A Fence or an Ambulance

On August 6, 2012July 16, 2012 By MaryIn alchemy, social justice, stories for social change2 Comments

Last week I posted my version of the Allegory of the River. Any time I think about that story, I find myself thinking about the poem about the ambulance and the fence as well. You can find the poem all over the internet. It is attributed to Joseph Malins (1844-1926), who was a temperance activist in Massachusetts and in England. Malins is believed to have written this poem in 1895.

A Fence or an Ambulance

Joseph Malins (1895)

– a poem about prevention –

‘Twas a dangerous cliff, as they freely confessed,

Though to walk near its crest was so pleasant;

But over its terrible edge there had slipped

A duke and full many a peasant.

So the people said something would have to be done,

But their projects did not at all tally;

Some said, “Put a fence ’round the edge of the cliff,”

Some, “An ambulance down in the valley.”

But the cry for the ambulance carried the day,

For it spread through the neighboring city;

A fence may be useful or not, it is true,

But each heart became full of pity

For those who slipped over the dangerous cliff;

And the dwellers in highway and alley

Gave pounds and gave pence, not to put up a fence,

But an ambulance down in the valley.

“For the cliff is all right, if your careful,” they said,

“And, if folks even slip and are dropping,

It isn’t the slipping that hurts them so much

As the shock down below when they’re stopping.”

So day after day, as these mishaps occurred,

Quick forth would those rescuers sally

To pick up the victims who fell off the cliff,

With their ambulance down in the valley.

Then an old sage remarked: “It’s a marvel to me

That people give far more attention

To repairing results than to stopping the cause,

When they’d much better aim at prevention.

Let us stop at its source all this mischief,” cried he,

“Come, neighbors and friends, let us rally;

If the cliff we will fence, we might almost dispense

With the ambulance down in the valley.”

“Oh he’s a fanatic,” the others rejoined,

“Dispense with the ambulance? Never!

He’d dispense with all charities, too, if he could;

No! No! We’ll support them forever.

Aren’t we picking up folks just as fast as they fall?

And shall this man dictate to us? Shall he?

Why should people of sense stop to put up a fence,

While the ambulance works in the valley?”

But the sensible few, who are practical too,

Will not bear with such nonsense much longer;

They believe that prevention is better than cure,

And their party will soon be the stronger.

Encourage them then, with your purse, voice, and pen,

And while other philanthropists dally,

They will scorn all pretense, and put up a stout fence

On the cliff that hangs over the valley.

Better guide well the young than reclaim them when old,

For the voice of true wisdom is calling.

“To rescue the fallen is good, but ’tis best

To prevent other people from falling.”

Better close up the source of temptation and crime

Than deliver from dungeon or galley;

Better put a strong fence ’round the top of the cliff

Than an ambulance down in the valley.

So, the poem argues strongly for putting a fence around the top of the cliff. I’m a feminist, and I guess a bit of a pragmatist. In my mind there is no fence strong enough to keep everyone away from the edge of the cliff. Prevention is important for sure — it is absolutely necessary! And, I am a feminist. So, for me it is always both/and. Yes the fence! and Yes the ambulance as well — because some revolutionary anarchist is going to see that fence and take it as a challenge, as a boundary that must be broken — and who will then slip and slide down that slippery slope. So, fence and ambulance both for me!

what’s your vote? thought? reaction??

An Allegory about Rescuing the Children in the Raritan River

On July 30, 2012August 16, 2012 By MaryIn alchemy, Cloister of the Sisters of Mary Magdalene, social justice, stories for social change1 Comment

Sister Septimus had been out walking with Sister Visentia in the woodlands surrounding their cloister, the convent of the good sisters of Mary Magdalene. When Sister Septimus came back into the cloister alone, a search party was organized to look for sister Visentia. Two of the sisters in the search party, Sisters Bryda and Ludwika soon found themselves walking along the banks of the Raritan River as they searched for Sister Visentia.

The day before all of this there had been torrential rains across all of Hunterdon County, so the river was much higher than usual. This day the typically serene South Branch of the Raritan was swollen to the tops of its banks, the waters were thundering by and all in all the river looked unusually treacherous! As they peered over the banks of the river hoping that they would not see Sister Visentia in such a dangerous location, to their shock and horror, they saw a toddler bobbing in the river thrashing and struggling to keep her head above water.

Sister Bryda immediately slipped out of her cowl, scapular and tunic and dove into the river. She reached the young girl just as the child was about to go under for the third time and handed her out to Sister Ludwika. Ludwika wrapped the child in Sister Bryda’s scapular to cover her and warm her, and was ready to help Sister Bryda out of the water when they both saw another child up river a bit, and struggling. So, Sister Bryda swam up to the child, caught him and handed him up to Sister Ludwika.

Again just a Bryda was about to ask Sister Ludwika for a hand to get herself out of the river, they both hear a pair of children calling for help. Of course Bryda could not let them drown, so back into the cold, torrential river she swam. It was feeling to her that the water was getting progressively colder, and the current faster and deeper. But, these were young children, she just could not let any harm come to them. So back after them she went.

And, yes, just as she was handing the last child to Sister Ludwika, Ludwika pointed upstream again – more children! Sister Ludwika was horrified, and she could see that Sister Bryda was near exhaustion. So, Ludwika quickly helped Bryda out of the water and jumped in herself to continue the rescue operation. This went on for a while, and now both Sisters were passed exhaustion and barely able to move.

Sister Ludwika crawled out of the river, and rasped to Sister Bryda, “Someone must be throwing children into the river! I’ve got to go and stop them.”

“But, Ludwika, you can’t leave me here alone. It is taking both of us to get these children out of the water. We can’t just let them drown, and I can’t do this alone.” Sister Bryda gasped.

“Bryda, if I don’t stop whoever is throwing these children into the water, we will both be too exhausted to be any good to anyone.” countered Ludwika. And, with that she turned her back on Bryda and the toddlers, and started to walk upstream to find out who was throwing the children in the river, and to stop them. It was one of the hardest decisions Ludwika had ever made.

Sister Ludwika’s intention was prevention, but her action looked (and felt) like abandonment. Efforts for change are risky. The outcomes are rarely clear and certain. To those doing the more immediate work of addressing and repairing the harms caused by injustices, energy and resources committed to long term goals can feel like a depletion of much needed emergency resources. To those committed to longer term social change strategies targeting social change to bring about the alchemy of social justice, emergency triage work can feel short sighted. Truth be told, both are necessary. We need to heal the wounds of injustice – we need to pull the children from the river. We need to contain the consequences of injustice – we need to ensure that the children we pull from the river are loved and fed and we need to see that they don’t catch pneumonia. And, we need to build a world where fairness and respect for human dignity are the norm – we need to prevent more children from being thrown into the river. And all of that takes a village.

(versions of this story are common among community organizers. some folks attirbute early renditions of it to Saul Alinsky.)

In the beginning was the hearing

On July 2, 2012June 12, 2012 By MaryIn alchemy, growth into humanity, social justiceLeave a comment

In the beginning was the hearing. In the beginning there were consciousness raising groups. Over time small groups of women came together to tell each other our own stories.

Sooner or later, one woman would begin. Often the beginnings were hesitant and awkward. We were trying to put the pieces of our lives together. We were trying to find and claim shreds and shards and work the chaos into a collage with coherence.

One day a woman came to the group. She sat quietly listening and waiting. Finally she said: “I hurt … I hurt all over.” She paused and sat in silence for a moment, and one of us simply said, “Tell us what that is like for you.” She touched herself in various places as if feeling for the hurt before she added “but I don’t know where to begin to cry.” And then she began to tell us her life. She talked on and on. One story, one memory led to another memory and experience. “I remember waking up alone, hungry, no place to go – I must have been too young for school, no mama, no food. I was cold. I was always cold. It was always cold. School was cold. Too afraid to have friends, but they fed us there. They laughed at me there. They call them bullies now I think. I just remember the hurtin’ they put on me. Every day someone was puttin’ a hurting on me some kind of way. Then I met him, he said he would protect me, take care of me. He was nice – for a while. But then he started in on me. It was worse with him. He would beat me, and tie me down and have his way with me…” When she reached a point of excruciating pain no one moved. No one interrupted. Finally she finished. After a silence, she looked from one woman to another. “You heard me. You heard me all the way. You heard me all the way to here, to freedom. You heard me into my own skin. You heard me to life. ” Her eyes narrowed. She looked directly at each woman in turn and then said slowly: “I have a strange feeling you heard me before I started. You hear me to my own story.”

Our truth is found in our stories, our truth is found through our stories.

Listening to and hearing, really hearing each other is not an easy task. Those who have been abused, oppressed or discriminated against in any meaningful kind of way (and any abuse, oppression or discrimination is meaningful to the recipient of those kinds of acts), those people are often without hope and are mysteriously quiet. When change is inconceivable, there can be no words to articulate discontent. We can only hear silence in the very moment when it is breaking. And so, hearing each other is an essential responsibility, calling and task. Consider the image of hearing into speech, hearing into being. This is a kind of hearing that take place before speech is articulated; it is a hearing more acute than mere listening. Hearing into speech, hearing into being is a hearing engaged in by the whole body. It is a hearing that evokes speech, a new speech, a new creation. Hearing into speech, hearing into being dares not interrupt, but deepens when the telling halts or the pain becomes intense. Hearing into speech, hearing into being walks alongside the teller through her agony, and stays with her until it breaks from the inside and she touches her real self – all of her real self.

This story is inspired by the narratives in Nele Morton’s “The Journey is Home”

100th Monkey

On April 19, 2012April 22, 2012 By MaryIn alchemy, change, social justice, stories for social change1 Comment

I love the story of the 100th monkey — the monkey who tumbles everyone else over the tipping point of social/cultural change. It is one of those stories that floated around in the back of my awareness, and then, MAGIC! I was reading a book by Jean Shinoda Bolen, and she detailed the story in her book. The glories of the internet enable highlighting bits of narrative detail all the more readily, so here are the words of Jean Shinoda Bolen, followed by story as told by Ken Keyes to whom she gives source credit!

Magic is alive! Change is afoot.

THE ANTIDOTE*:

Circles of Compasson and The Millionth Circle
by Jean Shinoda Bolen, M.D.

*antidote: 1: a remedy to counteract the effects of poison. 2: something that relieves, prevents, or counteracts. ~ Webster’s New Collegiate Dictionary

The Hundredth Monkey

An idea whose time has come depends upon a critical number of people embracing a new way of thinking, feeling, or perceiving. Once that critical number is reached, what had been resisted becomes accepted. What was once unthinkable, and is then adopted by more and more people reaches a critical mass, and then becomes a commonly held standard of belief or behaviour.

When an idea is ridiculed, especially when men discount the possibility and label it as illogical as well, a story to hold onto while continuing to work on bringing about a change is a powerful inspiration. That concerned citizens could be effective in ending the nuclear arms race between the United States and Russia was a ridiculed idea, for example, and yet people began to try and the movement grew, inspired by the idea of a critical mass examplified by the story of “The Hundreth Monkey” written by Ken Keyes and spread by word of mouth. Predicated on the intuitively grasped morphic field theory, postulated by theoretical biologist Rupert Sheldrake, it told the story of how new behavior initiated by a young female monkey spread through her colony and then was observed by scientists to now be done in all other monkey colonies on separated islands, without any means of direct influence. “The hundredth monkey” was the one who became the critical number, after which all monkeys now did this new thing because every member of the same species is connected to the same morphic field.

The 100th Monkey

A story about social change.

By Ken Keyes Jr.

The Japanese monkey, Macaca Fuscata, had been observed in the wild for a period of over 30 years.

In 1952, on the island of Koshima, scientists were providing monkeys with sweet potatoes dropped in the sand. The monkey liked the taste of the raw sweet potatoes, but they found the dirt unpleasant.

An 18-month-old female named Imo found she could solve the problem by washing the potatoes in a nearby stream. She taught this trick to her mother. Her playmates also learned this new way and they taught their mothers too.

This cultural innovation was gradually picked up by various monkeys before the eyes of the scientists. Between 1952 and 1958 all the young monkeys learned to wash the sandy sweet potatoes to make them more palatable. Only the adults who imitated their children learned this social improvement. Other adults kept eating the dirty sweet potatoes.

Then something startling took place. In the autumn of 1958, a certain number of Koshima monkeys were washing sweet potatoes — the exact number is not known. Let us suppose that when the sun rose one morning there were 99 monkeys on Koshima Island who had learned to wash their sweet potatoes. Let’s further suppose that later that morning, the hundredth monkey learned to wash potatoes.

THEN IT HAPPENED!

By that evening almost everyone in the tribe was washing sweet potatoes before eating them. The added energy of this hundredth monkey somehow created an ideological breakthrough!

But notice: A most surprising thing observed by these scientists was that the habit of washing sweet potatoes then jumped over the sea…Colonies of monkeys on other islands and the mainland troop of monkeys at Takasakiyama began washing their sweet potatoes.

Thus, when a certain critical number achieves an awareness, this new awareness may be communicated from mind to mind.

Although the exact number may vary, this Hundredth Monkey Phenomenon means that when only a limited number of people know of a new way, it may remain the conscious property of these people.

But there is a point at which if only one more person tunes-in to a new awareness, a field is strengthened so that this awareness is picked up by almost everyone!

From the book “The Hundredth Monkey” by Ken Keyes, Jr.
The book is not copyrighted and the material may be reproduced in whole or in part.

Read the whole book.

One hundered monkeys and tipping points — have you ever notice a time when a critial mass was reached around an issue you were struggling to transform? Have you been witness or participant to the birth/growth of justice? what were some of the key elements that fed the alchemy?

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THE ANTIDOTE*:

Circles of Compasson and The Millionth Circle by Jean Shinoda Bolen, M.D.

The 100th Monkey

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Circles of Compasson and The Millionth Circle
by Jean Shinoda Bolen, M.D.