You may have heard or read about the efforts of the Friends Committee on National Legislation to form teams of Friends (including non-Friends who sympathize with our peace testimony) in as many states as possible to lobby our representatives in Congress to foster peace with their votes rather than further “defense” spending.
A few of us in the Rochester meeting undertook developing an advocacy team in Monroe County, and this is what I learned.
New York Quakers from Friends Committee for National Legislation (FCNL) Advocacy Groups in New York met with Senator Gillibrand’s staff, Ben Lebowitz, Legislative Aide for Defense, Foreign Policy, and Homeland Security, on June 29, 2023. It was a short meeting, only 15 minutes, but it seemed to make an impression.
Last month was Mess-Up Month for my husband and me: There was the overdrawn checking account; the flight one of us erroneously cancelled, having to last-minute book at twice the price; a flight reserved with a layover, when it could have been direct — and for less; the credit card one of us “lost,” then cancelled, only later to be found under some papers.
Buffalo Quakers have been providing help all summer with the Lincoln Memorial United Methodist Church garden which produces a variety of vegetables and herbs in 22 raised beds. Spirit animates Nature to grow, grow, grow in this most abundant of seasons, and the garden now is overflowing with produce.
Tom Head is a Quaker economist who believes we must help “bring a moral vision to economic life.” Relying on the discipline of formal economics, he says, is not the answer because it rarely sees itself as connected to morality and religion. If we want to build an economic system that benefits all, answers to questions about what is the “morally right thing to do?” must come from beyond the discipline of economics. We need economists to take that step beyond and envision how things ought to be. For example, “What might a good economy look like?”
The Alternatives to Violence Project (AVP) is growing in Buffalo, and those of us in Buffalo Monthly Meeting involved are excited to join other members of the local community in building a more just and peaceful Western New York by establishing a regular schedule of community AVP workshops in Buffalo.