December News & Views
In this Issue
Embracing Darkness, A Reflection
Third Act Faith General Meeting
3.21.23 Day of Action
More Third Act News
To Twitter or Not
Getting Organized
Did You Know?
Resources
Poll
Embracing Darkness
By Jane Ellen Nickell
Coordinating Committee Member
In these days when the seasons turn and night falls early, we find ourselves living in darkness. Many winter rituals involve lighting fires or candles, with bonfires for Yule, Hanukkah’s menorah, Advent candles, and the kinara that is lit during Kwanzaa. These dark days seem to call forth some innate desire for light.
In our quest for light, we often condemn the darkness. We construct darkness as evil, using that connotation to justify the oppression of people with dark skin. But darkness has a beauty of its own. In seeking light, we miss the mystery that lies hidden in shadows, what Henry Vaughan calls “a deep but dazzling darkness.” Light itself would have no meaning apart from the darkness. Night is the blank canvas on which the light of day is splashed.
We need the darkness. Just as surely as our bodies need the night’s rest, the earth needs this dormant period of winter. In the months when our part of the earth is tipped away from the sun, seeds lie beneath the ground, awaiting the warmth of spring. Trees stand bare, flowers die away, and grasses stop growing. In the midst of this drab season, evergreens remind us that this time is not about death, but is simply a different phase of life, as the earth cycles round to a season when nature will again flourish with new life.
As we work to address threats to democracy and impending climate disaster, many of us feel that we are experiencing a dark time. These winter days invite us to embrace the darkness and to balance our activism with rest and quiet reflection. In our winter celebrations, we engage the wisdom of ancestors through stories of how they survived difficulty. Through rituals of light, we look for signs of hope that, like the evergreens, promise a resurgence of life to come.
SAVE THE DATE: JAN. 26, 2023
Plans are underway for Third Act Faith’s second General Meeting on Thursday, Jan. 26, 2023. Look for more information to come about the meeting, here in this newsletter and on Facebook. And please share this newsletter with those you think may be interested in learning more about us.
Photo by Alison Newman with Lively Ratification
3.21.23 DAY OF ACTION
By Mary Jane Cherry
Coordinating Committee Member
It’s time to dust off and revamp a holiday tradition — the New Year’s resolution — and do something in 2023 that will be worthwhile for generations to come: that is, resolve to help save the planet! If you are reading this newsletter, you’re probably aware of this already. Here’s what you may not know: Third Act is organizing an opportunity, the 3.21.23 Day of Action, that can help us keep such a resolution — and have fun too, working with a creative community of folks who find joy and value in all creation.
What is it? On that March Tuesday, in communities across the U.S. and in Canada, Third Actors, their friends and partners in like-minded organizations will be taking action to make their convictions visible and their voices heard in the campaign to stop the Big Banks from funding the expansion of the fossil fuel industry,
Why participate? 3.21.23 promises to be “the best palindromic day ever ... the biggest day yet in the fight to shut off the flow of cash from Big Banking to Big Oil, a fight that is maybe the most important front left in the effort to keep the planet habitable,” says climate activist and Third Act founder Bill McKibben in a recent post in his blog, The Crucial Years.
What sorts of actions? Peaceful and iconic actions are being considered — demonstrations outside (perhaps even inside) local bank branches affiliated with Big Banking (i.e., Chase, Citi, Wells Fargo, Bank of America) and gatherings for protestors to (symbolically or literally) cut up these institutions’ credit cards in very public or iconic settings such as underwater near Florida’s dying coral reefs or at the site of a fire-ravaged California forest. We need you and your community to help fulfill the promise of 3.21.23, planning actions that will command your community’s – and nation’s – attention.
Not convinced yet that your participation is needed. Please visit the Third Act 3.21.23 webpage but first read Bill McKibben’s Crucial Years post to learn why your contribution is crucial. And watch for more news in this newsletter, where we plan to suggest specific actions that religious communities and individuals of faith can take.
MORE THIRD ACT CENTRAL NEWS
Send holiday cards to bank CEOs
As you prepare your holiday cards and wishes for peace on earth and goodwill to all, please write to the CEOs of Bank of America, Chase, Citibank, and Wells Fargo and tell them to make a healthy New Year's Resolution: No investments in new fossil fuel infrastructure. It's time we up the pressure on these banks after their infuriatingly disappointing participation in the Egypt Climate Conference, where they worked to weaken already-too-weak climate targets and threatened to leave the Net Zero Banking Alliance. Write directly to the CEOs and tell them personally why you don't want the banks to use your money to invest in dirty energy projects that are wrecking our planet and our future. Visit this Third Act webpage for more specifics and sample letters ready for personalizing.
Brief but spectacular on PBS
In case you missed the PBS Newshour on Dec. 6, our leader and founder Bill McKibben gave his “Brief but Spectacular Take on Climate Action” and why working together matters. In a brief 4 minutes 17 seconds, the longtime environmental activist gives a moving — and visually stunning — account of why climate action is crucial, and why people over 60 especially should be engaged in this work. And of course, he gave a plug for Third Act. Check it out!
TO TWITTER OR NOT?
Social media life has not been the same, to put it mildly, for Twitter users since Oct. 28 — the day Elon Musk bought the social media giant for some $44 billion. Since then, Musk, a self-described “free speech absolutist,” has taken steps to “open” up Twitter, which included reinstating users banned for promoting harmful content. Needless to say, these moves have provoked strong responses about the increasing presence of hate speech. And it has prompted calls for Twitter users to abandon the popular social media platform and sign on to alternatives such as Post.news or Mastodon. To better understand all the issues involved in leaving Twitter (or not), read Third Act founder Bill McKibben’s recent post.
Follow us on Facebook
Third Act Faith is monitoring the situation with Twitter and whether our partners leave for another platform. Meanwhile we are focusing our efforts on Facebook, where you’ll find news and opportunities for action by Third Actors and our partners. We encourage you to follow us on Facebook and to “like” and “share” our posts.
GETTING ORGANIZED
Faithful Banking
The Faithful Banking Committee is taking its first steps in defining and developing tools and methods needed to translate Third Act Central’s Banking on Our Future Campaign for our Faith Working Group members. Our goal is to create and distribute messages and materials that will resonate with members of our various faith communities. We’ve categorized our membership list into about a dozen different faith traditions as identified by you when you joined Third Act Faith. We need liaisons to act as communicators in each of those traditions, both to help us identify the resources we need, and to effectively take those messages to your communities. If you’re particularly well connected within your faith community and interested in helping with this effort, let us know! Email us at thirdactfaith@gmail.com with the subject: Faithful Banking Liaison. Don’t forget to let us know the denomination or faith community of which you’re a part. (Submitted by Dan Terpstra, Chair, Faithful Banking Committee)
Spiritual resilience for a season of drought
By Jerry Cappel,
Director, The Center for Deep Green Faith
Proposed: A team focused upon providing resources for spiritual resilience. We need wisdom resources for building patience and endurance. We need poetic resources to express both joy and sorrow. We need traditional resources to provide perspective. And we need shared language that builds community and empowers common action. If this interests you, email us at thirdactfaith@gmail.com with the subject Spiritual Resiliency.
Those joining the work of Third Act are doing so because they recognize an urgency in our day. We older folks are attuned to time as we watch our past grow longer and our future grow shorter. We reflect a good deal on our place in the web of life. And as our physical energies wane, we look for other sources to sustain us. This often leads to a turn toward spirituality and religious faith.
It is natural that Third Act Faith is among the first working groups organized. We are motivated, as stated in our mission statement, to explore how our spirituality and faith “direct [us] to rise from [our] places of worship to stabilize the climate and our democracy.” Not just as communities of faith but also as individuals. And not just once but again and again. And here is where spiritual resilience becomes critical to the work. Read more
Winging our way to the Wild Goose Festival
Are you drawn to Third Act’s vision of doing our work in joyous community? Then this opportunity might be for you! Third Act Faith hopes to have a big presence at the Wild Goose Festival in North Carolina in July 2023. We want to bring our campaigns of climate justice and strengthening democracy to this annual celebration of spirit, justice, art, and music. Plans are underway for Bill McKibben to be interviewed on the main stage by Brian McLaren, and for other Third Actors of Faith to engage in many ways, large and small.
We are forming a task force to bring this vision to fruition, and you’re invited to join! Contact melanielgriffin@gmail.com for more information, and check out the festival at https://wildgoosefestival.org/wild-goose-invitation/ (Submitted by Melanie Griffin, Coordinating Committee member)
DID YOU KNOW?
Millions of pounds of gift wrapping end up in landfills each year? Some 4.6 million pounds of wrapping paper are produced annually in the United States, and about half of it ends up in the trash. (The remaining paper is believed to remain in the home for reuse). Reportdedly, about 80 percent of gift wrap can be repurposed, reused or recycled. If the wrong gift paper, ribbons and decorations are mixed with the recyclables, however, then the bin may not be accepted, compounding the problem with even more waste ending up in the landfill.
RESOURCES — FOR DECEMBER
Eco-friendly gift wrapping
How can you tell if the gift wrap is recyclable? If it is “plain and simple, non-laminated, made from recycled materials, and is not too thin,” then it usually can be recycled, according to an article in Treehugger: Sustainability for All. The article shows an an easy way to confirm if the gift wrap is eco-friendly: “scrunch" it into a ball. If it it remains bunched up, it probably can be recycled. Make sure to remove the ribbon, sticky tags and attached decorations that are not recyclable. Also, check out the Dec. 9 Real Simple issue for “18+ Eco-Friendly Gift Wrapping Options You Can Feel Good About."
Videos on finding joy and inner strength
In case you missed it, you can still experience some of the wisdom offered at last month’s four-day Global Joy Summit, a celebration of joy and exploration of how joy can help us get through troubling times. The conference on Nov. 13-16 brought together neuroscientists, scholars, theologians, artists and activists. Recordings of some of this year’s conference presentations and workshops can be found on YouTube, including a panel conversation with His Holiness the Dalai Lama on “Altruism as a Source of Inner Strength.” But before you check out the conference programs, watch “Mission Joy: Finding Happiness in Troubled Times,” a poignant yet joyful documentary about the friendship and collaboration between the Dalai Lama and the late Anglican Archbishop Desmond Tutu. It's available for a fee at many streaming services. Learn more here: https://missionjoy.org/watch-the-film/