Common Good Collective

Reader

This Reader is an expression of Common Good Collective, a vision for an alternative way, rooted in the act of eliminating economic isolation, the significance of place, and the structure of belonging. Whether you come at this from a place of economics, social good, or faith, we hope these reflections help orient your day in fresh, provocative, courageous ways. And most importantly, we hope these lead you into the sharing of gifts in particular communities—into co-creating a common good.

We read hundreds of articles and select the best ones for you by sending them to your inbox on Thursday.
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Covenant: Moving from Contract to Commitment, Reader, Significance Of Place Permalink

Climate and Racial Justice Meet for Black Farmers

Land, and human relationship to it, has always been the key to freedom. People without a claim to land in some way cannot be free. In the US, Black ownership and control of land is a key issue that can transform communities and families. This article celebrates Black farmers, working to feed and nurture their communities from the gift of soil that they can belong to without fear. 

Two Biden Priorities, Climate and Inequality, Meet on Black-Owned Farms
By Hiroko Tabuchi and Nadja Popovich

Sedrick Rowe was a running back for Georgia’s Fort Valley State University when he stumbled on an unexpected oasis: an organic farm on the grounds of the historically Black school.

He now grows organic peanuts on two tiny plots in southwest Georgia, one of few African-American farmers in a state that has lost more than 98 percent of its Black farmers over the past century.

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 Invitation, Poetry for Building Community, Reader Permalink

Remember

To remember is to grasp a piece of a story, and to hold onto your place within that story. No matter how grand, no matter how minute.

Remember
By Joy Harjo

Remember the sky that you were born under,
know each of the star’s stories.
Remember the moon, know who she is.
Remember the sun’s birth at dawn, that is the
strongest point of time. Remember sundown
and the giving away to night.
Remember your birth, how your mother struggled
to give you form and breath. You are evidence of
her life, and her mother’s, and hers.
Remember your father. He is your life, also.
Remember the earth whose skin you are:
red earth, black earth, yellow earth, white earth
brown earth, we are earth.
Remember the plants, trees, animal life who all have their
tribes, their families, their histories, too. Talk to them,
listen to them. They are alive poems.
Remember the wind. Remember her voice. She knows the
origin of this universe.
Remember you are all people and all people
are you.
Remember you are this universe and this
universe is you.
Remember all is in motion, is growing, is you.
Remember language comes from this.
Remember the dance language is, that life is.
Remember.

 

This poem was originally published on Poets.org

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 Reader, Structure Of Belonging, Wilderness: Sharing and Reorientation Permalink

The Inherent Waste of Federal Executions

One of the surest signs of a society whose members have forgotten that they belong to each other is the recent rash of federal executions. A functioning community refrains from killing its own members. A healthy one finds ways to restore those who have committed violations into the common life. This report covers some of the cost of the twisted liturgy of a federal execution. What it cannot account for: the poverty of imagination that makes such a system possible.

The Inherent Waste of Federal Executions
By Keri Blakinger and Maurice Chammah

When Scott Mueller drove to Indiana in July to see Daniel Lewis Lee die, he stayed at a Holiday Inn. The hotel was nice enough, and only a 10-minute drive from the federal execution chamber in Terre Haute where the man who killed Mueller’s father would take his last breath.

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 Reader, Structure Of Belonging, Wilderness: Sharing and Reorientation Permalink

Why Direct Action?

There are a handful of American essays that become indelible. King’s Letter from a Birmingham Jail is one. It needs no introduction, and demands a regular re-reading.

“Letter from a Birmingham Jail”
by Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

16 April 1963
My Dear Fellow Clergymen:

While confined here in the Birmingham city jail, I came across your recent statement calling my present activities “unwise and untimely.” Seldom do I pause to answer criticism of my work and ideas. If I sought to answer all the criticisms that cross my desk, my secretaries would have little time for anything other than such correspondence in the course of the day, and I would have no time for constructive work. But since I feel that you are men of genuine good will and that your criticisms are sincerely set forth, I want to try to answer your statement in what I hope will be patient and reasonable terms.

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