I knew that I had to be pacifist, activist, Christian and communitarian So what kind of lifestyle change did that then force? Well, it meant divestment from having, I mean, we wanted to be war text resistors We didn't want to have, we wanted to try to live at or below the taxable level Because obviously that's the best way you could do it, I mean, it's the easiest way And for also, because we recognized that we all have too much in this country And it's a theft from the poor to have more than you need We just basically gave away everything that was extra And we moved to Philadelphia because we had been in contact with, Bill was working on his PhD at that time On religious pacifist community And we had been in contact with a black Baptist minister in Philadelphia Who was trying to set up a community center in West Philly So we went and worked with him for a summer And then we got more involved with, we got involved with the movement for a new society Because we were living right in that neighborhood We went to the movement for a new society And I had a nice talk with George Lacey here, I haven't seen him since, I don't know when They had a religious part of that called the church mouse collective And I went to the church mouse collective And there were several people there, one of whom was a Quaker woman named Sandra Boston That's where I first heard about war tax resistance, so this is 1978 Of course, I heard about it in 1970, I should say And by '74 I was doing it haphazardly, but I wasn't doing it for anyone else That's probably the distinction I would make And Sandra said, we used to have an attorney here in Philadelphia, we have been for several years And that isn't all of it, but that's something we need, someone who can interpret, decode this stuff for us So it was Sandra Boston, a Quaker who put this in me And you might call, I wasn't a Quaker then, you might call, it was a leading, but it wasn't a leading And it wasn't a calling, it was sort of a, from a Catholic perspective, it was sort of I have the expertise, and this is a duty, and this is something that should be done And apparently, I'm the only one right now who can do it, and therefore I've got to do it I tell you, tax law is not interesting, the motivation was you and you That I could help people who couldn't decipher this thing, and I would have to And that's how the center on law and pacifism started with Quakers and Catholics, basically In the spring of 1978, with a case of a person named Bob Anthony, who was a very weighty Quaker in Philadelphia And I just want to thank both of you for being part of Movement for a New Society, because I live in West Philly And I'm part of the community that's kind of kept, the activist community that's stay alive through until now So I had no idea I'm glad to hear about that Yeah, that's so cool I'd like to hear more about what they're doing now Well, Movement for a New Society doesn't exist, but they're still young activists in that area, and Quakers, including myself So, what did your family think about all of this, from your friends? They thought we went crazy Well, yeah, weird was the word, but this is a Tolstoy story, if any of you know the Tolstoy family Tolstoy becomes a radical Christian pacifist and gets the Orthodox Church on his neck But also, he gives up all his money and copyrights at this point His wife is a wonderful person in love with him, but she doesn't understand And she never did understand what he was doing, and then he doesn't sufficiently understand her problem And they got 13 kids by this time So, if you saw the movie, The Last Station, and I wrote a play on it, it's a family thing It's not only the conversion, and now I'm holy, and that's good It's how it affects the rest of the family My family was affected by this My first wife, whom we're both friends with now, and is a wonderful person But her calling was to Pentecostalism and to conservative Christianity Unfortunately, we both got religion and seriously, and we went in opposite directions So we had a spiritual breakup, and very much like the Tolstoy thing Although none of us died, or were affected in that way So it does have an effect, and it needs to be worked out And perhaps we didn't work it out as well as we should have in the first stages of going through this But neither did the Tolstoy There's a piece I want to backfill in I hadn't known before Bill that you had served in the Virginia House of Delegates What was that about? I mean, that was back when you were still a peace conservative Did you leave that for a particular reason, and what were you doing there? Yeah, I think I was always liberal in things like capital punishment And much of that came from the Catholic Church, and poverty, and things like that It was international and patriotism on that basis Through World War II, I was 11 to 14, something like that And I remember smiling when the bomb was dropped on Hiroshima I actually smiled as a 14-year-old when I read the headlines So that was quite a trek from that position What was happening in the Virginia legislature, and in Virginia in 1958 When I first got into democratic politics, was segregation was a big issue Civil rights was just getting started then So that's what it was It was very liberal about domestic issues And particularly the right of each person regardless of their color To have political representation on a level playing field We only had about 10 liberals out of 140 And four years later, with what went on in the nation We were able to turn that around because we were just young Turks I was one of the youngest 32, 33 And we were excited and we believed that we were going to win And that's the way it happened And what about you, Jeannie? What were you doing during those years Getting married to a rich husband or whatever? We didn't even know each other in the 60s So that was my other life when I was married to another person and having kids And so I was just kind of oblivious, I think, a lot of the time But during the Vietnam War, I really woke up You know, started to realize how crazy that was And started getting interested in the movements in opposition to that And my religious faith was getting stronger I was an Episcopalian at that time And I went through a period when I began to think about the Episcopal priesthood And this was before there were any women in the Episcopal priesthood I didn't think that I was called to be a priest But I was questioning why only men were priests And I had a conversation with a priest in the church that we went to at that time Which just devastated me Well, I'm going to say, frankly, he was cruel In the way he put me down in that discussion And how ridiculous it was to imagine that a woman could be a priest of the church And this was the Episcopal Church, not the Catholic Church And that basically drove me It didn't drive me out of the church immediately, but it drove me out of the church I mean, my heart wasn't there anymore So I would say that when I became a Quaker, it was pacifism But also the non-hierarchy in Quakerism, that was what really drew me So I'm curious about right now, actually Where are you guys putting your passions? What are you feeling fired up about in terms of social justice and activism? Well, after the center on law and pacifism was laid down We went through a period where we were raising our youngest son And he was in high school and we were also caring for my elderly mother and aunt It was after that that we were drawn to Christian peacemaker teams And at first we went to Palestine in 1983 In the fall on a sabbatical, Bill was taking a sabbatical from the center on law and pacifism And he had always wanted to go to the holy land And I had been there before because my ex-husband was Palestinian American So we went to a place called Tantur Where we could study and reflect and see the places we wanted to see and so forth We lived there for close to half a year And Bill's attitude, I think, when we went over there was to be very neutral and understanding of both sides issues And after just living there and observing what the occupation was doing And this is in 1983 when things were a lot better than they are now We became very passionate about the occupation We didn't go back until 2001, but all that time we were looking for a way to go back Not as tourists, but as to be in some way helpful To about the Palestinian dilemma And so that was what led us to When we heard about Christian peacemaker teams through the friends piece teams That he was part of, we got going with that And that's been the passion ever since, really Even though we're now too old to go back and do that work I want to remind our listeners that you're tuned in to Spirit in Action Which is a Northern Spirit Radio production on the web at northernspiritradio.org Like in Organic I'm Mark Helpsmeet, and today with me I have co-host Madeline Shafer And our guests are Bill and Jeannie Durland On the NortonSpiritRadio.org site you'll find about eight years of programs For listening and download You'll find links to our guests, bonus excerpts from the programs And you'll find some of those from today's program Because I'm sure we're going to go over And there's a place to make our communication two-way by posting comments Please do post comments when you listen You can also make a donation to NortonSpiritRadio on the site And those donations are so much appreciated I also want to remind you to support your local community radio station They are so vital because so much of our media The news and the music is controlled by economic and other special interests We really need alternative community interests being expressed And your support of local community radio makes that possible Again, we're with Bill and Jeannie Durland And they've got a fast and deep array of activism over the 30-40 No, actually 50 years of work they've been involved in Right now I'm going to turn things over to my co-host Madeline Shafer Who I'm sure has a wonderful insightful question to share with Bill and Jeannie And that insightful question is Well, I want to get back to the Palestinian work that you've been doing I know that there's been a lot of work around divestment in the United States And I'm curious what aspects of activism you've been picking up And whether that's part of what you're doing now Yeah, we started in our town, Colorado Springs We started a little organization called the Middle East Peace Project We had kind of an ad hoc organization called the Center on Law and Human Rights And Bill was doing mostly immigration law for people that were being deported You know, workers and that kind of thing But after we went on the Gaza Freedom March in 2019, over that Christmas in New Year's To mark the first anniversary of the Operation Cast Lead in Gaza That turned out to be kind of a, well, it wasn't a flop by any stretch of the imagination But there were 1,400 internationals in Cairo And almost, I think, 90 people were allowed to get into Gaza So we came home with an extra $500 that had been donated for us To bring into the AFSC Project for youth in Gaza so that they could get a new generator So when we came home, we still had that money And we still wanted to get a new generator for the AFSC Project in Gaza So we got together with some of our cohorts And under the auspices of the Pikes Peak Justice and Peace Commission Which is an organization that has existed in Colorado Springs for 30 years Under their auspices and their tax exemption, we formed the Middle East Peace Project And we do advocacy, education, and humanitarian aid And so our first humanitarian aid project was to make sure that AFSC, overseas, got this $500 And that they did, in fact, get a generator for the AFSC Youth Project in Gaza Since then, the humanitarian aid part of what we do is to find a volunteer who wants to go to Palestine to learn And we help them go in the summertime to a project that's run by the Israeli Committee against house demolitions It's an Israeli peace group that rebuilds Palestinian homes that have been destroyed for political reasons Every summer they have a work camp for internationals to come there and work together to rebuild a Palestinian home And apparently the people that go is just a life-changing experience And they do, they manage to rebuild a wonderful house in two weeks And then about three months later, the IDF comes in and destroys the house that they rebuild But they keep doing it because it's such a powerful witness And anyway, we help and we find a person that wants to go And then we help them raise the money that they need to take the trip and help to pay for the building supplies We also do films every month for educational purposes And then we get into the BDS, we try to educate the community about BDS and we do street actions And Bill can tell you more about that, probably Your question about what we've been doing lately is trying to retire And what I've been doing, I've been writing books and plays And plays are fun, we have a reader's theater from these plays Where you don't have to memorize the parts, but you can read the parts and animate them and get your soul into them And I've done them on this Tolstoy thing we were talking about on families and pacifism And one on Lucretia Mot and Dorothy Day and how they complement each other as women activists Another one was called the "Ghosts of America" past last year Where we took Rush Limbaugh back like Scrooge-like trip back to the beginnings and trappings of American values At the very beginning, Martin Luther King said All we ask of America is to be true So what you wrote on paper That makes me cry when I think of that It's not asking a lot, but it's not being done And so we took Rush back to see what wasn't being done And it was a huge hit, it seemed with everybody And the last one is sort of the same kind of theme It's called "By Their Fruits You Shall Know Them" A conversation with Jesus and his friends And we go back and we actually bring in the early Christian martyrs And Constantine, Augustine, Athanasius, Thomas Beckett, Joan of Arc Right up to "Slave Woman" and Frond the Yeagerstater, the Catholic martyr in 2002 And people really enjoy, and I enjoy it because I don't have to footnote him Do they have to be truthful? Yeah, they're truthful, but we try to, I mean each other I can't say, because Bill does the writing But he gets it, he has a knack for bringing in humor And yet retaining the serious message And so they've been really well received, even in Colorado Springs What I do is I research, a lot of it's free flow But I make sure that I don't put words in the mouth of these characters And fictionalize it You have to connect, since it is fiction in a way With a non-fiction base, you have to connect those things We try to take what Rush said himself And put it into there, what Lucretia Mott actually said So we keep a pretty strict control on that But some of the humor can come out as you connect these things And some of the seriousness as well One thing that it seems like you've really dedicated to yourselves To working cross-denominational and interfaith I'm just wondering if you can talk a little bit about Whether that was intentional or whether that was something that you just did naturally Because you had come from other faith traditions Or what your thoughts are about the limitations of a Quaker community And the limitations of working interfaith, there are any I would say that in terms of being inter-denominational For us, it's that we believe that what the original Quaker movement was about George Fox and the original Quakers And it's in their writings that they were seeking to uncover original Christianity They were trying to strip away the trappings of the established churches So they could recapture that community around Jesus in the beginning And that's what we believe in We think that Jesus and his message and the nature of the community That's called Christian has been distorted over the generations And so there's lots of people in lots of churches Who are looking for that original message And that's a common ground for all of us And then as far as going interfaith That's been really strengthened for us by our work in the Middle East Because we've discovered and worked with the very viable Israeli peace movement that people never hear about in this country You know, there is just a wonderful number of organizations in Israel That cross the green line all the time and work in the territories And do terrific work with Palestinian peace activists And most of them are either Jews or Muslims So, you know, when we go there to work, we work at their behest We don't come as Americans saying, "Well, we know what you need and we're going to do it for you" CPT doesn't work that way We go to be of service to those peace movements as internationals Because internationals can be a protective presence But we have to take our marching orders from the peace movement people there The Palestinians and the Israelis to tell us what they need You mentioned CPT, Christian peacemaker teams And I imagine that many of our listeners didn't recognize the initial CPT right away And they may not know what that organization is or does How did you get involved with Christian peacemaker teams and what was your involvement? Back in the late 90s, Bill was on the board of the friends peace teams And there's a relationship between the CPT and the friends peace team But that was when we first heard about Christian peacemaker teams planting a team in Hebron in the West Bank The organization was founded by the three so-called historic peace churches The Mennonites, the brethren, and the Quakers As I said before, we had been looking for a way to return to Palestine But to be useful in terms of our understanding of radical activism It just seemed perfect And at the time that we were looking into it, CPT was calling for a special This was at the height of the Second Indipada Things were going downhill fast CPT was asking for a special delegation of people who were experienced in doing CD And even getting arrested and stuff like that To go to really scope out what was happening They already had a team of peacemakers working in the Hebron area But they wanted a more experienced team A team that was more experienced with the dangerous aspects of peace activism To go there and help out that summer because it was so tough That was the summer of 2001 We went on that delegation And we did in fact The second day we were there, we were asked to come to Beitjala Which was under mortar fire from an Israeli settlement every night And be human shields to sleep in the homes of Palestinians that were being fired on Their hope was they put it on the local TV That there's Americans and internationals in this neighborhood in Beitjala Quit firing on the neighborhood Of course it didn't do any good because they fired on us for five hours And it was like we knew we were in the war zone It woke us up to the fact that this is a war zone And these people are trying to live a normal life And yet the balance is so far off I mean they're basically unarmed except illegally And they're up against a huge military power Plus the settlers who are allowed to be armed as civilians And do whatever they want primarily So anyway that was our introduction was to be part of that delegation And then we went into their boot camp or training period Which is very intense, takes a month of just living there And being trained all day long in nonviolent activism There are various aspects of it The last thing I'll say is that It's set up like a They use some military language Because the vision is Why not unarmed people armed with faith and love Why don't they take the same risks that military do And apply the same dedication to being without being armed To going into a lethal situation And being peacemakers instead And intervening interfering with the injustice and oppression that's going on That's the mission of Christian peacemaker teams And they have a team based in Hebron and the south Hebron hills We can tell you more about that A team in Kurdistan, a team in Colombia And a team in northern Canada Working on indigenous people's problems with the lumbering companies One of the things they do is accompany people Just be with them in an occupied military occupied place And a couple of short stories I could tell you Are about standing in line trying to get through checkpoints That are within the west bank that is supposedly the Palestinian Authority We would always go through with the Palestinians Because as Americans we could go through with the Israelis in a very short line And to take the long line You stand in 90 degree heat for a long period of time And it takes a long time to get through And in front of us at the Candelaria, I think it was Calendia checkpoint Outside of Ramallah going back to Jerusalem Was a mother and her young baby And the baby looked sick to begin with And the heat was really exhausting on them Having been in the military I talked to Israeli military And had a good conversation with people on the other side And I called the soldiers over And eventually it took about 15 minutes to go through their hierarchy But they let the mother and child go through But you see it's only by sufferance It's not a right that the mother can go through And that's the kind of thing we can do when we're there Facts on the ground going on The other thing when we're in Hebron And they've eliminated the marketplace They're now genie, isn't that true? Well that particular marketplace in the old city Our team lives in the old city of Hebron Which is a designated high status And you could set up your fruit stand This individual did But there is an existing curfew So that whenever the Israelis come through And say they lift the curfew They can lift it and they close it When they close it, they close it Immediately this man apparently was in the exchange of money And selling fruit and conversation And income to tanks And they just took advantage of the fact That he didn't act fast enough He was still two minutes into the curfews And hadn't concluded his transition And they broke his leg And they destroyed his fruit stand And he had to go to the hospital Which was the worst part of it But by the time I was able to accompany him Because they took him away And he brought back and I waited for him And several of us were there That his home was only 200 yards or feet I mean I could see his extended family and his kids And there was no way he could get home Because they were not going to let him home With a broken leg after all of that harassment And so I went up to the soldiers And this time the private just ignored me Didn't act like I was there I finally got him to recognize me And he says I can't make a decision You have to talk to my sergeant who was sitting in a jeep And the sergeant tried to ignore me too But I just hang around you know Until they finally pay attention to me And after about 15 minutes I was able to talk He said there's a Jewish funeral service Or wedding I don't remember No, it was a funeral procession It was going to come through there And I said well how long? I said well in about 20 minutes I said well there's his family and it'll take two minutes He says well we can't do that Well after a lot of hassling they did it And he got back with his family And what does he do? A broken leg, hospital and harass like this He invites us over to his home for breakfast And of course we had about 18 kinds of fruit Because it's fruit sales But I love fruit And we met his whole extended family But he was so grateful And it's those kind of things CPT does While trying to change the big things We do the little stories as well Another one of the stray threads I'd like to capture here Where can we get a hold of your plays? Are they available? Are they online? Can we send you money so you can send them to us? How could we do that? The four plays are now in a Dachomart 8x11 booklet And they cost and they're no copywriter And they cost Dachomart charges me I think it's $10 is it too? Whatever it is I just sell them at cost If you could afford that If not I'll be happy to give it to you We also have electronic copies So they can be emailed Our email is DurlandWE That's D-U-R-L-A-N-D-W-E At gmail.com And our phone number is 719-635-8686 In Colorado Springs, Colorado As war tax resistors aren't you afraid That the IRS is going to hear your phone number And use it to hassle you about unpaid taxes? We don't know any taxes They were fake along the taxable level So there's nothing to get from us But this gets us back to when we were above the taxable level And on a couple of occasions they came in When they open up your tax The law says if you forgot something Or you want to change something It opens that up as well And by the time this guy got through They owed us $850 No we're not afraid The IRS is something government should have And do and we do what we do with the IRS So that is to live below the taxable level I imagine that having spent some time under real imminent danger With bombs bursting in air like when you were in Palestine That it kind of reduces the relative threat you feel From an IRS agent in a pinstripe suit I don't think we were ever afraid Because we had some element of trust before 2001 of the US government That they would try to be fair under their own rules As far as it could be And that may not have been true But that's the way we felt at the time But we also had experiences that indicated That they weren't very efficient And that that often helped people that were doing war tax resistance Slipped through the cracks We had one instance when we were An agent came to our door one day And said where is your bank account? Now we had paid part of our tax Because we just withhold the military portion And we paid the part of our tax that we paid with a check So all they had to do was look at the check To figure out where our bank account was And so we said to this guy, well you know That's for us to know and you to find out They started putting liens on all the banks in town And they never found our bank Because we were in the smallest bank But that's 30 years ago Yeah, that's 30 years ago But what I'm saying is Those kinds of things, we used to have these conferences We'd get together around the country And we'd have a big war tax resistance workshop And part of the program would be for people to tell their stories like that Because all those stories really helped to encourage the other people And help them not to feel afraid And here's another story There were instances where IRS agents Just put that war tax resistance problem in their Workbox Well, that's what they called it, file 13 But it just kept it at the bottom So they never got to it And so you never know what's going to happen If you just follow your witness and your beliefs And your values and let the chips fall in a way And don't worry about something working before it happens Or whether it's effective, before it happens Just do what's right and find out what's happened Sometimes it's not going to be very good And other times it's going to be But at least you've been true to your own spirit You know Bill, I understand that you're somewhere around 80 years old But I have to say that you don't look very worn Or at all broken by the heavy weight of the witness you've born for years Why is that? 82.4 And I think one of the things for my, I've had a heart attack And I take some pills But I've got a lot of aches and pains you can't see But I think because I was an athlete I was a jock, I wanted to be a sports writer on the radio like you Until I was in an automobile accident in college And I think that being on the track and field team Really was great, a great athletic experience that helps my health today But the accident put me on the books and I'm still reading and writing them I guess We have a dog that insists that we walk her as often as possible And all the trails in Colorado Springs are uphill and downhill So that's good for us, that's how we keep moving And all this excellent physical health It's not just due to the blessings that come from a faithful spirit being returned to you It's just track and field and dog that keeps you healthy Well I can't, I don't know I'll have to talk to my cardiologist Dr. David Greenberg Who's great about everything except Israeli Palestine And he thinks I'm in good shape But I think if you don't, I think what can really upset you We've seen people in the peace movement mark and we know them today And some of them locally that are so stressed out Because they accept the idea of not being effective But it is really sad for them to give their whole lives I mean literally their whole lives, one of the couple They don't have a car, they've given up their all kinds of advantages They look older than they are They're wonderful spirit led people But they are really burned out ten times over because it takes its toll Unless with Bob Smith who looks just great Can see the humor and get through the bad stuff And not expect to win and then find out when you do Then you're just amazed that it happened That's the best attitude to him I think for us it's a matter of knowing, I mean certainly we're far from perfect And we make a lot of mistakes as everybody does But speaking for myself I know that I've been as faithful as I can be To what I believe in and what I believe is right And that's all anybody can do If you can feel that way about what you're doing and about your life Then you know you can stay happy, basically So you're saying it boils down to don't worry, be happy Right Colli, there should be a song about that or something Well I was just going to say your instructions for this radio program was just to relax And some things we do, you can get a little uptight Because you want to make sure that you cover everything And so you take notes before you came in We didn't do that because you said just relax And you're a very relaxing person to be with And it probably went better than if we've done it the other way So that keeps us healthy Mark, you're keeping us healthy Well I'm glad to help out Well, Bill and Jeannie The dynamic Derland duo, it's been great to have you here Spending this time together at the Friends General Conference Gathering Held this year at Northern Colorado University in Greeley I'm so impressed with your lives have witnessed Both the work and the faith dovetailing together And when I make comments about how young you look I think that it's because you're holding onto a thread That is energizing you, saving you from the bitterness and the burnout That so many activists encounter Your work with the center on law and pacifism As I said, it was so important to me when I got involved with war tax resistance Your time at Pendle Hill, no doubt influenced so many people Christian peacemaker teams I want to sit here all day and listen to you tell stories about your time in Palestine And just to think of you, Bill Derland, serving in the Virginia House of Delegates Working for Racial Justice, the list is so long and so inspiring From both of you, Bill and Jeannie, thank you so much for your long lives of witness And thank you for joining me for Spirit in Action Thank you, Mark, we've really enjoyed it And I want to thank you Madeline Shafer to everyone listening For co-hosting with me today as we've been visiting with Bill and Jeannie I thank you for your participation today, but also for hosting Spirit in Action in the past And I'm sure in the future, you do such a great job of seeking out stories Of those doing good work in the world through your podcast With the American Friends Service Committee, AFSC And other podcasts that you do personally, so thank you also for sharing your generous gifts today Yeah, thank you, Mark, I really appreciate the chance to speak with Bill and Jeannie Thank both of you, you're a true inspiration for me And I look forward to hearing more about what you're doing with Israel-Palestine And how you're connecting with other Quakers who are doing a lot of work around that issue around the country And you should tune in because some of the work that I'm doing for Northern Spirit Radio Is about movement from new society And I'm conducting interviews with people that were a part of that movement Which is just an amazing movement and it's Quaker-related, but incorporates lots of different faiths and beliefs And we hope to see you in March because I'm the Colorado Representative to the AFSC Corporation Yeah, and I'm a mad large member, so we're both on the Corporation So we'll get together again Wonderful Thank you for your questions and we're just wonderful, both of you 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 With every voice, with every song We will move this world along With every voice, with every song We will move this world along And our lives will feel the echo of our healing (upbeat music)