can kindness be resistance?

Table of Contents

• action as sacrament

• value-driven communities are faith-driven communit …

• applications to recent arrests

• personal updates of the week

hello hello!

for my revised book proposal, I’m reorganizing chapters by topics I think people will find interesting. things like:

• collective parenting

• prepping for the apocalypse

• so are these cults?

not all of these chapters might make it into the final book, but it’s interesting sorting through ideas/categories to explore what people might most want to read about

for my research for a chapter pitch on faith and religion, i’ve been going back through my interviews with people in the catholic worker movement, who combine religion, activism, and alternative living.

action as sacrament

Yesterday I was re-reading my interview with Brian Terell, a peace activist and leading figure in the Catholic Worker movement.

He’s run a family farm in Maloy, Iowa with his wife, Betsy, since 1986, regularly hosting volunteers and sojourners among their regular cast of goats, chickens, and fruit trees.

Brian Terrell is perhaps a poster child of putting your values into action. Beyond running a sustainable farm in Iowa, he’s been in prison multiple times for protesting nuclear weapons developments.

I’m a huge believer of putting your values into action, but the idea of doing so to the extent that Brian has exhausts me just to think about. We all have our own priorities, obligations, and capacities. Still, there’s something beautiful about the way Brian talks about turning our beliefs into action, about the sacredness of making our ideas physical and palpable.

and, that being thoughtful in how we treat each other is its own kind of resistance

value-driven communities are faith-driven communities

religion can be a divisive marker for a lot of intentional communities. a lot of groups categorize "faith-based” communities as a column of their own, even if some share many features of non-faith-based intentional communities. if you took away the Catholic underpinnings of Brian’s farm, it would look nearly identical to many small, farm-based intentional communities and ecovillages. goats are milked, work-exchange volunteers amble by, meals are shared.

after all, regardless of your personal beliefs or faith background, turning your values into your lived reality is the cornerstone of intentional communities.

applications to recent arrests

I wrote the first version of this newsletter before reading today’s news about pro-Palestine protestors from Columbia University being arrested and detained. It makes these thoughts more relevant, but also more heavy.

it’s interesting how often faith, activism, and imprisonment converge, especially when members of large religious groups are protesting ideas that are in power in the government — then, faith drives action, religious connections make them appear more threatening to those in power, and actions are taken to maintain the status quo.

i don’t feel qualified to say much about current events, and i try to stay away from the news cycles, but i felt remiss not to mention this connection.

personal updates of the week

another week, another 100 new subscribers! i’ve never done any kind of marketing before, so it’s crazy to me how marketing really works. we’re inching towards 1,000 subscribers now !

in a close tie for personal wins: this morning i went to the dentist, and not only am i cavity-free, my dentist was wowed by my tooth brushing skillz. it’s the little things.

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as always, much love,

jasper