For the past few weeks, I have been learning how to sing.  Once a week, members of the Unitarian Church, social activists, and climate activists have been gathering together to learn the some of the old protest songs that buoyed up the abolition movement, the civil rights movement, and the peace movement.  I won’t lie.  It’s a little awkward to find my voice and raise it up in public.  But as I learn the classic songs of civil dissent, like “We Shall Not Be Moved,” and “Been to Jail for Justice,” I have begun to think that maybe we all need to practice raising our voices a little bit more.  These classics have also made me think about the corrective role of civil disobedience in a free society.

Dissent is a part of democracy and civil disobedience can be a courageous act of dissent.  A person practicing civil disobedience puts his liberty on the line in order to continue living with a free conscience.  Thanks to such courageous acts, slavery is illegal, women have the right to vote, black and white customers share the same lunch counter, and children no longer work in mines or sweatshops. 

This Monday, February 28, Tim DeChristopher will face trial in Salt Lake City for objecting to the government’s prioritization of fossil fuel interests over the public’s interest in a livable future in the face of climate change.   On December 19, 2008 as the Bush Administration headed out of office, it offered oil and gas companies the opportunity to purchase leases to drill in scenic and biologically sensitive areas.  Some of the parcels bordered Arches National Park, Dinosaur National Monument, the Needles Overlook and Hatch Point, while others were on sage-grouse habitat or on wilderness-quality land. 

Tim intended to join a group of protesters lawfully picketing the auction outside the U.S. Bureau of Land Management office.  On arrival, it took only a few minutes for him to recognize the familiar dynamic plaguing our nation’s relationship to fossil fuels:  the people were outside, while the oil and gas companies were inside.  An economics student at the University of Utah, Tim had recently taken a final exam that asked whether the sale price of the oil and gas leases at the BLM auction would accurately reflect fair market value if the only bidders in the room worked for oil and gas interests.

Tim decided to go inside. 

The rest of the story is common knowledge.  Tim became Bidder 70.  He bid up the price of several leases (initially they were selling for only $2.00 an acre).  Halfway through the auction, he began winning leases.  Recognizing that something was awry, the auctioneer called for a break and eventually canceled the auction.  This bought enough time for a federal court to review the sale and issue a temporary restraining order for apparent procedural problems.  Later, when the BLM re-evaluated the appropriateness of selling each parcel, it concluded that only 17 of the 77 parcels were ready to be leased.  The other 60 parcels were either inappropriate for oil and gas development or inadequately evaluated. 

Although both the judicial branch and the executive branch seen to have concluded that the December 19, 2008 auction was unlawful, Tim will spend Monday morning facing the possibility of ten years in prison. 

Why is the federal government pushing for a criminal conviction in this case?  When a citizen defies an admittedly unlawful government act, what good is served by criminal punishment?  Tim acted on behalf of all of us, pushing the government to protect our public lands and our right to a livable future in the face of climate change.  Even the Department of Defense has recognized that climate change presents a serious threat.  Yet, the fossil fuel industry continues to enjoy subsidies, tax breaks and preferential treatment inside the halls of Congress while “We the People” wait outside. 

It’s time for reform.  And it’s time to show support for members of our community with the moral courage to align their conscience and their actions by standing up for our right to a livable future.  That is why I, and many others, will stand in solidarity with Tim on Monday outside the courthouse.  Oh, and by the way, we’ll be singing.

Jamie Pleune, a sixth generation Utahn, lives in Salt Lake City.  She recently completed a 350 mile “Pilgrimage for Hope” through Utah to raise awareness for climate change. You can learn more about the “Bidder 70” trial by visiting www.peacefuluprising.org.

        “’Tis grace hath brought us safe thus far, and Grace will lead us home.”
                                   - From Amazing Grace, by John Newton, 1779

We finished the last twenty miles of our 350 mile walk in Salt Lake City.  We walked from the “This Is the Place” Monument along the Chevron crude oil pipeline that rings Salt Lake City, past the State Capitol, past our house, through an industrial area that we call Refinery Row, and back up to the State Capitol.  Four friends and our dog joined us for the last seven miles—an unsavory tour past a huge oil refinery, a strip club, a railroad transfer station, several storage facilities and metal recycling collection yards.

The weather was cold and grey.  Inversion-trapped smog blanketed the valley with air so thick that visibility stretched only about 100 yards.  Billboards would unexpectedly emerge from the heavy, polluted fog as we walked through the paved landscape designed for cars, trucks, and tractor trailers but not pedestrians.  Passing the refinery, we heard an unlikely sound—music.  We drew closer to the refinery, trying to identify the source of the music.  Through the chain link fence, we stared over a sea of abandoned cars at the incomprehensible tangle of steel that eventually rose into several smokestacks belching smoke and steam.  The music seemed to emerge from two small speakers mounted atop an old white milk truck.  Next to the speakers, stood a pink plastic flamingo, one of the only spots of color in our line of sight.  As we stared at this apocalyptic scene, the strains of music organized themselves into the familiar tune “Amazing Grace.” 

The history of the song Amazing Grace is well-known.  John Newton, a slave trader, called out to God for help during a harrowing storm, his experience of grace in that moment eventually led him to revoke the slave trade, become a minister, and eventually an abolitionist.  Though John Newton gets credit for the words of the song, the origins of the tune are less familiar.  Wintley Phipps, a minister, singer, and community activist attributes the tune to slaves.  According to Phipps, Newton learned the tune (consciously or unconsciously) during the Atlantic passage because it was a West African sorrow chant that arose from the bowels of the slave ship.  Phipps’ story creates a beautiful paradox:  a song about moral awakening set to the soundtrack of a morally depraved practice. 

Throughout American history, Amazing Grace has given strength to social movements and punctuated tragedy.  In the mid 1800’s it strengthened abolitionists like Harriet Tubman, a hero of the underground railroad.  During the Civil Rights marches it unified marchers who were determined to force the political system to rise above state-sponsored inequity.  During the Vietnam War protests, singers like Judy Collins used it as a tool for peace.   Amazing Grace also played at the memorial services after the Challenger explosion, the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the Virginia Tech Massacre, and most recently, the Arizona shootings. 

In a country dominated by the rational, market-oriented paradigm that “there is no such thing as a free lunch,” it is somewhat surprising that the concept of grace has such a broad appeal.  After all, grace is a free lunch.  Perhaps that is why we sing Amazing Grace at poignant social moments: Grace trumps the principle of quid pro quo (this for that). 

Our social history cannot be explained with a “this for that” paradigm.  Slavery did not end because the cumulative measure of actions opposing slavery suddenly outweighed the sum of actions embracing slavery.  The Civil Rights Act did not pass because there were more people marching for equality than against it.  And, when courageous individuals overpowered Jared Loughner, stopping his shooting rampage in Arizona, they did not immediately kill him in retaliation.  In each of these examples, the outcome is far greater than the sum of individual actions.  These events mark moments of grace. 

So, what does Amazing Grace have to do with climate change and a 350 mile pilgrimage across Utah that ended in front of a refinery on a dreary, smoggy day?  When I left, I thought that our pilgrimage would symbolize the effectiveness of accomplishing a long and arduous journey one step at a time.  I wanted to physically demonstrate the principle that small tasks (like writing a letter to our congressmen, calling our elected officials, attending political rallies, and getting involved with local advocacy groups) could string together in a series of coordinated events to accomplish a larger goal.  More than anything, I needed to understand this concept myself.  I often feel paralyzed by the insignificant scale of personal action and I justify my inaction with the mantra that “I can’t make a difference anyway.”  I wanted to break out of this cynical eddy.

Small steps can string together to achieve a larger goal.  But, as anyone who has ever tried to grow a garden will attest, hard work and determination are not enough to produce results.  Just as soil, water, seeds, and effort do not automatically produce fruit, meetings, marches, and lobbying do not automatically produce social change.  There must be something else.  Some call it synergy; some call it timing; some call it magic; some call it God; some call it grace.  As I re-shoulder the burdens and obligations of daily life, I find myself contributing to climate change more often than combating it.  I question the effectiveness of the small actions that I have time to take.  And I wonder if we will ever have the personal restraint to reduce our consumption of resources enough to effectively address climate change.  During these moments of doubt, I remind myself that although I embarked on a pilgrimage for hope, I was welcomed home by grace.    

We finished the backcountry portion of our journey.  Our packs sit in the corner of our room.  No quick trip to the grocery store to resupply or the Laundromat to clean our camping clothes this time.  We have permanently switched back to our “town clothes.” 

Friends keep asking me, “What next?” 

I try to provide an answer even though I keep asking myself the same thing.

“What next?” is not the only question looping through my head.  What have I learned?  Have we accomplished what we set out to do?  What did we set out to do? Did I find hope?

Hope . . .  Last summer as oil flowed into the Gulf, drowning pelicans, smothering fish, and poisoning plankton, I joined a handful of exasperated citizens on a small patch of lawn near the Capitol for a rally.  Microphones almost outnumbered attendants.  The pitifully small gathering amplified my feeling of despair.  After I left the event, a line from one of the speeches kept echoing in my head.  “Hope is an action not an emotion.”  I liked the sound of the phrase, so I began using it in essays and editorials as I planned our pilgrimage.  But, secretly, I questioned its wisdom.  If hope is an action, how do you “do” hope?

Turns out, the rabbi who spoke those words is not the only person who believes in a connection between hope and action.  In his “I Have a Dream” speech, Martin Luther King Jr. described hewing a stone of hope from the mountain of despair.  Vaclav Havel, playright and former president of Czechoslovakia, described hope as “an ability to work for something because it is good, not just because it stands a chance to succeed.”  Echoing the theme of action, Rebecca Solnit concluded that hope “should shove you out the door” because it means that “another world might be possible, not promised, not guaranteed.”  To summarize these great thinkers, hope involves change, risks failure, and promises no certain outcome.  Perhaps that is why hope feels scary. 

Ever since something—either a mountain of despair or a buried stone of hope—shoved me out the door and onto the trail, I have felt scared.  Climate change is such a threatening concept that it’s best not to bring it up in polite company.  As Ryan and I prepared to radically alter our lives in order to spark public conversations about climate change, even our family members avoided the topic.  Throughout this journey, fear has been a constant companion.  Not the paralyzing fear of doom and gloom, but the invigorating fear that warns of a risk and inspires a creative response.  Every time I initiate a conversation about addressing climate change, or explain to someone why we are walking 350 miles through Utah, I feel like I am standing at the top of a high dive knowing that I am about to intentionally leave the ground behind.  I am afraid of the consequences of speaking publicly about such a polarizing issue.  I wonder if this public pilgrimage will make me less employable.  I worry that friends will think I have gone off the deep end.  In the midst of these fears, I feel alive. 

As I look back over our journey, I do not think that I “found” hope.  But, I did learn to gamble.  I bet on “the possibility that an open heart and uncertainty are better than gloom and safety”—and that might just be one way to “do” hope. 

Phil Aroneau at 350.org did a great posting on our journey.

http://www.350.org/en/about/blogs/taking-walk-wild-side

And Peg McEntee at the Salt Lake Tribune wrote a fantastic article.

http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/home/50820368-76/walk-climate-jamie-mcentee.html.csp

KSL did a great news story on the evening news last night.

“And the world cannot be discovered by a journey of miles, no matter how long, but only by a spiritual journey, a journey of one inch, very arduous and humbling and joyful, by which we arrive at the ground at our feet, and learn to be at home.”  Wendell Berry

 We finished the second third of our journey in the dark.  The day had begun at the bottom of Dark Canyon.  We climbed up out of the canyon as the sun’s rays slowly made their way down.  Soon, the large yellow cottonwood trees where we camped became dots of bright color in a vast landscape of rock carved by time.  After several hours, we reached the top of the canyon and headed over land across white slick rock that had eroded into pockets, crevices, and small arroyos.  Eventually, we reached a road.  From there, our legs covered the miles quickly.  As the waxing moon rose, we arrived at our car. 

We felt reluctant to enter the car and end this section of our journey.  In the dark, we turned to face the direction from which we had come.  We raised our arms above our heads, stretching until our hands seemed to blend into the stars and our chests blurred into the shadow of the mesa in front of us. 

“Thank you.”  The words came without invitation and took up residence as I thanked each place we had visited:  Salt Creek, a corridor of windows into the past; North Long Point, a mesa filled with coyotes, deer, cattle, and jeeps; and finally Dark Canyon, a world of granite, water, unexplored side canyons, and adventure.

Now, in front of the computer, I struggle to explain the liberation encompassed in that space of gratitude.  I felt heir to Aldo Leopold.  “I am glad I shall never be young without wild country to be young in.  Of what avail are forty freedoms without a blank spot on the map?” 

These wild places restore my soul.  Here, the humbling scale of life displays itself, from rock records of solidified sand dunes and extinct shallow seas to the evocative chorus of coyotes at dusk.  I finally understood the end of Mary Oliver's poem, Wild Geese.
              "Whoever you are, no matter how lonely, the world offers itself to your i               imagination.  Calls to you, like the wild geese, harsh and exciting--
                 over and over announcing your place in the family of things."

Right before we left for the second third of our journey, we were contacted by Betty, a woman who has embarked on her own adventure: 365 days of giving away $100 dollars a day to causes that inspire her.  She chose us! 

Scrolling through the other causes that she has supported was truly humbling.  Her write-up on the project is here.  In case the link doesn't work, the address is http://whatgives365.wordpress.com/page/12/.

Browsing the other people that she has supported reminds me that there are many people who have learned to unite belief with action.  Thanks Betty!

We have finished the first third of our journey: Miles 1-118.  After spending the first ten miles backpacking with students from East High in the San Rafael Swell, we began the journey in earnest--100 miles through Desolation and Grays Canyons. 

To get to the back country, we enlisted the help of friends--new and old.  We drove our car to Green River, Utah and hitchiked back to Price.  Our new friend Billy, on his way to a funeral in Washington, gave us a ride to Price.  From there, our old friends, Kevin and Claire Uno drove us into the backcountry and walked with us for eight miles.  We waved goodbye to them under a gray sky heavy with clouds and began walking down the canyon. 

When we began this journey, I planned on covering ten miles a day because it was easier to do the math than any other number of miles.  Six miles into our first day, when our last road for the next eighty miles disappeared, I realized my mistake. 

We covered only eight miles that day, and for the next several days.  The picture that we took at the end of every mile felt like a triumph.  We pushed through thick stands of tamarisk, followed game trails through greasewood and sage, balanced on boulders, trusted the strength of sand as we traversed rock slides, and swam around cliffs. 

The geography of the canyon demanded perspective.  I spent my days repeating, "one step at a time."  In her book, Wanderlust: A History of Walking, Rebecca Solnit describes a pilgrimage as a physical manifestation of the soul's desire.  "Pilgrimage unites belief with action, thinking with doing . . . .  Pilgrimages make it possible to move physically, through the exertions of one's body, step by step, toward those intangible spiritual goals that are otherwise so hard to grasp."  She continues that, while we do not always know how to achieve spiritual goals, like forgiveness or redemption, we do know how to put one foot in front of the other "however arduous the task." 

Reading these words before we set out on our journey, I began calling our walk a "pilgrimage for hope."  In the face of bleak headlines about climate change, I  found hope difficult to grasp, and I thought that this journey might lead me to a wellspring of it.  A third of the way through the journey, I still do not know if I will find hope.  But its absence is less painful.  Now, different words in Solnit's description catch my eye.  To "unite belief with action, thinking with doing."  Perhaps pilgrimages are merely training grounds.  The real journey begins when we return home primed to act rather than wring our hands.  Too, pilgrimages offer perspective on the meaning of "action."  Every step, no matter how small (and I took some very small steps during the past 118 miles) is an action. 

Every journey begins with a step.  Steps strung together become a walk.  Walkers together become a march.  Marches can make a difference.

Here is a video with the "postcards" (pictures taken at the end of every mile) of miles 0-118 and the friends that we met along the way. 

A Post From Ryan
We can sit around and “talk story” all day long, focusing on the values of diversity, environmental justice, equity, communication and create as many simulations as we want but you all know that nothing beats walking the walk. The highlight of my last two months was watching teenagers navigate through a grocery store in dialogue about who wants meat vs. veggies; who can eat pork or not; and who likes sweet vs. healthy. This is where I remembered what a mentor of mine told me while holding me back as I ran to help, coach and dictate the way a group of students at the Wilderness Treatment Center should cross a river. My compulsive thinking urged me to explain to them how to work together, what was safe, and how to communicate – the counselor Pat said “Trust the experience”. It’s been ten years since then and I’m finally starting to get it – The last words in the song on this Thank You Story Video say “It’s alright Mama, Let your children be loud; It’s alright Mama, Let them run into trouble” – Martin Sexton must have had the same mentor.

Walking a half mile up the hill from Smith’ Grocery Store back to East High School the students traded off carrying the backpacks full of food, laughing and running up the geologic fault that divides the East side of Salt Lake City from the West side. The group is diverse. representing 8 different nationalities; Buddhists, Christians and Muslims; Rich and Poor; and it could be characterized by a host of other differences that on a societal level could cause violent conflict. The fault of our societal system  is that we rarely learn to walk that steep hill of diversity with grace. Every time I see the divide between East side kids and West side kids or read the newspaper headlines about warring sects, I will watch through my mind’s eye a group of students crossing a literal and metaphorical fault peacefully overcoming conflict .

I believe this paradox of peace and conflict can be navigated without violence and it begins with me embracing the paradoxical thoughts, feelings, and cultures within my own body. I am learning this via relationships while backpacking through the wilderness and journaling about what author and psychologist Gerald May (2006) calls the "wild within." I am working to make this exploration as public as I feel comfortable with so that others may provide insight about how to embody paradox and potentially learn from the pitfalls and grace that I encounter along the way.

The last two weeks have produced a roller coaster of logistical roadblocks that have re-routed us into a wilderness of relationships far more rich than what we planned. Our first partner, the Wasatch Mountain Club, has been extremely patient with the changes in our logistics and will accommodate us for a winter retreat/celebration on December 4th; The facebook causes site recruited 40 donors and 1,600 dollars to pay for food, vehicle, and gas; At the last minute, a program called Gear to Grow donated a set of warm clothing and rain gear for 15 students and the Face of Fitness program through the Salt Lake School district adopted us and will purchase all camping gear under the condition that we expose students to science related careers through the outdoor industry. The video associated with this update is the beginning of our story together and serves as a thank you to everyone who is supporting our “hero’s journey”.

This thanks goes out to Jamie who has been the point person on the UT 350 walk and had to adapt and change our route and start date because of the wilderness rites of passage trip and the hurdles we have encountered.