David LaMotte

The Klan went home, the community stayed

David — Tue, 02 Apr 2013 03:58:38 +0000

Two days ago I woke up at 3:45AM to head to the airport. As a professional musician, I’ve seen 3:45 on the end of my day much more often in my life than I’ve seen it on the beginning, and I’m not much of a morning person. But this felt important.

The KKK had a rally planned on the courthouse steps on Saturday. They had promised that it would be the largest rally they had held in years. Some said 1,000 white supremacists would gather. Some said “thousands.” This was in response to the Memphis City Council’s decision to rename Forrest park, which was named after the Civil War general, slave trader and first Grand Wizard of the KKK.

I was catching a flight to Memphis to meet up with some local activists at an event designed to raise other voices in that conversation about race and equality at the People’s Conference on Race & Equality. My good friend Frank Kelly picked me up at the airport and spent the day with me, getting me where I needed to go and even pitching in on selling a few White Flour books at the conference while I was busy talking with folks. Good guy, that Frank.

The last time the Klan rallied in Memphis, in 1998, there were dozens of arrests and some minor injuries. This time, the police presence was huge, the counter protesters were kept far away, and mounted police and a SWAT van even blocked the view between the two. The Klansmen apparently brought a malfunctioning bullhorn which didn’t carry their message much farther than the end of the steps. From the area reserved for counter-protestors, reached only after traveling down a long alley lined with police in full riot gear, there was nothing at all to hear, and the only view of the KKK was a few flags and pointy hats poking up above a fence two blocks away.

To be honest, I didn’t rejoice in the denial of audience to the Klan by the local government quite as much as you might think I would. For the authorities to engineer this is quite different from a grassroots effort to produce the same effect, such as the ‘angels’ that block the view of anti-gay protesters at some events, or the brilliant freeze-out staged by the town of Davidson, NC in response to a Klan rally in 1986. Justice means having the same rules for everyone, and in looking at something like this, we have to consider the precedent it sets as well as the individual case.

So as glad as I am that the Klan’s message went largely unheard, I’m concerned that the same tactics could be applied in other situations, when the causes being represented might be more just, but equally unpalatable to the authorities. Still, this is complicated stuff, and I would not have wanted the job of deciding how to respond to this on behalf of the city. In the end, I’m glad there was no physical violence, and I guess I will cautiously cut the city some slack for their over-zealous response.

As it turned out, the weather wasn’t conducive to racist rallies, and the Klansmen only mustered 61 people. To be fair, they lived up to their billing in one regard: that still qualified it as one of their larger rallies in years, as most of their rallies these days consist of just a few people. Many of us were grateful for the rain. It may well have done as much to prevent violence as the large numbers of well-armed law enforcement.

And though I am clear that it was important to speak out, I have to ask myself whether it was important to speak out across the street from the KKK. In the end, I think it may have been much more effective to do exactly what Memphis United did.

Their People’s Conference on Race & Equality sported the tagline, “Learn to confront hate by building community,” which they did through breakout workshops like the one pictured here, panel discussions and meetings designed to educate, connect and inspire individuals and organizations “individuals and organizations collaboratively committed to the peaceful, critical, and strategic pursuit of a just and loving Memphis.” I was asked to speak as part of a panel on “Race, Faith and Movements,” and I thoroughly enjoyed that conversation and others I got to have that day.

Among several fascinating people I met at the conference, one sticks out. Scott Shepherd had seen that I was coming to town and dropped a note to see if we could catch up while I was there. It was a dense day, and we didn’t have as much time to talk as I would have liked, but I was moved by his story, and by his courageous choice to heal.

Scott is a former Klansman, and spent many years immersed in that movement and culture. He appeared on national talk shows arguing for white supremacy, and knew most of the leaders of the movement personally. After an arrest for DUI and an illegal gun in his car, he ended up in a residential addiction treatment program. Working through that experience, he did some serious soul searching, and also came to know and care about some friends who were going through similar struggles right beside him, but whose skin was darker than his own.

He came out a different man, and now speaks to youth about his experiences, trying to keep people from being caught up in the seduction of ‘belonging’ that often leads people into dubious activities like gangs and white supremacist movements. Scott kept a low profile at the conference, just being there, listening, and spending time in casual conversations. To my eye, it seemed like it was healing for him just to be there.

And he wasn’t the only one. I was nourished by being in the company of all of these good people as well, and I think that goes beyond my own need to belong. The work of building community is a lot less dramatic, and a lot more effective in the long run, than the work of tearing down ideas we oppose, and these folks were doing that important work well.

That’s not to say that there aren’t times to stand up in opposition of what’s wrong. There certainly are. We sometimes need to do so in order to defend each other and ourselves from hateful ideas, which all too easily become oppressive actions (though I feel strongly that we should always do that creatively and in a spirit of love, rather than meeting hatred with more hatred, or violence with more violence).

In the end, the best defense against bigotry is forging communities that are strong enough to withstand it. Really knowing each other is the starting place for healing all of our wounds. Learning each other’s stories and struggles leads to a broader sense of who ‘us’ is, and there is no victory over ‘them’ so complete, or so healing, or so effective, as welcoming them into ‘us.’ That is the radical subversion of fear by love.

Here’s the takeaway for me: the Klan has gone home. They gathered for a couple of hours, talked to each other, shouted through their ineffectual bullhorn, then drove away. Whatever minor significance for their cause their gathering may have had, it is already dissipating.

The local community activists who gathered to do the work of improving their city, on the other hand, are still there. And they’ll be there tomorrow and next week and next month and next year. They have nourished and strengthened and educated each other. They know each other a bit better than they did last week, and may know who to call when a particular gift is needed in a particular effort. They are a bit more of a community than they were before.

Frank dropped me back at the Memphis airport about 5:30PM. I spent less than 9 hours in Memphis on Saturday, and I had very little to do with the good things that happened there, but I was glad to see a vibrant community of activists lift each other up and do the work. I left inspired and encouraged, in spite of the harsh catalyst that led to this gathering. I hope I offered some encouragement as well.

Rev. King said “the arc of history is long, but it bends toward justice.” Community building is a long slow process of steady, unrelenting pressure, but together, we push steadily. And this is how we bend the arc.

Klansmen, Crips, Clowns, Memphis and Me

David — Thu, 28 Mar 2013 02:59:24 +0000

This Saturday the Ku Klux Klan is promising to have one of its largest rallies ever in Memphis, Tennessee. I’m headed there too.

The Memphis park formerly known as Forrest Park, after Civil War general, slave trader and first Grand Wizard of the KKK Nathan Bedford Forrest, now bears the innocuous moniker “Health Sciences Park” instead. A bill making its way through the Tennessee legislature would prevent Tennessee towns from changing the names of public spaces that are named after war heroes, including Civil War heroes, and Memphis decided to take preemptive action. Unsurprisingly, the Klan is not too happy with that move.

In the past nine months I have found myself becoming much more familiar with the KKK due to a children’s book I wrote called White Flour. The illustrated book and the poem that provides its text tell the story of a rally in Knoxville, Tennessee, where a group of Klansmen and neo-Nazis were met by a troupe of counter-protesters called the Coup Clutz Clowns, who met hatred with humor—and won.

The clowns had prepared carefully for the rally, and when the Klan screamed “white power,” the clowns seemed to mishear, joining in enthusiastically with chants of “white flour!” and having a big flour fight. Later, they decided that they might have heard wrong, and that the klansmen must be having a rally for ‘white flowers,’ which they joyfully passed out, and then for ‘tight showers’, which they acted out, crowding beneath a camp shower they had brought, and then ‘wife power,’ pulling on wedding dresses and dancing.

‘Wife Power’ at the 2007 Knoxville rally

This really happened. It was on May 26, 2007, and I’ve talked to quite a few people who were there that day in my research the book. One of the clowns was at a concert I did in Santa Cruz a couple of weeks ago (my day job is as a performing songwriter). Their creative engagement inspired me deeply, and the story rocked me because it not only illustrates important ideas about nonviolence, but it’s funny, and that makes it accessible. So I wrote a poem, and the poem became a book, and the book has sort of taken over my life since May when it came out, on the five-year anniversary of the event that inspired it. The White Flour poem has inspired other clown protests since, including one in Charlotte, NC in 2012, which is written up in the current issue of the Southern Poverty Law Center‘s publication Intelligence Report and recommended in their magazine Teaching Tolerance. People have written lesson plans for public schools and Sunday schools about the book. Stories matter, and ripples go on.

One of the things that this story illustrates so well is that there are more than two available responses to aggression. Fight and flight come quite naturally to us, but often the best response is neither of those. Nonviolence demands creativity—that we think beyond those options to what Walter Wink called a “third way.” It may not always demand clown makeup, but it always calls for us to move beyond the options of simply rolling over, which leads to impunity for the aggressors, or fighting hatred and violence with hatred and violence, which, as Dr. King famously said, adds “deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars.”

This is often misunderstood. Peace is not placidity, and peacemaking has nothing to do with inaction. In questioning the wisdom of the Iraq war a dozen years ago, I was often confronted with statements like “Well you can’t just do nothing!”, as though that were the only other alternative. Peacemaking is not passive. It is about engaging conflict in ways that are constructive rather than destructive. Note the verb there: engaging.

Clown protesters in Charlotte, Nov. 10, 2012

As this rally has become the subject of more and more media attention in recent weeks, some have made the reasonable argument that we should just ignore the rally. It’s true that this can be an excellent strategy when it is well organized and intentional. The town of Davidson, North Carolina did this beautifully in 1986 when the Klan held a rally there. They arranged to close every single shop downtown and the students of Davidson college organized a day of food and fun on campus, far from the downtown rally. A few cameras were hidden in trees, but the Klan had no human audience to entertain. Brilliant.

That strategy won’t be effective with this rally, though. It has already received enough press that we know people are coming from all over. And a diverse crowd they are, including nonviolent community activists as well as many who don’t share that commitment to nonviolence. Memphis gangs have promised to be out in force. There are even skinheads and Klansmen from other branches of the KKK who are coming to protest the Klan rally. No kidding.

People are going to be there to respond, so the question becomes ‘respond how?’ Clearly, there will be various approaches on display. I’m not at all confident that we will get through the day without violence, and it may be serious. Still, I think there’s something to be said for showing up and doing the best we can to stand in the way of hatred and stand firmly for love. That’s what I’ll be trying to stand for. Messy, courageous, defiant, imperfect, laughing love.

Sometimes we need to do that—stand up and be clear regarding what we stand for, and even, as Quakers say, “stand in the way” of what we think is misguided. If we don’t offer solidarity and alternative perspectives when voices of hatred are raised, then the targets of that hatred feel abandoned—because they are.

The question I wrestle with most in these kinds of conflicts is how to stand firmly in ways that make space for growth and transformation, rather than simply fueling hatred that is already burning out of control. I have found that humor, music and art can be powerful tools in that effort. Gene Sharp has documented this beautifully if you want to know more.

In the long run, though, the best strategy for countering bigotry is to build community that is strong enough to withstand it. That’s what I’ll be working on for most of Saturday. Not engaging the Klan, but connecting with and learning from Memphis activists at a big event sponsored by Memphis Unite called the People’s Conference on Race and Equality. This is the most important work we can do—exploring and experimenting together regarding how we build community, build knowledge, build understanding and build each other up for a long struggle that is much less dramatic, more important and more enduring than a Klan rally.

I’ll be live tweeting all day (@davidlamotte) if you care to read along, sharing news, images and the best things I see and hear. I’ll be flying over early in the morning from North Carolina, where I live. I’ll spend the first part of the day at the Memphis Unite Conference on Race and Equality, speaking on a panel at 11AM, then will probably head over to see how people are approaching the Klan rally. I’m not sure what I’ll see and learn, but I think I know what I want to say. It’s summed up in the last stanza of White Flour:

And what would be the lesson of that shiny Southern day
Can we understand the message that the clowns sought to convey? 
Seems that when you’re fighting hatred, hatred’s not the thing to use 
So here’s to those who march on in their big red floppy shoes

Nobel Peace Prize nominating season…

David — Sat, 23 Mar 2013 14:26:15 +0000

The American Friends Service Committee has opened a call for suggested nominees for the Nobel Peace Prize, and you are invited to submit your suggestions between now and May 1, 2013 for the 2014 prize (though please keep reading—suggestions in the ‘comments’ on this page will not make it to the committee).

AFSC and their British counterparts, Friends Service Council, now called Quaker Peace and Social Witness, accepted the Nobel Peace Prize in 1947 on behalf of Quakers worldwide. As laureates, AFSC and QPSW have the opportunity to nominate, and I have the privilege of serving as the Clerk (Chair) of the 13-member international committee that makes that selection each year.

If you would like to suggest a candidate, we ask that you not just send a name, but do sufficient research to make a compelling case as to why they fit the AFSC criteria for nomination as well as the Nobel criteria. More information and a submission form can be found on the AFSC web site. We will prayerfully and carefully consider your suggested nomination.

AFSC’s nomination for the 2013 Nobel Peace Prize is non-violence theorist Gene Sharp. He is also found among earlier nominations by the AFSC, having been put forward in 2009.

Please feel free to circulate this information widely. We welcome thoughtful input, though we encourage you to read the information on the AFSC web site thoroughly and consider it carefully when putting forward your nomination. Thank you for being interested in this work and for caring about the advancement of peace worldwide.

David LaMotte

The Fifth Annual Freedom Ball

David — Thu, 21 Mar 2013 02:34:54 +0000

Ed’s first trip to the beach after prison.

As Christmas approached last year, my thoughts were very much with my friend Ed Chapman. Ed spent nearly fifteen years in prison, thirteen of those on death row, wrongfully convicted. He was exonerated five years ago. Exoneration doesn’t involve any restitution or declaration of innocence, they just let you go. In Ed’s case, he had only a few minutes’ notice.

I hoped that Gov. Perdue would pardon Ed before she left office, and I worked hard to that end. I took a petition with hundreds of names on it to the Governor’s office and met with her senior counsel. I spread the word enough that letters to the Governor came in from all over the U.S. and even from Australia and New Zealand.

The morning she was leaving office I was in Montreat, NC speaking to 1200 people at a collegiate conference. As I talked to these students about taking action to address problems they see in the world, I gave them an opportunity to take action right then. I told them some of Ed’s story, gave them the phone number for the Governor’s office and asked them to call. They did. Hundreds and hundreds of them did.

In the end, though, the governor did not pardon Ed. She did some other wonderful things while she was in office, and issued an important pardon for the Wilmington Ten that day, but she missed the boat on this one.

Ed grew up in Hickory, but when he came out of prison, he moved to Asheville to start a new life. Friends he has made there have supported him in creating that new life, and part of that support has taken the form of a benefit concert each year at the Grey Eagle. I’ve had the privilege to play at some of them.

Here’s the good news, as told by my good friend, and friend to Ed, Cecil Bothwell:

Ed Chapman won a civil law suit against the prosecutors who suppressed evidence including the results of a police line-up, and otherwise subverted justice. He received an undisclosed settlement, but it has provided substantial help in getting his life back on track. (After 15 years of wrongful imprisonment, he was released without a penny in his pocket, or any restitution.

The Freedom Ball has been a benefit to help Ed recover from those lost years, but now, Ed wants to give back to the community that welcomed and supported him after his release, and so he wants this Freedom Ball to benefit AshevilleGO which is both a great education and environmental organization, but also a dedicated re-entry program for people exiting prison.

That’s right. Ed is OK now financially and is happy not to need that support. Rather than stop the Freedom Ball, though, he is doing a beautiful thing — re-channeling that energy that has sustained him and helping out some other people by supporting GO (Green Opportunities).

So there’s a lot to party about, and we’ve got the right team, I think. I’ll be playing some music and MC-ing the evening, and the funk and soul will be brought by ‘Free Flow’. Come out and dance, celebrate Ed’s victory and support an organization that is doing excellent work to heal Asheville on several levels.

Join us on April 4 at the Grey Eagle in Asheville. Hope to see you there.
David

California Dreaming and Changing the World

David — Fri, 08 Mar 2013 19:02:41 +0000

The alarm rang at 4AM yesterday, and that’s early for just about everyone. On the West Coast that was 1AM. And just to sweeten the deal, Sunday is the time change for Daylight Savings. Sleep schmeep!

Spending my adult life as a professional musician, I’ve probably seen 4AM on the end of my day much more often than the beginning, and I tend to like it that way. It’s worth it, though, to head out on this mini-tour to the Left Coast, where I am seeing some good friends, playing some music, having some conversations about things that matter to me, and making good on a promise.

A year ago this month I was early in the Kickstarter campaign to fund my book White Flour. I could not have imagined at that point how well that campaign would go, or what amazing things would have happened with the book in the year since. The kickstarter project had various levels of support for various ‘premiums,’ and the highest level of support, $3000, included a live concert, anywhere in the world, among other things. The good folks at Carmichael Presbyterian Church pledged that support, so this Saturday night I’ll be playing in Carmichael, and I’m really looking forward to that. As part of the show, I will read the book to these folks who midwifed its birth. It will be great to have the chance to thank them in person.

I’ll also be playing at Santa Cruz Mountain Vineyards tonight (still a few seats if you can make it!). Jeff Emery, who owns the winery, is a long-time friend of mine, and it will be great to see him and Andrea again. The winery hosts a concert series in the barrel room, surrounded by large casks of wine, and the price of admission includes a wine tasting. How great is that?

Last night I played a house concert Concord, CA at my friend Gail Doering’s home. These days I don’t do as many house concerts as I used to, but it’s great fun to have the chance to add this one on to the trip while I’m in the neighborhood. I read a poem that I haven’t shared on stage before, and a couple of newer songs. It was great fun.

For updates on these shows and others, check the tour dates page.

Sunday night I’ll lead an evening Worldchanging 101 Workshop at Davis Community Church, and lead some conversations about how large-scale change happens and how it doesn’t, and what the implications for us are, as people who are trying to create a better world.

This last part has been a real focus for me lately, and my calendar is tilting heavily toward Worldchanging Weekends, which include workshop time as well as a concert, and sometimes even preaching (as hard as I tried to resist the family legacy by becoming a long-haired folksinger instead of a pastor, somehow I find myself being asked to preach pretty often these days!). Colleges, churches, Rotary groups and others are all hosting me for these kinds of events in the coming months, and I’m thoroughly enjoying that work.

If you’re in this part of California this weekend, come on by. If not, and you’d like for me to come where you are in the coming months, drop Emma a note and we’ll see if we can set something up. Click here to download a flyer about Worldchanging Weekends.

There’s been a lot of running around lately — last week in Belize, and a couple of weeks before that in Guatemala, for instance. Next week, though, is Deanna’s spring break, and we’re headed to the beach for a few days to take a breath, and maybe catch up on some sleep!

Thanks, as always, for your interest in what I’m up to. Keep in touch!

David

The Moon and the Miracle

David — Thu, 21 Feb 2013 21:01:22 +0000

The moon and the miracle
Santee, SC
January 28, 2013

And on other nights (one night before full, or one night after) ,
the moon does not make me smile
or remember a lover who once held all of my tension and attention
I don’t think of children’s rhymes or giddy night rides with the headlights off

Instead, I am shocked by the dusty weight of the thing
On those rare nights it appears to be what it really is
A heavy, chalky stone
hanging impossibly in the sky  and not falling

As though a giant with biceps like the balanced boulders of Bryce
had fashioned a ball of clay ,
each handful scooping a new Grand Canyon,
packing it together  and heaving it into the sky
to catch there on an iron hook of gravity in motion

How is this massive, dusty thing suspended there not a miracle?

And yes, of course, I know the science ,
that even this great weight can be held in the tension
between attraction and freedom
as I once was with that long ago lover

The truth they taught me in science class is now a lie
centrifugal force isn’t really a thing, just a characteristic of inertia
and Pluto is no longer a planet, but a stone with roughly the cosmic social status of this one I’m staring at,
wide-eyed and vaguely disturbed

No matter—the science still holds water, and this stone in the sky
The rules have merely been recategorized

Understanding those rules, though, does not assuage my awe
or my delighted surprise at having this milky light suddenly slide out from behind a tree
moving the shadows of branches across my path and leaving me breathless

My sad and brilliant friend gently suggests that I am foolish for this talk of miracles, though we do not disagree about the rules of science

But must the moon break the rules to be miraculous?

I think the miracles lie within the rules themselves
That I and my friend and my far away forgotten lover and this pen and that suspended stone and the ether in which it hangs are all made up of atoms which are made up almost entirely of empty space…

Tell me that there are no miracles

And I will tell you that you are the very miracle you deny

News from Guatemala

David — Mon, 11 Feb 2013 15:21:12 +0000

Antigua, Guatemala 8AM Monday, Feb. 11, 2013

I’m waking up this morning in Quetzaltenango, Guatemala (also known as Xela), realizing that it has suddenly been a week since I arrived. The time is going quickly, and it has been a whirlwind. Here are a handful of highlights from the last week:

Camino Seguro — After years of hearing about their work, I finally spent the better part of a day with the folks at Camino Seguro (Safe Passage) in Guatemala City. They work with families who have historically made their living scavenging in the Guatemala City municipal dump. Those families, children and parents, meet the 195 garbage trucks as they come in throughout the day and separate out clothing that they can repair, wash and resell, recycling that they can gather and sell as well, any fixable or reusable goods, and food that they can eat, bones for soup, etc. I stood on the rim looking over the dump with Steve, one of the staffers there, watched people do this work and talked about some of the ins and outs of it, then went back to the preschool they operate, after which we visited their educational support program that serves older kids after school, and their literacy program for parents, and finally the crafts program they have begun to help some of the mothers find alternative income sources. It’s a bleak situation, but an impressive program. The preschool they run is easily the most beautiful and well-equipped school I’ve seen in Guatemala, and it’s serving some of Guatemala’s most needy people.

Pasaq, Xojolá, Chocola and Yaxajá — I spent two days traveling with the folks from Child Aid, who were having their annual board meeting here in Guatemala this weekend, and spent the days previous to that meeting taking a small group of board members and donors to see some of their projects. I was already familiar with a couple of those towns, because PEG has supported teacher training projects there. We observed classrooms and saw the libraries established in a couple of these towns by Child-Aid, after bouncing up rutted mountain roads in the backs of pick-up trucks to get there. A pickup truck is a common mode of transportation in rural Guatemala, with a a steel frame on the back that gives you something to hold onto as you stand in the back. This is known as a ‘picop’.

Having been in Guatemala fourteen times over the last few years, I’ve had the chance to see this kind of work done well and done poorly. For instance, sometimes books, computers and other resources are donated, but no instruction is given as to how they might serve the classroom, or how exactly one might use them (books aren’t quite as intuitive as we who have grown up with them often think — for instance, a non-fiction book isn’t intended to be read cover to cover, but how does one know that if one has never learned it?). On the other hand, groups have sometimes offered training without resources—for instance, literacy instruction training without any age-appropriate books for the students to read. Child Aid has done a great job of seeing this whole process through, seeing where the stumbling blocks lie and addressing the problems. Critical thought training is noticeably absent from most Guatemalan education, and Child-Aid is engaging with that effectively, too, with age-appropriate materials and teacher trainings for the various age groups. PEG has been happy to support that work for several years running, and it was great to have another chance to see it in action.

It’s also worth mentioning that five years ago, Child Aid had four staff people in Guatemala, two North Americans and two Guatemalans. Now they have sixteen staff people working in Guatemala, and fourteen of them are Guatemalans. The regional directors who are overseeing groups of teachers are mostly indigenous women.   On that trip we also visited a school that Child Aid will soon be working with, but isn’t yet. It’s not a scientific measure, of course, and a very small sample size, but to my eye, the difference between the learning environments in the ‘before’ and ‘after’ schools, as well as the engagement level of the students, was obvious. Child Aid is doing good work, and it continues to be a pleasure to partner with them.

On Saturday I traveled back up to Guatemala City to pick up Josh Richard, a videographer and photographer who will be traveling with me for this second week. We shot a bit of video in Antigua yesterday morning, before spending the second half of the day traveling to Xela. In the Parque Central in Antigua we talked a bit with a nine-year-old boy named José Antonio Poció Tzanpop, who was giving shoe shines. He was extremely skilled in his work, and we waited to talk to him while he shined the shoes of a woman and man. For each shine he gets between 3 and 5 quetzales, roughly 40 to 60 cents. José Antonio works twelve hours a day each Saturday and Sunday, from 7 to 7, and has been doing that for the last two years, since he was seven himself. He said he uses the money for school supplies. I asked him if he wanted to shine shoes when he was an adult and he said that no, he wants to be a doctor.

Last night we arrived in Quetzaltenango after four hours on winding Guatemalan roads and enjoyed a good meal with my friends Karla and Javier. Karla is a PCUSA mission co-worker, and has been a good mentor to me, as well as a great help connecting with the folks in Pachaj, where we are headed in a few minutes. Thanks for being interested in the work we’re doing here. More news soon…

David

A new song being born: Angelita

David — Sun, 10 Feb 2013 20:24:07 +0000

Antigua, Guatemala 8AM Sunday, Feb. 10, 2013

I wrote a song lyric yesterday that captures a bit of what I’m thinking and feeling on this particular trip to Guatemala, which must be about my tenth time here. I’m thinking about how the places we encounter literally become a part of us (and yes, I really do mean ‘literally’). And I think that extends, at least metaphorically, to how we become each other through our relationships, whether nourishing or oppressive (or bits of each).

I’m about to head to Quetzaltenango from Antigua. We’ll be visiting a school in Pachaj, an hour north of Xela, tomorrow, to see a recently expanded school that PEG helped out with the construction project. Life is good, and rich, and painful and hopeful, all at the same time, eh? Much to celebrate in every day, but maybe especially in this one.

The lyric will doubtless be re-written, but here’s a draft:

Angelita

The ground beneath my feet became the tree that stands beside me
An avocado’s hanging from that dusty roadside tree
I’ll eat that avocado with my breakfast in the morning
And the ground of Guatemala will become a part of me

They’re burning off the cane fields ‘cause it’s almost time for harvest
Those leaves will slice you bloody, so it’s best when they’re not there
You have stirred that very sugar in your Guatemalan coffee
It inhabits your own body, like this smoke hangs in this air

Don’t tell me it’s too far away, you’ve got no real connection
When it’s closer to this moment than the steaming cup you hold
Am I my brother’s keeper? No, I’m just my brother’s brother
And the family’s got some work to do to love each other whole

A burlap bag rides heavy on the bent back of an old man
His skin is thick as leather and his body knows that weight
In my country we complain our cup of coffee’s too expensive
But don’t say that to a man who trades a dollar for a day

Don’t tell me it’s too far away, that these are not our problems
That these people do not matter, that they aren’t bought and sold
Am I my brother’s keeper? No, I’m just my brother’s brother
And the family’s got some work to do to love each other whole

La pequeña angelita is smiling from a window
In a wall that’s slowly crumbling, but is painted brightest blue
And that smile draws forth another from my troubled heart and spirit
And it breaks them both wide open, and I’m changed to someone new

Don’t tell me it’s too far away, that this is not your family
That these people do not matter, or the stories they have told
Am I my sister’s keeper? No, I’m just my sister’s brother
And the family’s got some work to do to love each other whole

Worldchanging Weekends

David — Tue, 22 Jan 2013 14:00:55 +0000

For over fifteen years David has been offering Worldchanging 101 workshops and keynotes. In them, he challenges some common, but largely unexamined, ideas about how large-scale social change happens and how it does not.

We have put together a new flyer for colleges and churches about various ways to organize a weekend event or a mid-week event at a college. It includes information on content, David’s background and experience, and some sample ways to organize a schedule.

Click here to download the flyer. Please feel free to share and distribute it however you like. To discuss event ideas, fees or availability, contact Emma Harver at booking(at)davidlamotte.com, or 919.923.8494.

Interview on peacemaking and activism

David — Fri, 04 Jan 2013 03:16:03 +0000

David Dault recently interviewed me for his podcast ‘Things Not Seen.’ It was a delightful conversation, and the edited version is here. I hope you will enjoy it.

To listen, simply click here.