Spirit in Action

Quaker Earthcare Witness

A visit with Ruah Swennerfelt and Louis Cox about their role with Quaker Earthcare Witness, the paths that led them to lives of earth & spiritual activism, their lives "off the grid" in Vermont ... and much more.

Interviewed July 8th, 2005 at the Friends General Conference gathering held at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, Virginia

Broadcast on:: 01 Jul 2007
Audio Format:: other

I have no hands but yours to tend my sheep No hay critique but yours to try the eyes of those who weep I have no eyes but yours with which to hold One's grown weary from the struggle We're all weak with growing old I have no voice but yours with which to see To let my children know that I am lost And love is every day I have no way to feed the hungry spouse No clothes to give, the naked, the beggar and the gold No being my heart, my hands, my tongue Through you all with me, John Fingers have I none to have one time It tangled not the twisted chains of strength You go mine Welcome to Spirit in Action, my name is Mark Helpsmeat 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 Above all, I'll seek out light, love and helping hands Being shared between our many neighbors on this planet Hoping to inspire and encourage you to sink deep roots and produce sacred food in your own life I have no way to open people's eyes Except that you have shown them how to trust the inner life I'm speaking today with Ruas Winterfelt and Louis Cox They are members and leaders of a group called Quaker Earthcare Witness They've been involved in spiritual roots of environmentalism For a number of years, Ruas and Louis, when did you start being involved with spiritual activism related to the environment? I think I have to go back before that to say that my very faith has led me to activism for a number of years And that as a Quaker I have worked on peace and justice issues and was very deeply involved Until I read one woman's words, Marianne Percy, who's a Quaker now in San Diego Who said there'll be no peace without a planet And somehow those words just struck me right in my heart That I couldn't ignore the issues of the planet and the crisis that's going on While continuing my activism in peace and justice That there really is no separation of that issue So that was back in 1991 And I have since then immersed myself in this fabric of activism That when I am feeding the hungry, I'm just as concerned about the health of the food, the distribution of the food And if I'm concerned about that, I'm concerned about the way the food has grown And I can just keep going to find those connections There's a new book out in the bookstore right now called "Saving Our Children from Nature Deficit Disorder" This seems to be a very appropriate one for our time Because many people are growing up without a natural sense of connection to the natural world around them They're tied to TV and computer games and lots of organized activities And they just don't get into the woods to really understand that sense of natural kinship with the world around them And I grew up very much differently, we just were lucky enough to be living on the outskirts of most towns Where we lived at different times Where I had chances to roam in somewhat natural settings Through fields and woods and brooks and fish and just explore And then when I was in the scouts, we had plenty of opportunities for this nature lore and appreciation And getting to feel comfortable with being outdoors and not like it's a threat So this was just something that came very naturally to me And I just took it for granted, most of my life, that it was something that would always be there And it would be my place, my retreat to go to Whenever I wanted some time alone, I would always be able to find an unspoiled place out in the wild somewhere It was after a number of years going through college That I began to become aware of environmental problems for the first time I was just kind of naive about it, and even though I was aware of different threats, air pollution here and water pollution there I always saw them as local problems, and something that you cure just by passing a law or developing some kind of program But it just didn't seem like something that would still be a threat to my basic confidence In the stability of the natural world So when this finally came to an end, just through the right message at the right time And I began to realize, no, it's all global now All of these problems are converging, from many different points until we're finding out that all of the natural world that we came to love is being nibbled away And compromise so much now that the future is really mistaken, and particularly the kind of world that I enjoyed Is not going to be available to the children of the future And that was a spiritual crisis for me, just to realize that just my basic source of comfort was being destroyed And I felt that that was a major crisis for me in my life Since this is a deep concern to you, how does it actually affect how you live? Does this hit you in some personal way? What does it mean about the way that you live your lives? It's interesting that you ask that because we're always exposed to people who are doing better than we are And so then we have to look and say, oh, well, look at what they're doing, we should be doing that too And an example is that there's a couple who are the founders of the Northwestern Institute And Jean Roy was talking about the fact that she and her husband only generate one bag of trash a year So this means that anything else either goes to recycling or goes into compost Or they're reusing the materials, well, we're not there So we're trying to figure out how we can get down to one bag of trash a year or less We do live in a solar electric house, it's off the grid We are in the woods, so we are dependent on our automobile But the offices of Quaker Earth Care Witness are in our homes, so we don't have to commute We do grow a lot of our own vegetables, we buy used clothes, we recycle our water as much as we can We buy local, we have a very old car, we don't have a lot of money, so we don't have a hybrid But we keep reusing this car, it gets pretty good gas mileage We are attempting to live lightly, but we're very humbled by those who are a bit lighter than we are We don't do it to hold it up because not everybody can live in the woods Actually, people who live in urban settings and can give up their automobile and share resources Or maybe the way that the future has to be, so we're not proposing that everybody should live this way But we're already there Well, I'm still back 30 or 40 years in my formative times And when I came to this sudden realization that things are going seriously wrong With the whole civilized approach to living on the planet I wanted to do something immediately I walked out the door of a meeting where I had been listening to a talk on environmental problems And right that moment I said I can't go on living the way I had been doing And I wanted to find out how, what I could do to change This was a period of great joy as well as frustration Because many of your choices are just denied to you living in certain environments About where you can live, or what kind of house you can live in, or where you can drive But there were also these great joys of discovering natural foods And learning to go into a natural food store and just rejoice in the wonderful fragrances They come through the air in contrast to the terrible smells inside supermarkets With all the perfumes and artificial kinds of things So I knew that I was on a path of great joy And that I was going to change my life and hopefully influence other people along the way I got frustrated as an activist and many activists report this story You just butt your head against the wall for years And then finally you just sort of lose hope That somehow people aren't listening, they don't hear where you're coming from They're just off doing their own thing and they're not willing to change And so I did go through a period of burnout And it was partly because I was still on an individual journey And what really came to change this for me Besides finding some allies here and there in the environmental movement Was coming to the realization that the friends were starting to wake up to this That many Quakers were saying that this is a spiritual issue And we do have something to say and a lot to bring to the environmental crises So I joined up because I felt that's what I had been missing And I got more involved I had been before Had you been Quaker before that time? Yes, it was a Quaker meeting where I had had this awakening I was a meeting after the worship time And an invited speaker had just laid out the facts plainly enough that I couldn't deny the truth anymore But I didn't find in my meeting a source of support for this Or even in the teachings or other messages from the religious society of friends That this was something that friends were ready to speak to We had plenty of history in dealing with slavery and equal rights and other social issues And we just hadn't come around to that yet So even though I knew a lot of Quakers who were doing admirable things to live in a simple way They still weren't addressing the environmental crisis as a spiritual issue I was a Quaker as well when I came to this enlightenment I feel like my spiritual home is with Quaker Earthcare Witness More than my own local meeting Because within the organization are people who are of like mind Because they already have this understanding of the crisis and of our response as a spiritual one So I looked to what we call QEW for my spiritual sustenance It's what keeps me going How is this a spiritual witness? I guess that means in part I'm asking you what your idea of spirituality is As opposed to pragmatic, I mean if you're doing a good job of preventing damage to the Earth I could be just seen on a purely physical level Why is it spiritual? Well I think it's a really wonderful thing no matter what the motivation If you are trying to live in a healthy way on the planet So I'm not suggesting that everybody should have the same motivation But for me, my spirituality is rooted in the land It's in the Earth I came from the Earth My belonging is with the Earth I feel surrounded by it It's not like a pantheist where what you see is what you get I feel that there is a spirit that underlies everything But that it's in all of creation It's in humans as well as non-humans It's in the inert, what we call inert, which really isn't inert Because everything is living in some way Everything has that vitality on the planet Because I'm of the Earth, I have to care about what happens to it If I see it as a living, breathing organism kind of like the Gaia hypothesis Then it's my responsibility to make sure it stays healthy And that's the spiritual nature of my relationship to this work When I first became active, I was following the model that many people today have come to call Reform environmentalism That is, you're accepting pretty much the way things are The structure of our society and the habits and patterns of living that people play out today And this has done a lot of good things in terms of the laws that have been passed And the kind of education that has occurred and programs and even improvements in technology What I was doing was still fitting in with that basic set of assumptions That we just need to fix a few things that are wrong with the way things are going And I was motivated, frankly, by some fear of my own survival I felt that things were going bad in a way that I would be better off having some land And some tools and growing my own food and heating with wood And not being so dependent on the technology that seemed to be going awry What has come about since then is another way of thinking that some call deep ecology And this is more of a spiritual approach in that it is not looking at just whether or not humans Are going to be impacted in terms of water quality or air quality It's seeing the whole relationship to the planet in much more basic terms Of seeing that they were looking in terms of the health of the whole system The whole living community of life and not trying to put human concerns at the top of that But just seeing us as part of this larger set of relationships And it looks into the future and any time you start caring about other creatures and future generations You're getting into the spiritual realm Because this means letting go of yourself and moving into an area of identification and caring That is beyond just the typical concerns of the civilized human being I'd like to add too that if we look to the Old Testament there are many references to a good relationship with the earth And then if I think of Jesus and we look at what he had to say in the Sermon on the Mount We're talking about living a very simple and basic life We're talking about not using up more than our fair share of the world's resources And if we were all living that out we would not have nearly the crisis that we do now Given the population of the planet now we could each use 4.7 acres to support our food, our clothing, our lifestyles But on an average in the world we're using more than 6 acres And in the United States we're using per person more like 24 acres Again, if I look at the teachings of Jesus and were to follow those all the way through I would be living a life that is really in reverence with all creation I have at least a brother and possibly some other relatives who would say The Bible says we have dominion over the earth and aren't we doing a good job of dominating? How do you react to people of maybe religious mind who think very differently about what our role is? I think that the word dominion is one translation I think that some people would interpret it more as being good stewards And if you read farther in the Bible there are many more references to being good stewards There's the whole idea of Jubilee year where you give away and share There's the whole issue of every 7 years letting the land go fallow So that it can regenerate itself, you don't keep planting the same land again and again again And so I think I can talk to the same people and that we can find our common ground Because if dominion means misusing and using up And if we truly care about our children and grandchildren and great grandchildren to the future Then if we're using it all up now we're using up their resources I pledge allegiance to the earth and to the flora and fauna and human life that it supports One planet under God Indivisible with cleaner water and soil Economic justice freedom and peace For our own God is the only one who has been here for a long time [Music] [Music] I pledge allegiance to the earth and to the flora and fauna and human life that it supports One planet under God Indivisible with cleaner water and soil Economic justice freedom and peace For our own [Music] You said you buy locally and that I assume includes your food How do you eat? What is the component of your diet and why do you do that? We're trying to grow a lot of our own food to start with Meaning that we have actually a spiritual relationship with the land around us Because we interact with it We take nourishment from it or waste or recycle back into the soil And we provide habitat at the same time for other residents of the area We've got one whole place to grow food and vegetables And a fine tradition in New England for doing that And then also in Vermont there are numerous food enterprises Such as cooperatives for food buying and community supported agriculture That are part of a support structure for the people wanting to live more in harmony with the earth We're trying to look at where things were grown Look at labels or ask store managers where did this come from And as best we can figure out how it was grown To see that it was done in a ecologically responsible way Part of our concern is the treatment of the land What kinds of herbicides or pesticides might be sprayed on things Because we don't want that because it's unhealthy for the land as well as for humans We have a source for organic free range chicken which is local So these chickens get to run around and have a good little life until their necks are rung But they're healthy, we get five a year You get one a month for five months in the summer, it's like a CSA for chickens That kind of meat is very much just a supplement Our basic diet is vegetarian, maybe even leaning more towards vegan We get our milk and bottles that are returnable and it's organic and it's local We get local apples, Lewis dries them in the fall so that when we can no longer get local apples we can use them We try to find ways to support the local economy I don't know if I mentioned earlier but the average distance of food to the table in most American homes is 1500 miles We care about the workers than anybody that is harvesting or producing the food is getting a fair wage And that is in an environment that is healthy to them So if we buy something that comes from another country we want to know that the workers are being treated fairly So coffee, we do drink coffee and tea, so we limit it to organic fair trade coffee and bananas We try to limit what we get from a long distance but we're not ready to give those up yet And I want to say the thing about giving up I'm not ready to give up something unless I'm giving it up with joy That it's not like I'm feeling deprived because if I feel deprived then it's going to nag at me Oh I wish I could have that coffee or I wish I could have this or I wish I could have that I want to make sure that it comes from deep within that tells me it's time to not be participating in something And then I feel lighter by it, more joyful about it and then I don't have to think about it anymore And what is it that gets you to that spot where you're joyful about it? I imagine there's some changes you had to go through A lot of people would look through it as suffering as you know putting up with a hard situation Gritting your teeth into it. Why is it joyful for you? You have to work hard I'm sure to have your life We go through a lot of discernment. If it was a really big decision Like a place to live or giving up a car and deciding to walk 20 miles to something or whatever We would go to our Quaker meeting and ask for a committee to sit with us and listen When they are smaller or more personal things we talk about it a lot together So I would say another way of saying is that we pray about it If you give it time and you don't rush it and you sit with it Something will come through that says yes it's time Our entertainment in the evening particularly in the long winters in Vermont It's kind of dark early is that Lewis Reads allowed to me And I quilt or knit or do something with my hands like that making presents And we have so much fun doing it or we play Scrabble Or we play chess because Lewis really likes chess We don't feel like we're missing out on something because we're not going out to restaurants And we're not going to the theater I mean occasionally we'll go out to eat Or occasionally we'll go to the theater but we love it and we hang out with our neighbors It really does feel like fun It has become a different kind of fun and we talk about it as recovering lost joys Because many years ago the people did do a lot of things for themselves And they did read in the evenings and they saw this as a full enriched life So rediscovering these joys is joyful I think we're also lucky to have known a number of joyful people We didn't invent this Just that we've had mentors, people who've taken this path before us And have gone through the struggles and have given us the courage and the inspiration And many times the how to of changing the things that we're doing Or adopting different things into our lives One of the joys has been being introduced to some really delicious vegetarian food And so that would be just my preference, I just can't think of anything more mouth watering And nourishing and comforting than most of the favorite dishes that we have made Regulars in our diet And that also brings me back to this other issue about vegetarianism While I've been here at this conference I've taken advantage of all the food offerings That have been here that have been just vegan or vegetarian They've provided some really tasty things and I enjoy that a lot And I also have a number of friends Quakers who have been staunch vegetarians And I have understood the strength of their conviction And it's helped me stay by this choice But I just do not make a religion out of it It's not where I'm considering meat on wholesome per se But that it's something that under some circumstances is part of a healthy relationship with the land We knew a friend who wrote a well-known book on this Jim Corbett He wrote the book Goat Walking and I remember the line in that book He said "all killing is life giving" And so here's a person who said he would not eat anything he had not known He was saying that what's gone really awry with our relationship with food Is that we've distanced ourselves from it and made this scene like something out there A commodity that we just go to the store and buy But if you have a living relationship and a healthy ecological relationship With the land then in many settings that does include the raising and caring for and loving And then sometimes consuming the other species I want to add another thing about vegetarianism I used to be pretty rigid about being a vegetarian until I became a gardener And then when I had to kill the cabbage caterpillars or the asparagus beetles I began to realize that anytime anything I eat something has been killed In order to make the other thing grow And if I drink milk in order for milk to be produced Male calves are killed There's always that process where if I eat eggs old chickens are killed Unless I happen to have the chickens myself and let them just die a happy death Of an old death or whatever So it humbled me to realize that this earth, this planet evolved in such a way That in order to survive for any creature It is consuming something else And that all of it is living Whether it's the carrot or the broccoli or the chicken Those are all alive things And the only way I survive is by consuming the energy It's using the sun's energy that I'm using from something else It's much larger than an ism It's really an understanding of our place on the earth and our relationship I think that Jim Corbett was brilliant in thinking about our relationship to the land and to all the creatures A question I've been asked since I am a vegetarian happened for quite a while People say "Well, why age should you care about how a cow feels it's not a person?" What in your view is the correct relationship and attitude towards other species besides homo sapiens? Tough question? I guess I don't see that humans are at some top of the line I know that there are food chains, but they're probably cyclical food chains The Dalai Lama actually was asked one time, "What do you do about mosquitoes?" He said, "Well, sometimes I do this," and he blew on his hand like he blew the mosquito off And then he said, "Sometimes I do this," and he took his fingers and flicked the mosquito off And then he said, "Sometimes I do this," and he hit his hand And I think that explains it really well, that we do have a relationship with all of life It's all important But if there's one ant in my house, I might move it outside But if there are 50 ants in my house, I'm going to kill them Because I don't want them getting into everything If there's one mouse, or if there was ever one mouse, maybe you'd trap it and take it out But when there are a lot of mice, we let our cats at them I don't have a particular feeling that a cow is worth more than the ant But that they are all part of this life-giving life-taking process I just don't see a big distinction in it all I'm not sure where each of you grew up, but you live near Burlington, Vermont And Sandra, after her visit there, told me a little bit about Burlington Can you tell me a little bit about why Burlington, or Vermont in general, are better or more in tune with your vision? I think one of the first things about Vermont is its scale There are only about 650,000 people in the whole state So we only have one representative in Washington So scale makes a big difference There are a lot of the old back to the landers, the hippies of the 60s That kind of move to Vermont because Helen and Scott Nearing were living there And they were talking a lot about the back to the land movement In the city of Burlington, there's actually something called the Legacy Project Which is aiming towards a sustainable city In all aspects of the city, affordable housing, health care, child care, green spaces, agriculture, just everything And the state of Vermont many years ago passed an act called Act 250 That judged development on environmental standards And it was probably one of the first states to do that So you have to, whenever you have a certain size development You have to pass certain rigorous regulations about stormwater runoff And effect on local environment and people before the development can be approved So I do think that there is a love of Vermont That people say we want to retain the beauty and the rural nature of Vermont And it's very difficult, we're fighting development all the time And we're seeing the same kind of urban sprawl that's happening a lot of other places But probably slower than in some states I asked you earlier about how this is a spiritual journey for you I think most people in traditional religions think of particular crystal clear spiritual moments, highs or lows Certainly there's born-again Christians who can tell you the exact day and hour That they have their conversion experience So my question is, what did God tell you to do? When did you get your direction? Where does God come into it? I can remember a few moments, that they're probably many, but these come to mind right now Back in 1994 at the FGC gathering, which we're at now, I was in early morning worship It was very early, so the birds were just starting to sing And at the same time, the buildings were starting to hum with the day's activities And air conditioners starting and whatever else we were sitting near buildings in a beautiful grove of trees And I just had this feeling that, you know, there's a song called "All God's Critters Got a Place in the Choir" And I was thinking about the bird songs and I was thinking about the wind and animals And the beauty that when you're outside, how you can kind of hear a symphony of all these sounds melding So all the creatures and all the forces have a little piece of the music of the symphony And that we humans have lost the music, we've lost that sheet of music somewhere And that the sounds that we are making are discordant to the rest of the symphony That was a clear message that we needed to find that music again And that's not to say that there isn't beautiful music that isn't created by individuals But for humanity as a whole, we have this rough jarring kind of sound that we're adding to the symphony that's not helping Another worship time, I had just come back from Costa Rica And I had seen a scarlet tannager down there and I was thinking about that scarlet tannager And all of a sudden I realized that that very bird that I had seen in Costa Rica Could have been the same bird that I had seen in the summer in my backyard Because it moves back and forth, they migrate and they come to Vermont and they go down to Costa Rica So that I could be seeing that same bird, it could have touched down in my yard and down there And I thought how beautiful to think of this connection that I have to some people that I met Through this bird as a messenger back and forth And that what would happen if the habitat where I live was destroyed and that bird couldn't come anymore Or if the habitat in Costa Rica was destroyed and it couldn't come And there would no longer be this natural link that had been going on for probably centuries Again, it was a message that said to me that I wanted to do whatever I could to help maintain those links So those are just two examples and they did come out of a silent worship time Where does God come in? In my Protestant upbringing I got exposed to a lot of hymns and knew them by heart where I hardly ever remembered any sermon A lot of them were about being saved to go to some other place that's not this world Yet there are a few that did stay with me that did tell a different kind of message The one how great thou art and O Lord my God, when I am awesome wonder, consider all the worlds the hands have made That stayed with me though as part of my basic spiritual sensibility That this world is to be held in awe and wonder and praise for some great creation that this is manifesting And in my Quaker journey I feel that I've also come to another understanding that all the creation is God's kingdom And it's not somewhere else and that we are all citizens of that kingdom And we are meant to live here and praise God and glorify God through the way we live in this world [Music] [Music] You come to the stars in search of the answers But for God and life when distant planets have your faith in the ever after all each of us holds inside the map to the labyrinth Heavens in honor The other spirit, the collective conscience, the greed, the pain and suffering in the beauty in this world Heavens in honor The faith in humankind and our respect for what is earthly and our own fault to leave the peace of the understanding [Music] You've seen that angels wearing the skies, ordinary people eating hot and every light filled with love, compassion for goodness and sacrifice Heavens in our hearts In our faith in humankind and our respect for what is earthly and our own fault to ring the leaf in peace of another and understanding [Music] Look around believing what you see, kingdom is at hand, promise mind is at your feet, can it will come when we aspire to be? Heavens in honor If we have faith in humankind and our respect for what is earthly and our own fault to ring the leaf in peace of infinity Heavens in honor [Music] I've seen spirits, I've met angels, touched creations, beautiful anyone does, I've been places where I question all I think I know I believe, I believe, I believe this could be ever [Music] We are born aside the gates to the part of great life and to take it away, the world is our temple, the world is our church Heavens in honor If we have faith in humankind and our respect for what is earthly and our own fault to ring the leaf in peace of another and understanding This could be heaven, heaven, earth In fact, I just want to say that Jesus supposedly said that the kingdom of God is here and now And I think that many people have forgotten that because they think of that kingdom or commonwealth as something later And therefore we don't have to think a lot about what we're doing now But if we truly believed that the presence of God and that kingdom is here, then we're going to live differently Earlier on, Roy, you said you thought it was good if people were in living environmentally, regardless of what their motivations were I heard you Lewis say something about how you started out with a strong environmental drive But you got burned out until you started connecting with community How is it for each of you different to be a spiritually based environmentalist? What's the difference for you or is there a difference or maybe you're on exactly the same footing as all other environmentalists Whether they're spiritually based or not? Where we live, we have chosen to be in a community with our neighbors Five of us, five households get together on a regular basis with potluck meals and sharing resources and snow plowing and that sort of thing Not all of us are Quakers Some of us don't go to any kind of church One of us kind of calls himself an atheist But we all have a love of the land where we are So I don't think labels help I think that each of us finds our own way of describing what it is that motivates us But I would think that if we go deep enough they're really talking about the same thing That it's language that is different Some people believe that there's a God that is only transcendent something outside of ourselves that intervenes in history And that we can pray to and will come and do something for us I don't think about God and the Spirit in that way But a person who does think that way might see, as I had said earlier, that God gave a gift to humans of this planet And that we should be good stewards of it, therefore I think of God as imminent as something that is in everything And yet somewhat transcendent because it's not just what you see But I don't feel that it's a spirit that intervenes except through our own hands There are two examples of people that would think differently Another person might not think about spirit but might act in such a way as a good Christian might And I'm thinking of my neighbor who doesn't go to church and doesn't think about spirit or God He's one of the most generous and kind and loving and caring people So I would say that our act are what's important, not the words we use to describe why we do it I just would expand on this idea about burnout And it comes from a concern about my personal welfare and having a personal agenda On the other hand, I am answering a call to live in greater harmony and to be a good steward of the land I mean, it's not something then that I have to feel is totally on my shoulders That the spiritual journey is something that I just feel like I've joined with a larger spiritual community And we're doing what we have to do, and we can let go to a certain degree On the outcome, once we have carried out faithfully that calling And another thing about the difference between reform, environmentalism and deep ecology The environmentalism, I think, is more of a scientific approach Tell us what is happening with the different chemicals we release into the environment, for instance Or what we can do with genetically modified organisms But it really can't answer some of the deeper questions about why Why we would not want to do these things or why we should pursue a certain path And I think that's where the spiritual journey is really what that is about To give us a chance for a dialogue about some of the deeper, more meaningful question about our role And what we think we're here for on this planet You are leaders of Quaker Earthcare Witness How long have you been part of it, and what does that organization do? I was in Honduras in 1991 for a gathering of Quakers And there was a couple there who had been co-founders of this organization in 1987 And they led a little workshop about their organization So I went and listened to what they had to say and picked up the literature And this is where I saw this quote about "there will be no peace without a planet" Since 1991 I've been involved in the organization by being a supporter And I applied for the job of General Secretary Which is kind of executive director, business manager and outreach person And I began work in 1995 The purpose of the organization is to raise consciousness About caring for the Earth as a spiritual concern among friends Friends have historically been very active on peace and justice issues From the beginning 350 some odd years ago But the idea of a planet in crisis is fairly new We publish a newsletter, we publish books and leaflets and facilitate workshops I'd say that we're not leaders of this organization Because it's many people that work together to make the organization happen We are staff and we provide inspiration and thought But I'd say we're not leaders In the years of the organization, many people were at a loss They felt this calling, this sense that Quakers really belonged in this field And needed to do something about it, but just they weren't sure So many, many months went by with meetings and communications And feeling their way forward I think they needed to come to terms with Quaker beliefs and values And theology to see if it really could get the larger religious society of friends To embrace this as part of their values or testimonies And we made a lot of progress in just that dialogue coming to terms with that And then other areas we questioned were what actually should we be doing? Should we just be publishing or should we be out doing something more actively? I think the final resolution of that was the both That we have a role to be a forum or thinking this through and talking it through But as well as examples and as a means by which we're going to assist people Who feel the spiritual leading to carry out that work in their own communities There's a sort of a dual role that we play there One thing that we've been burdened by though is what a lot of environmentalists complain about They're labeled or pigeonholed as tree huggers and a fringe group And we've tried to find ways to avoid getting marginalized in that way One of the best things that I think ever happened with our organization was getting linked up With an agricultural project in Costa Rica that is called Inca La Bea And this is just a project that was started by Quakers From the Quaker community of Monteverde in Costa Rica Who had four years championed the preservation of the fragile cloud forest ecosystem That surrounded their community They did a great job of this and had preserved thousands and thousands of hectares that were home to endangered species But then it began to dawn on them that there were people living in that area Who were kind of being pushed aside to preserve animals And so this falls right into the hands of the people who want to cast you in a bad light Of caring more about little furry, cute animals than about people in jobs and livelihoods And so this farm was the perfect answer to that To show that we wanted to spend time developing a project where people would find a role on the land In a way that was compatible with the environmental requirements of living on the land It's been a tremendous project and very successful and it's been a laboratory That we might say for many of the problems that we see all around the world About how we're going to live sustainably on the earth There are 24 families that were landless And they each have parcels of the land And they have to sign an agreement to farm sustainably And that one third of the land of the farm would remain forested And they have come to learn about the importance of that relationship Of what they grow and the animals that live around them and the birds What kinds of trees to plant that would attract the birds and the monkeys And the whole dynamic system where they live And it's great to walk through and have them be so excited Well this kind of tree, oh you see that bird, oh well it really likes this And there are problems, the parcels are rather small and they do grow coffee It's sold as fair trade coffee through a co-op But because the parcels are small they're not able to For some of them make enough money to use that as their total income source So they're doing other work So we're kind of learning and experimenting with this But I think it's a good model because it cares about the people in the land Lewis you use the word testimonies, I'm sure a lot of people are listing Have no idea what Quaker testimonies are, would either of you care to speak about them? Well the Quaker testimonies are the understanding in hindsight Of the things that we have been led to do out of our spiritual convictions The things that actually affect the choices that we make in life And the paths that we choose for the kind of relationships we have with other people Peace is one of the ones that friends are best known for Our testimony of equality is similar in that it does affirm that Because we all have that light of the spirit that there is an essential equality among all people And we have been exploring the Quaker testimonies Follows somewhat from the original talk at the friends general conference gathering Where all of this got started was that the speaker Marshall Massey was telling people There's a noticeable pattern among the early friends in which they start somewhat at the surface of things And then they learn to go deeper and deeper over time Through generation after generation to understand in a broader or more complete way The things that they only understood incompletely at first So at first it was a big deal to not take off your hat in front of a person of wealth or power Because that would imply that that person was superior in some way But this was a superficial gesture just based on the customs of the time But it did lead by step toward a more deep understanding of our basic human equality Throughout society and many different levels And now we're looking at the same equality testimony and other testimonies In terms of our essential commonality if not equality With all of the living forms on this planet That the spark of light is not just in humans If it's in humans it has to be in all that God created So we are looking at saying that there are rights to all of these ecosystems that we live in relationship with Not the exact same rights we enjoy in our human society But at least this testimony of equality is commanding us to consider them as having some value in their own right I think part of our work is to help us live out these values With the hope that what would emerge is a testimony on sustainability or earth care Or whatever word kind of describes it all That there are many Quakers today who see this as an emerging testimony But a testimony isn't something that Quakers say Oh let's write this down and it's a testimony It's the result of the actions and lives over a period of time A recognition that yes it is a testimony That's already a living piece of our lives So we're hoping to help people live out in such a way that it does become one of our testimonies I've heard this referred to as perhaps a Quaker testimony on the integrity of creation That's one phrase I've heard used to it So what point do you think friends are at? How earth-friendly are the friends? Where do you think we are in that process? I'm reflecting on some 15 years of publication of our newsletter Which has been dedicated to what friends have been saying and doing about care of the earth This is befriending creation that comes out six times a year As well as a number of other pamphlets and books that we haven't written These have been written by people who have come forward to say I have an inspiration or an insight that I want to share So we've got a lot of this behind us that indicates quite a few friends Are really moved and transformed in their lives in different ways And they really feel that this is a key part of their Quaker faith With the metaphor of a ladder you might say that we're on maybe the second or third rung of the long ladder I mean in terms of numbers of friends who are radically changing their lives We don't sense that that is the case But what we do sense is that the people who are deeply sensitive to the spirit and the leadings of the spirit And the ones who are influential and who are going to be the leaders in the futures of many young friends And we're saying yes to this and that's where we see the spread and the solidification of this consciousness over time We see it going nowhere but up When the organization began in 1987 I would say that very few meetings had come to an agreement or a sense of unity about environmental issues Since then many monthly meetings and yearly meetings have approved statements minutes That speak to some aspect of the environment Population issues, sustainability, economics It's pretty amazing how many? Six years ago friends united meeting Which is a more theologically conservative branch of Quakerism Approved a minute on caring for creation I'd say that we've moved a long ways pretty quickly and that we still have quite a ways to go I still think that many friends compartmentalize and say oh you know those are the environmentalists And yes it's great that they're doing it and I'm glad and they're over someplace else doing that work And they don't see how it integrates into their own work and their own commitments And that's our job It's kind of like uncovering the environmentalists inside these people They're there in some aspects but they don't recognize that they still put it as something outside of their work But just also by the reaction to people here each year The number of people who come to the events that we offer The number of people who offer workshops that aren't representing us but that are on environmental issues I mean it's grown tremendously I want to thank you both for taking the time to talk with me today Rua and Lewis and I want to thank you for your work And I also would ask that you give us some way to contact you if people are interested in learning more About Quaker Earthcare Witness We have a website that tells it all www.quakerearthcare.org So our emails and phone numbers and addresses are all on there If you don't have a computer you can call us at 802.658.0308 And we'd be happy to talk to you Thank you again for spending the time here and for your work You've been listening to Rua Swinefeld and Lewis Cox of a group called Quaker Earthcare Witness Also in this program you heard Tracy Chapman singing Heavens Here on Earth And you heard Earth Mama performing Earth Pledge The theme music for Spirit in Action is "I Have No Hands But Yours" by Carol Johnson Thank you for listening I welcome your comments and stories of those leading lives of spiritual fruit You can email me at helpsmeet@usa.net May you find deep roots to support you and grow steadily toward the light This is Spirit in Action I have no eye upon who you've been made I love and love your neighbor Enjoy and love with me (gentle music)

Interviewed July 8th, 2005 at the Friends General Conference gathering held at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, Virginia