Edge of Somewhere

Speaking from the silence

I attended Quaker meeting this morning; somewhere down the street a group of high spirited people had either a very late night party from Saturday or an early start to this evening. As we Quakers attempted to sit in silence, our neighbors worshiped to techno and modern ballads (there was a story about questing for ‘booty’…perhaps something involving pirates).

This was…distracting. I am focused on this shared spiritual experience with my fellow Friends; open to the Light that resides in…Boom-Shick Boom-Shick Boom-Shick Boom-Shick Boom-Shick Boom-Shick Boom-Shick. Remember when there were we were the way toooooo remember whennnnn!

So I began to consider distraction itself and what it means to avoid it, confront it, and carry a quiet space within. In my work at the Teachers Federation, I have a recording studio. In it is a large steel box with a padded room inside; when the door is closed, it’s completely silent and one is isolated from all noise and distraction (the box is literally separated from the building itself, it ‘floats’ on rubber pads). I’ve jokingly noted to my collegues that, should they feel the need, they are welcome to close themselves inside for a while and carry some quiet space away when they leave. This is, in effect, what Quakers attempt to do collectively in Meeting. We come together for an hour of quiet to share of it in itself and then carry that away.

Yet, we’ve the tendency to covet the quiet space itself and forget the world outside. I know this morning, I became irritated at the outside sounds that were intruding on our silent considerations. Don’t you people know we are doing the important work here? We are…Zweeeeeeeeeeeeooooo! I am on the star! I am on the star! I am higher than the star! I am slightly left of the star and somewhere out in space! In Space!

I then considered what a recording studio (and the Meeting) is truly for. It’s not about the quiet space; the space is built so that something important can be clearly heard there. When there is something important to be said at Teachers Fed, someone with the voice steps into the silence and speaks. It’s about having a space for clarity so that others can hear without distraction; it’s not about the speaker himself or herself. It’s not really even about the experience that he or she has in that space. We go into the silence to speak what is necessary; there is the need for preparation, for pacing and quiet contemplation. But, in the end, all the work of building a place of silence is moot if nothing is spoken within is then spoken without. We have to bring the quiet voice out of the silence and into the world.

This is something I struggle with personally; I’m drawn to the quiet spaces and tend to avoid the messy cacophony of life. Part of this is my nature (insert long conversation about introversion and extroversion, hard-wiring of the brain, studies with chimpansees, etc.). But there is always choice involved as well. I then end, this morning at least, I chose to embrace the distraction, stand, and speak to the Meeting what I related above. The distraction became the Light speaking and, though the silence was broken, the voice heard in the end was that of a shared experience we carried away together.

Freedom from want

There are two contradictory maxims enshrined in ‘our’ world:

It is my purpose to desire and acquire more,
I am free from material responsibility.

Last month, I spotted the sign above in a Sydney clothing store. It’s the hybrid of these two statements; but like many man-made hybrids, it can’t live at ease with itself and carries its own maladies.

When I spotted this, I wondered aloud, who in this place (including myself) has ever known what it is to want and what good has come of it? This is a store filled with jeans made in Asian factories—are good things coming for the laborers at the sewing machines? Will good come to me if I desire the items in the shop? If I purchase them? To whom does this sign refer?

I wonder if we are losing our sense of the reality of poverty. It’s true that, in Sydney, one can still witness the evidence of want if one has eyes to see. But we differ from the beginnings of the Industrial Revolution; the class who were poor and made things for the wealthy were living and working in factories side by side with the opulence of the day. We have distanced ourselves far from this now and can almost put inequalities out of consideration. At least the Georgians and Victorians had the decency to acknowledge that their culture was stratified. Have we forgotten that our freedom from want has come at a cost?

Every nation speaks of the sacrifices men and women made to shape it (either in war or the hardship of some early days of history). I don’t doubt that this is often true and that good-willed people did bear with much for the hope of some future benefit to themselves and their descendants. But we must ask what it means when we expect others who have no share in the hopes and freedoms of one place to suffer for others who do.

This is no new observation; people have said this over and again and ‘we’ are all implicated in the process. I’m wearing clothing made by hands who will never know the benefits I’ve known, I’m typing on a computer made of minerals mined from underneath someone’s homeland. But we have to speak truth to the powers that drive this machine—and that means speaking truth to myself. My freedom from want is not without consequence. I cannot bear the guilt of the world, of this system which I did not directly build; but I must carry an awareness of the mechanism that puts me on the positive side of the equation and so many others on the unbalanced and unequal other.

Into-the-Fray • 5 January 2012 Comment

Voices of the Living and the Dead

These past days, since I wrote my last post, I’ve further considered the active voice, what is it that I have to say and how can I equip others to speak their stories? I am, at this moment, the most equipped I’ve ever been to do this. In my ‘day job’ at the Teachers Federation I’ve created a full production suite and recording studio. This will allow me to pull in all manner of interesting folks and amplify the stories they have to tell. Also, my wife Penny and I live in Sydney and her work connects with (and connects) people working in and experiencing the pivot points of social change (see joiningthedots for more).

I wrote my dissertation on the concept of stewardship. Stewardship is this all encompassing idea (it must be, we cannot rightly be stewards of only one part of nature or culture; the neglect of anything touches on everything else). I’m considering what I hold in my own stewardship. I read this morning an essay by Jay Allison on Transom.org. Jay has become an of Elder of Stewards for National Public Radio and writes here about holding in care the actual voices of people:

I co-produced the wonderful series Lost and Found Sound with my friends the Kitchen Sisters. Sometimes, I would listen all day to the voices of dead people. The listeners who would call our Quest for Sound line would describe their old tape or phonograph or whatever contained the voice of their loved one and say, “It’s all I have left,” as if it were an actual part of the person, full of life and breath. And in a way, it was. The connection to the remaining voice is not at all like a photograph, it’s much deeper. Sound has the ghostly power to enter our bodies, unbidden.

The playwright Marsha Norman talks about a time after her husband died, finding a plastic blow-up beach ball in the back of the closet and realizing it contained her husband’s breath. That resonates with me. It reminds me of the kind of power we hold in our medium.

There is something about our voices, the sounds that we make and take for granted. Each breath has so much potential for changing the course of a conversation—or in different circumstances, the course of a life or the lives of many. Breath and spirit have the same root in Greek, pneuma (yes, I did pay some attention in that one semester of Greek). I’m considering making a sign or writing this to people before they come in my studio. The breath you take in and give out here is an expression of your spirit. You breathe in and live; what you exhale speaks from your soul. I record our voices here in this place and the spirit of this will resonate out from here—and may for years to come.

It’s easy to get caught up in the technicalities of this stewardship (the stewarding of expression and spirit). I’ve taken time to pick out the right microphones, amplifiers with glowing tubes, and made diagrams of how to connect one box to another. But I must take greater care to get caught up holding on to the spirits of those who come into this space, to go beyond the mechanism and into a realm where we can encounter one another and the real substance of the moment we share.

I know that this sounds almost preposterous as the balance of what we discuss is the political activity of a trade union. Most of the people who step into the studio aren’t there to speak from the spirit and share our connection with the Universe. But I think that has to be my intent, otherwise I’ll just sit in a box recording people reading off lists of legal advice and oppositional statements to government decisions. I have to have the presence of mind and spirit to bring it somewhere deeper.

Also, this is again the ‘day job’, I realise that I need to build a body of work separate to this as well. Not so much for professional reasons, but to keep my spirit connected and grounded to other matters that are important. I have to be a steward of the opportunities I’m given in all aspects of life—and hold them for those who will listen.

Journal • 27 November 2011 Comment

Passive Voice, Active Voice

I’m considering my voice—not my physical voice, but my ability to speak out to others and what means I have at hand to do so. I am, by nature, a quiet person and usually reluctant to speak or intervene. This might not readily change; I don’t think I’ll ever be the ‘in your face’ contender out on the frontline. But I do need to understand the bounds and abilities of my voice and use it wisely.

Last week I read several news articles relating to weapons, war, video games (playing at war) and the general glorification of violence as a social norm. I think we need to pause for consideration when a new battle simulation video game garners nearly $800 million in its first two days of sale in a time when there is such a need for the ending of wars and fostering peace. I know video games are the easy end of the spectrum to speak about, ‘oh, you know what happens when kids play those violent video games’. I’m not sure I do; but, regardless of what the games in themselves encourage in people’s minds, I do know that ‘actual war’ is increasingly engaged through the medium of a computer screen rather than in person. There are still troops on the ground facing real risk; but the movement is toward a sterile press the button and the figures on the screen are dead warfare. One of the other articles I read last week was about a new cruise missile in the US that can be launched from the States and basically target anything in the world within an hour. Soon, like an online multiplayer game, our wars may be fought by telecommuters at home in their socks.

Which brings me back to voice; I am, at this very moment, sitting at home in my socks. What havoc for peace might I bring from here? What is the balance of what I can and can’t do with these tools at hand? I don’t want that to sound like dithering as I am actually aware of what can be accomplished. It’s more a question of what is the next action and then the next. I know that, in the face of these conflicts we hear about abroad (and at home), that one voice may seem moot. But this is no reason or excuse not to speak (that’s been said over and again—one voice does make a difference when raised up in a chorus of others). I stood and spoke at Meeting on Sunday saying, It is neither weapons nor the glorification of violence that are evil’s most potent tools; war is best served by the apathy of those who do nothing to speak against it. That is the crux of it, if nothing else it is put upon me to speak what I may in the way open to me.

I interviewed John Michaelis, the editor of Quaker Voice on Wednesday at the Devonshire Street Meeting House here in Surry Hills. Quaker Voice will be (it’s still in the works) an online forum for ‘Quakers and likeminded people’ around the world to speak out and discern social issues where they are. It will be a conversation where that first person voice of real people on the ground is shared with others of concern (rather the opposite of digitally mediated warfare). I’ve just edited the interview with John and you can listen here:

Quaker Voice Devonshire Street Interview by quietamerican

Journal • Podcasts 25 November 2011 Comment

New Soundcloud account

This is something I’ve been meaning to do for some time! I’ve set up a Soundcloud account to host my podcasts rather than just posting them directly on my weblog as .mp3 files. This will allow much easier linking and put them out in a more visible space. I’ve posted the first interview, a discussion with John Michaelis on the Online Australian Friend (OLAF).

Online Australian Friend Interview by quietamerican

Podcasts • 20 August 2011 Comment

Some recent work

I’ve been getting a kit together (not quite there yet, but working with a Canon XF-305 which I’ll eventually write some comments on) for my work with the NSW Teachers Federation. Here are three pieces from the past couple weeks regarding a big debate on public sector pay. It’s a bit of a challenge to make an interesting piece on a rally as, frankly, the same things tend to happen at each. It sort of looks exciting with all the banners and shouting…but that’s what people do at every rally.

We’ve everything on YouTube at the moment but we are looking into some content management systems for more controlled delivery and integration with social networking.

There is a major rally this week in Sydney which I have some plans for additional media, so stay tuned.

And, this one is a bit of an experiment that we ended up just going with…

Into-the-Fray • 13 June 2011 Comment [1]

Honing down

I am dispersed on the internet and need to focus in on my communications. I’m now the digital media coordinator for the New South Wales Teachers Federation (my official title is ‘Digital Media Sub-Editor’ but that makes for an awkward introduction to anyone outside trade unions). For the past weeks I’ve been researching and discussing social networks and focusing one’s (or one’s organisation) online presence. Though I’m by no means a power user, I have this weblog, a Twitter account, Facebook, email and several chat clients. I know that some people juggle a dozen different means of electronic communication, I think I need to focus down to even fewer than I’m now carrying. This is partially because I’m working full time now, married and don’t have the time or energy to devote to sitting online all day. But it’s more about dispersing my mental energy; I need to make more considered effort to less and better.

Facebook in particular is beginning to creep me out with some of the things they are doing with information ownership and privacy (I was already wary of it…and these past weeks have tipped me over). Apple is going to make some changes to their handling of email and I may lose the .mac email I’ve had for the past decade. I already pay for hosting of this website with a very robust company; it would make sense to just have this one domain and email rather than spread them all about.

I’m also finding myself in some in-depth discussions about Twitter and where it is going. When I first signed up for Twitter, I wasn’t really sure about how useful it would be but the past year has made its power apparent.

I’m no longer spending hours and hours a day on Skype (mainly because Penny and I are here together). But, even so, I’m beginning to wonder about how distractive it can be when not scheduled and ‘capped’ in usage.

So, I think I’m going to cut back to blogging, micro-blogging in Twitter and very focused use of email. I know that, over the past months, I’ve had neglected a lot of ideas that I should have been writing about here on the weblog. I’m going to keep Textpattern as I love its back-end but will probably look to update the web-facing side of things over the next couple months.

Communications • 13 June 2011 Comment

Campaign to ban DU weapons

Donna Mulhern asked me to make up a quick flyer for the Australian Campaign to Ban Uranium Weapons last week for her to hand out at the Indigo Girls concert in Sydney (she is friends with them and was asked to speak during the performance). Here is some text from the flyer and a .pdf (I’m working on a few revisions and will refine the logo a bit).

What: Uranium weapons, often called ‘depleted’ uranium (DU) weapons, are used because of their high density and unique armour piercing capability. Manufactured from radioactive waste materials produced during the nuclear fuel chain and the production of nuclear weapons, they cause widespread and long lasting contamination of the environment. These weapon systems are radiologically and chemically toxic.

The Problem: Many people–innocent civilians especially children, military veterans, industry workers–have illnesses and medical problems, which may be due to their exposure to ‘depleted’ uranium. In areas such as southern Iraq, where uranium munitions were used by the US and the UK in recent wars, there have been reports of increases in cancers, leukaemia and birth defects.

Where: It is now clear that uranium weapons were used on a large scale by the US and the UK in the Gulf War in 1991, then in Bosnia, Serbia and Kosovo, and again in the war in Iraq by the US and the UK in 2003. It is suspected that the US also used uranium weapons in Afghanistan in 2001.

Impact: The use of uranium weapons results in a human and environmental catastrophe for the affected region as uranium can remain in the air as dust particles for more than 500 years and leech into the soil and water sources.

What next: At least seventeen countries possess uranium weapons, the use of which is contrary to existing humanitarian law. We, the people, need to let governments and the United Nations know that these weapons can have no part in a humane and caring world. There is an international campaign to ban uranium weapons “(ICBUW)“www.bandepleteduranium.org and considering Australia’s involvement in recent wars, it is important we are actively involved in this campaign.

The Australian and International campaigns call for your support to demand:

An immediate end to the use of uranium weapons,
Disclosure of all locations where uranium weapons have been used and immediate removal of the remnants and contaminated materials from the sites under strict control,
Health surveys of the ‘depleted’ uranium victims and environmental investigations at the affected sites,
Medical treatment and compensation for the ‘depleted’ uranium victims,
An end to the development, production, stockpiling, testing, trade of uranium weapons.
A Convention for a total ban on uranium weapons

Be part of something bigger: the International Campaign
With more than one-hundred member organisations in twenty-eight countries worldwide, ICBUW represents the best opportunity yet to achieve a global ban on the use of uranium in weapons. Even though the use of weapons containing uranium should already be illegal, an explicit treaty, as has been seen with chemical and biological weapons, landmines and cluster bombs, has proved the best solution for confirming their illegality. Such a treaty would not only outlaw the use of uranium weapons, but would include the prohibition of their production, the destruction of stockpiles, the decontamination of battlefields and rules on compensation for victims.

ICBUW has prepared a draft treaty and is following the successful example of the Cluster Munition Coalition. ICBUW’s grassroots member organisations lobby at a national level (that’s us!), while ICBUW itself works with supranational bodies such as the European Parliament and the United Nations.

Click here for the .pdf file

See Donna’s website here

Into-the-Fray • 1 May 2011 Comment

Words from the wedding

My sincere apologies for not updating this site for so long; Penny and I have been married for nearly a month now and, hopefully, as things come to some sense of normalcy here in Sydney, I’ll write more regularly here.

This is my ‘teachable moment’ from the wedding. The minister did not give a message; in lieu of a sermon, Penny and I both shared reflections. I’ll post more from the wedding in the incoming week.

I’d like to speak specifically about the love that is shared between Penny and I. I choose these words carefully. We share a love; it’s not just a single ended love that one or the other of us has. It’s a mutual activity, something that we co-create together. Also, it is between us. It’s both a bond and a buffer. Something about who we are as individuals has drawn us together and holds us in love; but there is also something about love that protects us from bumping in to one another. I’m discovering the equilibrium in love that keeps everything in balance.

I’m going to borrow one of Penny’s favourite phrases here and say that our love may be in a space between; it’s not wholly contained in either one of us but lives in that miraculous place that brings us together. I don’t think that image diminishes the love we have within us at all or separates out love as something outside us. But it makes love something that is not dependent on us; it speaks of love as something more expansive than either one of us could make personally. Love is that unseen matter that does not really collide with the material stuff in the universe. It goes into and through through everything. It infuses us with an energy that is real but is also beyond something we can simply manipulate.

I know that each of us experiences love as something that ebbs and flows; that sometimes it seems stronger…or sometimes that person seems more distant. But if love is that energy between, that underlying force that joins us, then, in a sense, nothing we do really effects it. It’s just our sense of where we are in the connection to it. In The Prophet, Kahlil Gibran writes:

When you love you should not say,
‘God is in my heart,’ but rather, ‘I am in the heart of God.’
And think not you can direct the course of love,
for love, if it finds you worthy, directs your course…
Love one another but make not a bond of love:
Let it rather be a moving sea between the moving shores of your souls.
and give your hearts, but not into each other’s keeping.
For only the hands of life can contain your hearts…
You were born together and together you shall be forevermore.

We are both impressed with the fact that, considering all the span of time and geography that could have separated us, there was some larger activity of the universe that brought us together. That there was something about the bond between us that reached across all that. That’s tied to our own actions; but it’s more a matter of destiny than decision. When I was back in the States and we were lamenting the physical distance between us, we said that we could have just as easily been born in different centuries. But somehow, that pervading force of love that brought us together found every right moment and guided all the decisions that brought us to this day. Not just our decisions, but, in a sense, all the decisions that you have made as well. In some way, most of you have had a part in the forming of love here.

Everything we each do ripples out into and intertwines with that force of love between us all. We are entering into a marriage where we have the opportunity to ask, ‘how am I building this energy of love between us?’ I hope that, for each of us, we can ask ourselves that question in every dealing we have with others. That we can ask what is the need that others have for love in this world and how can we be a presence of love to those in need.

Journal • 17 April 2011 Comment

Leah Samuelson Interview

Here is a twenty minute interview with mural artist Leah Samuelson from last Spring’s BuildaBridge Institute. We spoke about her teaching methodology and how she approaches a community about the process of mural making. Her work has brought her to ‘visionaries, personnel of biblical training institutions, schools, correctional facilities, slums, and palaces.’

Click here to play the twenty minute .mp3 file.

Podcasts • Profiles 31 December 2010 Comment

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