Spirit In Action

George Lakey passes on the inspirations that led him to a life of activism & social change, among them Bayard Rustin & Lucrecia Mott. George has more than 50 years experience with on-the-ground activism & activism education, including the establishment of TrainingForChange.org, his WagingNonviolence.org blog, and many books including How We Win and Viking Economics.

There are climate advocates everywhere including in sports, the circus, and in mermaid drag. Peterson Toscano of Citizens Climate Radio talks with Lew Blaustein of Green Sports Blog, Brewers pitcher Brent Sutter of Strike Out Waste, Eliana Dunlap of the Circus Action Network, Angel Collinson of ProtectOurWinters.org, and Elizabeth Doud performs in The Mermaid Tear Factory. Full Notes: There is a growing movement among professional athletes. Beyond greening the sportsworld, more and more champions are using their platforms to urge large scale responses to climate change. Lew Blaustein, editor at Green Sports Blog, writes about this trend. He has been introducing Citizens Climate Radio host, Peterson Toscanoto, to professional athletes who are not afraid to talk about climate change. Brent Suter received a scholarship to play baseball at Harvard University, where he studied environmental science. He learned about the effects of climate change and what how we need to drastically reduce our pollution. At first th

Exploration of how spiritually-root service can transform the paths of young volunteers. There's riches in the experience with the Peace Corps, Americorps & VISTA, Teach for America, & many more, but today we visit with several folks with QVS (Quaker Volunteer Service). QVS provides a year of service, living at the intersection of transformational spirituality and activism. Claire Hannapel, is a former fellow with QVS Atlanta and is the current QVS Outreach & Development Coordinator, KT Glusac & Dillon Sebastian are fellows with the QVS Minneapolis, Zo Enciso Edmiston is with QVS Portland, and Cynthia Bartoo acts as support to QVS Minneapolis fellows. Featured Music: Gonna Take It With Me - performed by Ben Tousley & Sue Kranz on Take Hands View this QuakerSpeak video of several former QVS fellows.

Pamela Boyce-Simms does so much & is active at so many different levels that there is just too much to talk about. In addition to her work with Evolutionary Cultural Design, her engagement with The Transition Movement, her 37 years of Buddhist practice, and 13 years of Quaker practice, Pamela is engaged with the African Diaspora Plant Medicine Project, intending to root, empower, & build resilience at the fundamental level of food & medicine.

Jim Kessler has taught biology for 34 years in Iowa, in the course of which he found a leading to restore the native habitats on a plot of 29 acres that he and his wife bought, including some 15 acres of Tall Grass Prairie, now held by the Bur Oak Land Trust. Jim Kessler is passionate about the type of environment we can, and need, to restore, and has been carrying the good news of an Earth reborn widely, including working Quaker Earthcare Witness to get the word out. Resources include the Prairie Resource Center of Iowa DNR, the Tallgrass Prairie Center of UNI, and many more.

Tim Reed is active with a number of protests, witnesses, and helping hands to those in pilgrimmage across the Mexico/USA border in the Las Cruces NM area. He is active with Oak Tree Project and NM CAF (Comunidades en Accin y de F), protested at Tornillo Dentention tent city, and sought communication with the authorities on the border. Featured Music: People Once Were Welcome Here - by Steve Deasy

We need a vision of the better world in order to energize our drive to it, and Martin Schoenhals does an amazing job of providing a scientifically-based vision in Work, Love, & Learning in Utopia - Equality Reimagined. He is a cultural anthropologist who has taught at several universities, including Johns Hopkins, Columbia, and, currently, Appalachian State University, in Boone, North Carolina. Confronting hierarchy as a primary destructive force, Martin envisions a world where full equality is the norm and coercion no longer employed, and in which the happiness of all is maximized. Discuss your issues & insights about Utopia with Martin at mdsnewyork@gmail.com.

A visit to the 2019 Juneteenth celebration in Eau Claire, WI. Speakers included Berlye Middleton, 1st African-American Eau Claire city council member, and president of Uniting Bridges of Eau Claire, Selika Ducksworth-Lawton, a history professor at UW-Eau Claire, Aaron Zook - Priest in Charge at Christ Episcopal Church in Chippewa Falls, Sarah Ferber, associate director of Chippewa Valley EXPO, Rep. Jodi Emerson. Music was provided by Irie Sol. Production Assistance via Converge Radio

The Bible Bash Podcast is hosted on Northern Spirit Radio because of the way that Peterson Toscano of Citizen's Climate Radio and Liam Hooper, of Ministries Beyond Welcome, use their expertise and insight to transform the way we think about the Bible and what it means in our lives. As a gay man and a trans man, they see things that many others have been blind to. As they co-host today, they consider two Bible verses and two non-Bible inspirational passages, to think deeply about inclusion, belonging, immigrants, the Earth, and connection.

Nadine Hoover has some 40 years experience working for and training people for peace, much of it in Southeast Asia. Having found that her work as an international project manager wasn't doing what she wanted, she immersed herself in the work of AVP - Alternatives to Violence Project, and major peace work and training with the FriendsPeaceTeams.org. With amazing, frightening, & inspirational stories, Nadine passes on tools for peace-making in the toughest places. Find lots of resources via ConscienceStudio.com, and in Nadine's books, like Creating Cultures of Peace: A Movement of Love and Conscience and also The Power of Goodness: Art and Stories for a Culture of Peace.

Roger Gottlieb brings piecing, passionate, comprehensible analysis to our looming environmental disaster, its root causes, and possible ways forward in the newly released book, Morality & the Environmental Crisis. Combining rigorous examination with principled spirituality, Roger shows clear-eyed possibilities for healing our Earth connection, not a moment too soon. Roger Gottlieb is Professor of Philosophy at Worcester Polytechnic Institute.

In his new book, Race and Social Change: A Quest, A Study, A Call to Action, Max Klau uses wide-ranging social science investigation to search for a way forward on dealing with racism and privilege in the USA. The starting point is Camp Anytown's Separation Exercise, which has led to the awakening of many minds. Max's exploration of that tool, supplemented by his years of service as VP of Leadership Development at City Year and currently as CPO with the New Politics Leadership Academy, have given him powerful insights into the dynamics of human growth and change. Featured Music: That Kind of Grace - by Anne Hills & David Roth

Climate change has real clout on Gael Henry Carluts Pandan Island in the Philippines, as Marissa Slaven brings the crisis to life with her eco-mystery novel, Code Blue. Nicole Chatterson hauls plastic out of the Pacific next to Hawaii, while Dominic Scicchitano finds micro-plastics in Pennsylvanias Susquehanna River. Eileen Flanagan harnasses social change energy, while Robin Boardman & many others fight for the future as part of Extinction Rebellion. Peterson Toscano brings them all together through Citizens' Climate Radio.

Across the country, the National War Tax Resistance Coordinating Committee (NWTRCC) links energies of folks like Anne Barron of the Peace Resource Center of San Diego, the Truth & Poverty Tour in San Diego, and War Tax Redirection, and Larry Bassett, the curmudgeonly, conscientious, Gandalf-bearded subject of the documentary, The Pacifist (trailer and full video). Part of WTR history: An Act of Conscience, (trailer and full video)

How does one learn about the alternatives to paying half your federal income tax to the military? Lincoln Rice, coordinator for the National War Tax Resistance Coordinating Committee (NWTRCC.org) sent out a message about groups doing that kind of education around Tax Day 2019. We visit with Lincoln about that report, and his work with the Casa Maria Catholic Worker House in Milwaukee, and with Sue Barnhart of Eugene, Oregon's Taxes For Peace Not War.

Tyler Norman and the folks of the Mutual Aid Disaster Relief network are exploring and implementing a new way to deal with the rising number of disasters that have been demanding rapid response, including those caused by climate change, like floods, hurricanes, and fires. Using a horizontal and co-conspirator model of organizing, they've leveraged lots of solutions to bring people together in strength under ther motto Solidarity Not Charity.

Our justice system is deeply flawed, and one of the forces working to repair the breaks is MOSES (Madison Organizing in Strength, Equality, and Solidarity), a congregation-based community effort to transform the criminal justice norms of Madison, WI, as part of a statewide organization, WISDOM, which is affiliated nationwide with Gamaliel. Eric Howland is President of MOSES, and, among other things, was a founder of station WIDE-LP FM. Restore Our Communities Wisconsin is a statewide effort to reform the system. Featured Music: A Mean Kind of Justice - by Carrie Newcomer

Our democratic republic has been seriously undermined, particularly over the past 10-15 years, but fortunately there are people like Jay Heck, executive director of Common Cause - Wisconsin, working diligently to rebuild the structures of democracy. Common Cause works nationally for government of, by, and for the people by fighting against gerrymandering, voter suppression, & buying elections, and working for ethics, accountability, & voting rights.

Racial Color-Blindness & Diversity Training can't get us to MLK's Dream, but maybe Race-Conscious Parenting can. Jennifer Harvey is the author of Raising White Kids: Bringing Up Children in a Racially Unjust America, with both practical & philosophical guidance for those who would like to make the dream real. Jennifer's Ph.D. from Union Theological Seminary is in Christian Social Ethics, and she is Professor of Religion at Drake University.

In the land of "he who dies with the most toys wins" and where we're taught that more-and-more possessions will make us happy, it's hardly a surprise that hoarding is of epidemic proportions. Though the disorder has been addressed piecemeal, Catholic Charities of Milwaukee created a comprehensive Hoarding Intervention & Treatment Program in 2016, whose Director, Carla Alejo, is also chair of the Milwaukee Hoarding Task Force. Other organizations addressing elements of the disorder are The Anxiety Treatment Center, the Institute for Challenging Disorganization, & the International OCD Foundation.