Last night I went to a very special evening at the UU church in Harvard Square to hear two heroes of mine, Bill McKibben and Wendell Berry, talk about civil disobedience, Thoreau, mountain-top removal, the projected pipeline, et al.

The minister of that church, Fred Small, noted that such a stellar evening felt like listening to William Lloyd Garrison and Frederick Douglass! Small’s referencing those two abolitionists was particularly apt given our New England protestant church setting, the enormity of the issue being discussed, and the towering presence of those two men.

The seventy-seven-year old Berry had reluctantly left his farm in Kentucky and flown to Boston in order to receive the Howard Zinn “People Speak” Award, given by PEN New England. How do I know he was reluctant? Because he’d commented on his growing reluctance to leave home these days and the irony that he had to expend fossil fuels in order to speak out against fossil fuels!

Since I have sufficiently gushed about Bill McKibben in previous posts, I shall celebrate this national treasure this way:

THE PEACE OF WILD THINGS

When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

— Wendell Berry

The mini-version of “American Autumn” seems to be playing out at Friends Meeting at Cambridge in the form of collaborative efforts by my fellow Quakers with like-minded activists.

(At least that’s the view from here.)

Here’s an initiative that’s recently grabbed the attention of the Prison Fellowship group I’m part of:  Abolishment of Massachusetts’ Life Without Possibility of Parole. AKA “the other death penalty.”

Newbies to this initiative, we don’t have a clue who’s doing what. Especially among members of other MA faith communities. But as we begin to learn how best to contribute to this effort, I am mindful of how, during the Civil Right Movement, well-meaning but incredibly patronizing, self-righteous Quakers (and their best buds, the American Friends Service Committee) did an enormous disservice to the cause.

So pray for us!

Van Jones. (Okay, it’s 4 pages—but worth reading!)

At a candid moment last month, in the thick of Hope and Kristian’s wedding celebrations, I blurted out: “I fear for my country.” And got a huge laugh from the crowd. A relieved sort of laugh. A “I am so glad you said that!” sort of laugh.

Sad, huh?

But yesterday, my fears were somewhat allayed at the opening ceremony for Honk! (Which always makes me cry.)

If, indeed, we are collectively witnessing “The American Autumn,” if, AT LAST, Americans are taking it to the streets to protest endless war and environmental degradation and “Wall Street,”* may American Autumn look and sound and feel like Honk:

In outlandish costume (as a guy on the 87 bus observed yesterday: “Once a year, Somerville looks like San Francisco!”). With brass bands. With much laughter and good humor and dancing. But (and this is what I so powerfully sensed at the opening ceremony) underneath all that joy pulses an absolute, steely, fundamental and profound understanding that we, the people, shall overcome.

So imagine my joy when later, hundreds of us got to sing an upbeat, peppy rendition of  ”We shall overcome”  accompanied by trombones and cymbals! Definitely uplifting.

* An all-purpose term meaning, to me, any and all heinous ways $ is mismanaged in this country. Like Bank of America now requiring a monthly fee from its debit card customers. (Although, technically, B of A ain’t ON Wall Street, I’m guessing)