All of us face life's most difficult decisions with the best information we have available at the time. Yet greater awareness is urgently needed of how fossil-fuel-invested choices at the end of life result in significant, often unrecognized damage. Can the death of a master composter help us connect the dots?

Earth Island Journal, 2/19/19

Both composting and natural burial hinge on acceptance that the organic remains of the living are neither trash nor personal commodities. They belong, and should be brought back, to the earth.

These connections were intensified for me last April with the self-immolation of master composter David Buckel in my local community of Brooklyn, NY. A pioneering civil rights attorney who had exchanged legal briefs for buckets and shovels, Buckel was passionate about involving as many people as possible in community composting powered entirely by renewable energy sources. “My early death by fossil fuel reflects what we are doing to ourselves,” he declared in his final message before setting himself on fire.

It has never been easy to accept our own bodies as compostable material. Perhaps David Buckel's legacy can help us affirm life by redirecting our end-of-life conversations toward a natural, fossil-fuel-divested return to the earth. LEARN MORE

WAYS OF PEACE Community Resources promotes justice and kindness across lines of diversity and throughout the life cycle. We foster the dialogue among generations that is essential for learning the lessons of history.

In 2011, outrage erupted at a liberal Florida college when it was discovered that a rising star of white supremacy had quietly enrolled there. Risking ostracism themselves, two Jewish friends invited this white supremacist classmate to weekly Shabbat dinners that — over the course of two years — led to a high-profile renunciation of hatred and bigotry. Shabbat dinner host Matthew Stevenson later reflected on what inspired him to reach out:

"My mother, who passed a few years ago unfortunately...was very active in Alcoholics Anonymous...and so I had this belief inculcated in me very early on that people can change and transform, no matter how far gone they may seem."

These are painful times of fear, anger and divisiveness in the United States. And yet healing continues to spread quietly through people in addiction recovery and their families, even as they share deeply and personally about the real brokenness that so many experience across our lines of diversity. Anonymous traditions of unity, trusted service, principles over personalities, attraction rather than promotion, focus on common welfare and primary purpose are all part of this healing.

Addiction has been called the sacred disease of our time. Recovery offers much healing to our wounded world — one day at a time.

Before the 2016 elections, WAYS OF PEACE published COUNTING DAYS: From Liberation to Revelation for Jews in Recovery. It's a unique guide, especially for the one-day-at-a-time season between Passover and Shavu'ot, that features 50 daily reflections on recovery principles integrated with classical Jewish teachings. It offers an accessible  introduction to the Twelve Traditions as well as the Twelve Steps of healing from addiction.

Order COUNTING DAYS Now — for "One Day at a Time" guidance through  our next Festival of Freedom. And as you plan your calendars, please contact us if your community is interested in a workshop or scholar-in-residence program by videoconference.

Related programs include "Turning and Letting Go: Jewish Ways of Forgiveness," which explores unique Jewish challenges, literature, concepts, values, prayers, rituals and songs of willingness to make amends.

May we go from hopeful strength to hopeful strength.

WAYS OF PEACE Community Resources renews justice and kindness across lines of diversity and throughout the life cycle. We foster the dialogue among generations that is essential for learning the lessons of history — and healing our shattered world.