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December
Reflections on the transition movement: Confessions
of an activist Elder Facing Up to the Fierce
Urgency of the
Now!
I was sitting in a first of its kind meeting in the
Louisville, Colorado library about six months ago
when Michael Brownlee, the presenter, from
Transition Boulder, began to talk about “The
Long Emergency” and “The Energy Descent
Plan.” He definitely got my attention and I
squirmed uncomfortably in my chair. What I had felt
intuitively for a couple of years was now being
confirmed by hard science and irrefutable data.
There’s a big hole in our lifeboat, and the
whole planet is in that one lifeboat!
Getting it right today has a fierce urgency in
virtually every aspect of our lives. Nowadays, the
margin for error and the cost of our individual and
collective errors carries a heavy price. Well now
I’m 65 and when I started driving, gasoline in
my home town of Gettysburg, Pa. was 28 cents a
gallon. I could go to a Saturday matinee for 50
cents and have enough money to buy a bag of popcorn
and a soft drink too! Talk about living in a
fantasy world of “more is better” and
unlimited industrial growth!
Throughout my adult life, my professional
challenge has been to cut through denial and
motivate people to give money to save lives
–like getting people to give money to six
million starving Ethiopians when it is the tenth or
so time we have had this issue to confront as a
moral and humanitarian issue.
I’m writing this to you to beckon you
forth. I’m impressed by the transition
movement –as the most hopeful and rapidly
growing social movement in the world. I say this as
an activist who was deeply involved in the peace
movement, the women’s rights movement, the
nuclear weapons freeze and peace movement and the
environment movement. I’ve also written about
these movements professionally for 30 years as a
fundraising copywriter. I say all this to you so I
cannot be accused of suffering from naïve
bliss and enchantment. Brothers and sisters, this
is the real thing! Check it out!
Other movements wax and wane over time. But not
this time. Not with transitions. How come? Because
history is breathing down our backs at every
moment. Here’s my gut truth -- If we are to
have life, we will be in transition as far as we
can read our collective future. As the comics like
to say: De-nial ain’t just a river in Egypt.
Americans in cities and small town are getting
blasted –like inhaling ammonia accidentally!
It shocks you, it penetrates your body, and it is
very unpleasant, and if you’d done it, like
me, you don’t do it again!! We need to get
over and get beyond our small ego selves!
Remember Small is Beautiful from the 1970’s
and the mantra “Live Simply So Others May
Simply Live”? Smallness and living simply have
shifted from theoretical values and principles into
hard, practical necessities. History, rather than
our personal whims, is clearly calling the agenda
and will do so for coming generations after us.
So what I know from being involved with the
transition movement in Colorado is that the social
and economic context of this movement is right on.
And the grassroots, from the bottom up, open-ended
approach to change and constantly adapting the
movement are also right. Transition is
post-partisan, trans-religious, local/global,
inclusive and inter-generational – and fun!
Refreshingly, for once, it is clearly not an
American thing. But it is a very local thing and it
is also a movement built on volunteer time, vision,
money and energy. But most importantly, it is built
and runs on heart.
Because I’m a “Curious George”
type of guy, I went to the internet and did a key
word search of “peak oil” “climate
change” and “economic collapse”, the
three pillars of the transition movement. Each of
these phrases has tens of millions of listings on
the web. So it’s clear to me knowledge is not
our issue.
I lived in Detroit just 12 blocks from where the
riots erupted. I had just left the U.S. Army and
Fort Bragg, North Carolina and settled into an
apartment. Shortly thereafter, I saw my own 82nd
Airborne Division on West Chicago Boulevard in
front of my home in armed personnel carriers with
machine guns and all the rest. Talk about a wake up
call! As bad as that experience was, I believe what
we experience today is much more complex,
troubling, insidious and pervasive.
James Baldwin in his book The Fire Next Time
quotes scripture: “God gave Noah the rainbow
sign. No more water but the fire next time.”
Then Baldwin, being a poet, coins a new term
–“historical vengeance”. Sometimes
we reach a point of no return. This is where all of
humanity stands today – literally on the brink
of historical vengeance. We act – and act
boldly – or history will solve the problem
brought on by our stiff-necked denial and refusal
to act.
In his noted “Letter from Birmingham
Jail”, Martin Luther King, Jr. first used the
now historic and compelling words “the fierce
urgency of the now.” And so, my brothers and
sisters, we come full circle. I am an elder
confessing to you it took me a long while to wake
up from the trance of industrial growth culture and
my addiction to affluence. Now I humbly bow my knee
before the cosmic realities of peak oil, climate
change and economic collapse. History has a claim
on me – and on you too.
My life is different because of the wonderful
men, women and children I’ve met on the
journey of transition. I’ve been cared for by
witnessing the truth-speaking and simple living of
my transition comrades in arms. I invite you to
come along. Have fun with us, learn, and serve with
us and your neighbors near and far. The prophet
tells us “For everything there is a season,
and a time for every purpose under heaven.”
Now, most certainly is the season. A season of
being in this world that never ends! Ours is a
Journey of Endlessness. And so, I bless you on your
journey. Until we meet in person, I take my leave
from you with these inspiring words adapted from
the English poet, Christopher Fry:
“Dark and cold we may be. But this is no
winter now. The frozen misery of centuries --
cracks, breaks, begins to move. The thunder is the
thunder of the floes! The thaw! The flood! The
upstart spring! Thank God, our time is now. When
Wrong comes up to meet us everywhere, never to
leave us until we take the longest stride of soul
folk ever took. Affairs are now soul-size. Our
enterprise is exploration into the human heart.
Where are you making for? It takes so many thousand
years to wake. But will you wake for pity’s
sake? But will you wake for pity’s
sake?”
©2009, Forrest
Craver
* * *
Man becomes great exactly in the degree to which
he works for the welfare
of his fellow man. - Mahatma Gandhi
Forrest
Craver has been doing men’s work for more than
20 years. He was senior interviewer for Wingspan:
Journal of the Male Spirit for many years. He has
led or co-led more than 40 retreats or workshops
for men including The Mankind Project, Men in
Recovery, and regional clergy retreats for United
Methodist and ELCA denominations. He is a lawyer
and a nationally recognized fundraising consultant
for nonprofit groups. He is the author of a short
book of Spiritual Poetry entitled “This Well
Has No Bottom” and is finishing a book about
intergenerational breakthrough approaches for boys
and men in American culture. His websites are
cravercreativeservices.com/and
transitioncolorado.ning.com/profile/forrestcraver
or eMail.He
lives and works in the Denver metro
area.
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