Saturday, May 31, 2003 Meeting Notes

Meeting notes, People for Peace, Justice, and Healing

May 31, 2003

Check ins:
- Sheila recommends the book Death as a Way of Life which are essays by David Grossman written about life in Israel and the occupied territories from 1993 to 2002. Also The Global Activist’s Manual edited by Mike Prokosch and Laura Raymond, especially the piece by Starhawk. And Media Control by Noam Chomsky.
- Sallie has an unexpectedly “free weekend” which is nice as a thought but will fill with tasks quickly. She will appear in some television spots as part of the campaign at Paint Tacoma Beautiful to get more work crews. Spending time with friends.
- Dorothy visited Lopez Island to spend time with her daughter and 2 grandchildren. Needed some extra sleep, and is very enthused about the upcoming Compassionate Communication workshop. Today is the 48th birthday of Dorothy’s first daughter!
- Mark B. was inspired by Mark J.’s comment last week about the numbers of our group really being not so important, in that we are doing the work we feel we must do. Transformation is the word for this check in.
- Rob shared 2 experiences of transformation, the death of the family dog and the death of little creatures that comes from managing pests in the garden.
- Karen K. spoke of her experience of a sense of permanence that comes from owning a house. She struggles with the discrepancy between the haves and the have-nots. Creatures, gardens, bunnies, spiders, the garden. The thing may be the Call to Service, and that we can use the tools we have to help. The important thing is the connection to spirit.
- Mark J. is reading many papers at the end of class, especially difficult at times is reading the work from students in his “Quest for Global Justice” class. He anticipates putting together his academic presentation in Paris this summer. There is a new bibliography on the Middle East on the PPJH web site. The new movie at the Grand Cinema in Tacoma, "Rivers and Tides," about artist Andy Goldsworthy, is strongly recommended. Mark continues his work with the Sept. 17, 2002, document entitled "The National Security Strategy of the United States of America, and will be leading a workshop on it at the SNOW “Waging Peace for Real Security” on June 1 in Seattle.
- A friend of Sarah G. died this week.
- Marilyn has been learning a great deal from work she is doing behind the scenes regarding the Brame murder suicide and its aftermath in our community, including in depth discussion with some of our community leaders. She has developed the mantra “Bring Peace Home”. Trouble with E-mail, in that the television web service Worldgate is going away, and her address book is not importable or forwardable. Drat! (Anyone who knows how to resolve this problem, get in touch with Marilyn).

AGENDA

1. Non Violent Communication Workshop. To be held Saturday, June 7, 9:30 a.m. - 2:30 p.m., at the Student Union Rotunda at UPS. There will be no regular PPJH meeting on that day. The development of ongoing practice groups is a hoped-for result of this workshop. There will be 2 tables, one for greeting and collection of donations, the other for books and materials. Several folks volunteered to arrive early to help set up.

2. Earth Charter Summit. This is slated to take place on October 11, times and place TBD. The committee working on this event will meet next on Tues. June 10. They want more folks on the committee. For time and place, contact Karen K. ( karenkonrad@aol.com ).

3. Meeting time management. We talked about the ongoing struggle to honor our time for sharing together in the check in as well as our time to dig into the agenda and get some of that type of work and planning done as well. We decided to continue honoring and continue struggling.

4. Announcements.

(1) Saturday, June 21st, 7:00 p.m. at the Antique Sandwich Company, $10 at the door ($5 seniors and children. On Pearl Street just before Point Defiance. Benefit for United for Peace of Pierce County (UPPC), featuring singer/songwriter Jim Page, the Tacoma chapter of the Raging Grannies, and Holly Gwinn Graham. Also, the Useful Fools (Josh Graham, Tom Bates, and Marilyn Kimmerling) will be at the benefit.

(2) Tuesday evening July 15 UFPPC is having a workshop. Medea Benjamin of Global Exchange and the national United for Peace and Justice coalition will speak, as well as Jackie Hudson, an activist with Ground Zero. The general theme is next steps for peace activists. After the speakers we will break down into groups on various topics. The event will be held at the First United Methodist Church on MLK drive next to Tacoma General Hospital. UPPC meets every other Thursday, the next meeting is Thursday, June 5, 7:00 p.m. at the First United Methodist Church.

(3) The current issue (June) of Harper’s Magazine, in the Readings section, under the title THIS HAPPENS EVERY DAY are some of Rachel Corrie’s emails. Rachel was an American activist and a student at The Evergreen State College, who was crushed to death by a bulldozer on March 16 as she tried to prevent the Israeli army from destroying a Palestinian home in the south Gaza Strip.

(4) Sunday, June 6, in Olympia, there will be a gathering with peace activists returning from New York City direct actions. (I think this is right). The time and place for this to be announced. I am not sure of a contact for this one, but it might be http://www.omjp.org/about.html.

(5) On June 13 Evergreen will have its commencement. The speaker is Amy Goodman of Democracy Now! on Pacifica Radio. Rachel Corrie will also be awarded a posthumous degree.

(6) Communications to the FCC committee chaired by Michael Powell would be great, as a vote to allow greater corporate concentration of media ownership and control is to be held on Monday, June 2.