An Embodiment of Courageous Love—Lisa Jacobsen

Lisa Jacobsen with a load of supplies for Occupy Chicago.

Note: A little while ago I signed up to participate in a cooperative effort by writers, both ministers and laity called a blog-a-thon as part of the annual Thirty Days of Love campaign of the Standing on the Side of Love initiative.  The idea was to promote the variety of life experiences and perspectives of Unitarian Universalists bloggers, promote dialogue, and hopefully to bring participants to new audiences.  I have already contributed a couple of pieces.  But this is the one I originally “signed on for.”  It is in celebration of this week’s theme in the Thirty Days of Love—Building Bridges of Love and to reflect who in our lives do just that.  And I knew just who that should be.

When I first notice Lisa Jacobsen she was standing up in front of our congregation, then called the Congregational Unitarian Church in Woodstock, Illinois to be welcomed into membership along with several others.  She was a small, attractive middle age woman with a spontaneous explosion of blonde hair. 

She stepped to the pulpit as is our custom to say a few words of introduction.  She was, she explained, a practicing Sufi Muslim.  Pointing to one of the recently installed Centennial Windows which each celebrated a source of spiritual inspiration from which we draw—the one featuring a mosque cradled in a crescent moon—she explained that she was drawn to a spiritual home that could respect and embrace her beliefs as well as the others illustrated in the windows.  And, she added, because of our well established reputation in McHenry County for a commitment to social justice.

Well, I thought.  This is different.

We soon got to know each other.  I found out that she was a former editor and public relations person in the corporate world.  The rapid shift away from print media like newsletters and magazines and general corporate belt tightening had made her unemployed.  Her husband, Tom, was also having employment struggle.  She tried to keep afloat by the always iffy path of “independent consulting” and freelance work and by knitting and selling her colorful trademark hats.  It was a struggle.  How much of one, I had yet no idea.

I did know that Lisa threw herself into service.  She started volunteering at the PADS site we hosted every Wednesday night.  PADS is a rotating homeless shelter system in McHenry County hosted by a different church every night between October and May.  A lot of our members volunteered as well as folks from the community.  They laid out mattress pads on the basement floor, checked client in, prepared meals, monitored the place for safety, and sent everyone off in the morning with a good breakfast and a sack lunch.  But Lisa really bonded with the clients.  She took time to sit with them, listen non-judgmentally to their struggles, and help them find ways to overcome the daily indignities and obstacles placed in their path.  She respected them as human beings without labels.  And they respected, loved her back.

Within a year Lisa was site director of a new “overflow” shelter at another Woodstock church for women and children.  As the economy worsened in the Great Recession out shelter, like all of them were strained to the breaking point with the “new homeless” including once secure families in addition to the long term mostly males with substance abuse, mental health, and criminal justice system troubles. 

McHenry County was hit especially hard by the banking crisis and collapse of the mortgage system.  In the previous decade it had been one of the fastest growing counties in the US with subdivisions the size of many of its established towns springing up like mushrooms in the corn fields, filled mostly by young families betting their future on ever-escalating real estate prices and steady employment.  Soon page after page of the local daily newspaper the Northwest Herald was filled daily with foreclosure notices.

Lisa spring into action with the help of Principled Minds, a local group working on a number of justice issues, she helped organize support groups for those facing evictions and special training sessions at several locations around the county on how to try and prevent or delay foreclosure.  What I didn’t realize at first was that Lisa and her husband were facing the same crisis.

After the emotional battering progressive had taken in the fall elections of 2010 and the seemingly unending economic crisis unfolding around us, we were all greatly encouraged by the eruption of mass resistance in Wisconsin to attacks on working people.  Lisa was a leader in our Social Justice Committee in organizing a well-publicized support rally for the Wisconsin workers that drew about 200 people to the corner outside of the church.  McHenry County had never seen anything like it.

In the fall of 2011 we were all caught up in the inspiring example of the Occupy Movement as it spread from Wall Street across the country.  But out in the far boonies, we were remote from the action and most of us were at a loss what to do other than cheer from the sidelines.  Not Lisa.  She and Tom went down to the city where Occupy Chicago was trying to keep up a 24 hour a day presence on a strip of sidewalk in the LaSalle Street banking district.  They kept going back, getting to know the young protestors. 

Another member of the Congregation, Carrie MacDonald had a friend among the Occupiers. Impressed by their dedication as temperatures began to plummet and the police routinely confiscated blankets, back packs and gear, Carrie and Lisa decided to do something.  Through the Social Justice Committee she sent out an appeal to the members of the congregation for donations of items needed by the Occupiers—blankets, sleeping bags and pads, warm clothing, non-perishable food, toiletries, etc.  Within a week she had a crammed carload to deliver.  No other group outside of the city provided such support.

As a follow up in mid-November the Social Justice Committee sponsored a Rally for the 99% in front of the church which attracted over 50 participants and collected another large carload of supplies.  At that rally, Lisa went public with her own situation.  As described in a blog post about the rally:

Lisa Jacobsen eloquently shared her story of being one of the 99%.  A successful professional just a few years ago she finds herself at age 55 out of a job with no prospects on the horizon, without health insurance, her investments largely wiped out in the market crash and eaten up for survival, her house worth much less than what she bought it for, and is now in foreclosure.  Just one of many stories.  Several folks brought signs with their own stories.

The rally was also a last hurrah for social justice action at the old church.  In January we moved to a new location in a former restaurant building on the edges of the city of McHenry.  The Blue Lotus Buddhist Temple bought and moved into our old building.  The new location was not physically suitable for continuing to house a PADS site.  The Buddhists agreed to keep serving the homeless on Wednesday nights at least through the end of the year.

It was hard to give up a program that we had hosted from the beginning of the program many years earlier.  But it did not end our relationship with it.  Lisa and others continued volunteering.  She was named as our congregation’s representative on the Woodstock Area Community Ministry (WACM), a consortium of local religious institution that supported the Wednesday PADS site and other programs including the Direct Assistance Program (DAP) which supplies small cash grants and emergency aid for those who too often fall between the cracks of the social services “safety net.”  DAP volunteers had also used the old church building on Thursday mornings to take applications for aid and give out what they could afford.  In the continuing economic hard times not only was the PADS site bursting at the seams, but the DAP program was strained almost to the breaking point.

As May 1st approached, Lisa was worried about the folks from PADS who had become friends.  At the end of April the church shelters closed down for the season until the next October 1.  PADS clients were left to shift for themselves.  Some could get seasonal work and move into a motel room, some couch surfed with friends and relatives, others had cars to sleep in.  But most would become fugitive campers, setting up tents in snatches of remnant woods across the county.  If the campsites were found by authorities, the tents and possessions would routinely be destroyed or confiscated.  The homeless risked arrest daily as they roamed the streets looking for a place to sit down for ten minutes.

Lisa came up with the idea for Compassion for Campers and with the help of the Social Justice Committee was off and running with the idea almost immediately.  An appeal went out to the church and the broader community for a list of supplies.  Simple things—mosquito repellent, sun screen, bottled water, batteries for flashlights and radios, as well as tents, sleeping bags, and other camping gear.  Money was raised to buy what could not be donated or for gift cards for gas or meals.

To distribute the goods, it was arranged to host a picnic lunch at the PADS program headquarters building outside of Woodstock.  It was such a success that the Monday lunches became regular thing, attended by more and more of the homeless as word spread.  List became the coordinator for what became a major undertaking—making sure there was a good, nutritious lunch with food left over to be taken back to camp and which was varied over the weeks and months.  Volunteer needed to be scheduled from our Congregation but also from other churches and the community.  And it was important that volunteers not just serve meals and give out supplies, but that they eat with the clients, listen to their stories and really get to know them. 

The program was a huge success, not only for the help it was able to give, but for the experiences the volunteers shared.

After regular PADS sites were back up, Lisa was concerned that in our new location our congregation was not able to provide the level of support to PADS and the Direct Assistance Program as we had previously.  With the encouragement of our new minister Rev. Sean Parker Dennison, Lisa and the Social Justice Committee proposed the establishment of a Second Sunday Collection program in which once a month organizations serving the needs of the local population or advancing justice would receive the plate offering at worship service.  Compassion for Campers and DAP became recipients, as did other groups serving local Latino children, a shelter for abused women and children, PFLAG, the Committee for Detained Immigrants, the Veterans Assistance Program, a food bank, and an environmental group among others.

Lisa also became involved in helping arrange weekly lunches at a Day Time Drop in Program for PADS clients on Thursdays following the Wednesday shelter in Woodstock.  Most days PADS clients have to leave their sites by 7 AM and cannot return to another site, almost always in another city, until the next evening.  They have to roam the streets, find places to bide the time or keep warm all the while dodging police harassment and arrest.  The Thursday program at Redeemer Lutheran Church in Woodstock provides the only day of the week where the homeless have a safe and welcoming place to go all week.

Our congregation had a new name by the time the second season of Compassion for Campers rolled around—Tree of Life Unitarian Universalist Congregation.  Lisa was back to work dedicating hours each week to Compassion for Campers. 

But she had other things on her plate as well.  She was travelling to a distant suburb several times a week to tend an ill and dying parent.  And her own health was not good.  That summer when she conducted a lay led Sunday service on Sufi and Islamic mysticism, the head scarf she wore also hid the evidence of surgery for skin cancer.  She and Tom were also losing their long battle against losing their home.

This January they finally lost the house to foreclosure.  And they came within an eyelash of becoming homeless themselves because they could not find rental housing they could afford.  At the last minute they found a place at some distance from their former Woodstock home but still in the county. 

Lisa is still doing lunches at the Drop in Center and sitting on the WACM board.  She is going to pass on responsibility for coordinating Compassion for Campers this summer to someone who will have big shoes to fill.  But I suspect most Mondays this summer you can find her dining with her homeless friends anyway.

If anyone deserves an award for Courageous Love, it’s gotta be Lisa Jacobsen.

Can They Do it Again?—Adbusters Issues Another Call

When my daughter Maureen was at Columbia College in Chicago finishing up her degree in magazine journalism her favorite publication, bar none, was the quirky, slick Canadian based magazine Adbusters.  She subscribed and would eagerly gobble up new issues and show me the great stuff that caught her attention.

The magazine is the public face of Adbusters Media Foundation, a Canadian organization founded in 1989 by Kalle Lasn and Bill Schmalz in Vancouver, British Columbia.  It is anti-capitalist, anti-consumerist, pro-environmental and globalist in outlook.  It is philosophically rooted in the broad anarchist tradition but seldom pushes that identity.  Instead it prefers to be non-doctrinaire, persistently subversive, creative, and savvy about modern culture and communications.  It has also been heavily committed to encouraging tactics of direct action and Gandhian non-violence.

Not only have its superbly executed graphics and advertising parodies and satires drawn attention and often gone viral on the web, but Adbusters has drawn a lot of attention to seeding unusual, headline grabbing protests including Buy Nothing Day and TV Turnoff Week.

Last summer they sent out an e-mail to their large list of subscribers and supporters with a simple suggestion—people should descend on Wall Street, the heart of capitalism and the banking and financial institutions responsible for a world-wide economic crisis.  They were inspired by the mass protests earlier that spring in Cairo’s Tahrir Square and by the one-the-scene consensus decision making employed by huge anti-austerity protests in Spain.  September 17 was the appointed target date.  Protestors were advised to “bring a tent.”  

They articulated on one demand, “a presidential commission to separate money from politics,” but made it clear that it was just the beginning of starting to “set the agenda for a New America.” That agenda would be worked out by consensus of the participants in the protest that they named Occupy Wall Street.

To publicize the call, Adbusters created a stunning poster—a ballerina dancing on the back of the iconic Wall Street statue of a charging bull.  

As the creators had hoped both the call and the graphic went viral.  In days they were all over Facebook, Twitter, and the blog-o-sphere.

Then the instigators did something unheard of.  They stepped back.  They demanded no leadership role, put forth no leader/spokesperson/hero to personify the movement in the media, and did not take any part in actually planning or organizing the event that they proposed.  When the appointed day came, no one at all from Adbusters was even on hand.  All of which was exactly what they had hoped for.

The call was taken up by several groups, including the shadowy inter-net presence Anonymous, and several existing organizations, but all supported the original vision of mass protest, non-violence and democratic, consensus based decision making with no anointed leaders.

Despite a huge buzz generated on social media the first day’s protest fell well short of the 50,000 that some had hoped for/predicted.  Attempts to actually march on Wall Street were stymied by police action.  The media took notice and declared the movement a failure.

But the small number of protestors made good their commitment to stay in the streets by occupying Zuccotti Park, a small, privately held open space reasonably near Wall Street.  They would not go away and mounted daily protests.  Slowly over the first week or so more joined them.  Many others could be turned out for specific demonstrations.  The movement really took off and grabbed the nation’s attention when a huge mass march across the Brooklyn Bridge on October 3 where over 700 were arrested and in the mass protests that drew tens of thousands to the streets of New York in the days that followed.

Video shot from cell phone and by Occupy documentarians showing police brutality went viral.

Within days the movement was spreading to other cities and towns who established their own camps and general assemblies.  Within weeks it had spread to hundreds places in the U.S. including medium size and small town which had seldom seen any protest.  Participants said they stood for the 99% against a powerful and greedy 1% oligarchy.  Suddenly the issues of Occupy Wall street were front and center of the American political discussion.

The rest, as they say is history.

Despite a tough winter when many Occupy groups found themselves evicted from the public spaces where they had established communities, the movement forged ahead in new and creative ways.  Protests continued, even intensified.  They also became more creative as in the protection of homes from foreclosure in some places.

Now Adbusters is back with a new call and a new poster:

Hey you redeemers, rebels and radicals out there,

Against the backdrop of a global uprising that is simmering in dozens of countries and thousands of cities and towns, the G8 and NATO will hold a rare simultaneous summit in Chicago this May. The world’s military and political elites, heads of state, 7,500 officials from 80 nations, and more than 2,500 journalists will be there.

And so will we.

On May 1, 50,000 people from all over the world will flock to Chicago, set up tents, kitchens, peaceful barricades and #OCCUPYCHICAGO for a month. With a bit of luck, we’ll pull off the biggest multinational occupation of a summit meeting the world has ever seen.

And this time around we’re not going to put up with the kind of police repression that happened during the Democratic National Convention protests in Chicago, 1968 … nor will we abide by any phony restrictions the City of Chicago may want to impose on our first amendment rights. We’ll go there with our heads held high and assemble for a month-long people’s summit … we’ll march and chant and sing and shout and exercise our right to tell our elected representatives what we want … the constitution will be our guide.

And when the G8 and NATO meet behind closed doors on May 19, we’ll be ready with our demands: a Robin Hood Tax … a ban on high frequency ‘flash’ trading … a binding climate change accord … a three strikes and you’re out law for corporate criminals … an all out initiative for a nuclear-free Middle East … whatever we decide in our general assemblies and in our global internet brainstorm – we the people will set the agenda for the next few years and demand our leaders carry it out.

And if they don’t listen … if they ignore us and put our demands on the back burner like they’ve done so many times before … then, with Gandhian ferocity, we’ll flashmob the streets, shut down stock exchanges, campuses, corporate headquarters and cities across the globe … we’ll make the price of doing business as usual too much to bear.

Jammers, pack your tents, muster up your courage and prepare for a big bang in Chicago this Spring. If we don’t stand up now and fight now for a different kind of future we may not have much of a future … so let’s live without dead time for a month in May and see what happens …

for the wild,

Culture Jammers HQ

Can they pull it off again?  Probably.  They now have a movement that is seasoned, experienced, and practiced at both organization and street tactics.

Of course everyone knew that there would be protests, and plenty of them, at this two-fer of international economic and western military power.  The economic summits, in particular, have drawn huge protests where ever they have been held over the last dozen years.  And since NATO, having lost its reason for existence after the collapse of the old Soviet Union, has re-invented itself as an interventionist force in Kosovo, Afghanistan, Libya and elsewhere massive anti-war protests against it were just as predictable.

All of the major organizations who have participated in earlier protests have already announced plans to be in Chicago.  Most of these organizations plan various types of peaceful demonstrations, some including civil disobedience.

The members of the on-going Occupy Chicago group have been planning for protests this spring as well.  The Occupy movement and representatives of other organizations have been in discussions with the city over permits, camping sites, and limitations on protest.

Mayor Rham Emmanual as Barack Obama’s Chief of Staff helped lure the meetings to Chicago to show off the city, repair the damaged international reputation caused by the humiliating loss of the 2016 Olympic Games to Rio de Janero, and put to rest the stigma of the 1968 Democratic Convention police riots.  In fact, his mantra has steadily been, “This is not 1968.”

The Mayor has made elaborate security plans for the meetings.  He crafted a raft of draconian new restriction on protests with huge boosts in fees for permits, fine, and jail sentences that would become permanently enshrined in Chicago law.  After massive public outcry, some of the worst provisions were stripped from the ordinances before an obedient City Council passed them overwhelmingly.  He still has plenty of legal excuse to clamp down on virtually any protest.

Although he pledges to work with groups to insure “a right to protest” and has even indicated that permits might be issued for rallies and marches near the meeting venues, he warns that the Secret Service and the Department of Homeland Security might over-ride these concessions by establishing wide security zones.

Protest leaders know what that means “They’re trying to set up a good cop-bad cop scenario and we’re not stupid enough to fall for that.”

The city is keeping its exact preparations closely under wraps, but the Chicago Police Department has been receiving new training and is being equipped with the latest riot gear, armor, surveillance equipment, and crowd control weapons.  Plans for detaining mass arrests are being made.  In addition to Chicago Police, other Illinois law enforcement agencies, and perhaps the National Guard word has gotten out that out-of-state police forces will be deputized.  The mayor will have a virtual army at his command.

The protests at international events have always been volatile because they are a target of relatively small groups of self-avowed anarchist street fighters.  The peaceful marches and actions of other protestors have often been disrupted by anarchists breaking away and going on sprees of breaking windows, setting fires, and fighting with police.  This has routinely caused an often violent crackdown on all demonstrators. 

Other demonstrators have had no influence over restraining the street fighters.  The Occupy Movement has generally been more successful at it.  But by now the street fighters are probably made up by at least 50% police spies, plants, and agent provocateurs.  Authorities need the pretext of violence to move against the larger groups.

The Adbusters poster for the May protests features a photo of the police attack at the Band Shell during the ’68 Convention Week protests—an open taunting of the Mayor’s attempt to “put that behind him.”  

I was there that afternoon and again that evening in front of the Conrad Hilton when, “The whole world was watching.”  There were probably only 3000 protestors in Chicago that Convention week.  We did not even catch the attention of the media until those two events on Wednesday finally occurred before network television cameras.  Prior to that police by sheer intimidation, including the routine beating of reports and the smashing of their  cameras, and the bulkiness of video and film cameras, kept most of the violence at Lincoln Park and other locations from the eyes of the public.  When the images of the beatings at the Hilton hit TV screens, the national conversation about the war got a huge boost.

Now modern electronics and video equipment make it impossible to keep those images a secret.  Even if rumors of the ability of authorities to “turn off” cell phone and Wi-Fi service in the protest zones is true, they can’t keep things from getting out one way or another.

Can the Adbuster folks really lure 50,000 in addition to the thousands being mobilized by other organization?  Can they keep up an announced presence for a full month? Can they contain the provocateurs?  How will they change the very nature of protest?  Only time will tell, but I wouldn’t bet against them.

We Do Our Mite—The Rally of the 99% in Support of the Occupy Movement

Sue Rekenthaler, chair of the Social Justice Committee of the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Woodstock; Rev. Jenifer Slade, Interim Minister; and Lisa Jacobsen

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Well the weather cooperated, giving us as nice an autumnal evening as we could wish.  By my count over 50 folks assembled in front of the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Woodstock last night for the Rally of the 99% of McHenry County in Support of the Occupy Movement.

The news of attacks on Occupy camps around the country—Berkley, Denver, Salt Lake City, Portland, Oakland (again), and the mother ship of Occupy Wall Street in New York City—lent urgency to our gathering.  It was important that even here in McHenry County we stand up and be counted and lend our voices to a movement that cannot be killed.

Speechifying was at a minimum.  We used the Peoples Microphone to share a few remarks.  There were calls for regular demonstrations in front of Tea Party and Fox News darling Congressman Joe Walsh’s new office on the Square in Woodstock every Saturday morning at 11 A.M.  And my old friend and veteran activist Ann Legg shared her call for regular weekly Occupy McHenry County rallies on Lake Street in Woodstock in front of Wal-Mart on Saturdays from 1-2 PM.  The busy activist could do both!

Lisa Jacobsen eloquently shared her story of being one of the 99%.  A successful professional just a few years ago she finds herself at age 55 out of a job with no prospects on the horizon, without health insurance, her investments largely wiped out in the market crash and eaten up for survival, her house worth much less than what she bought it for, and is now in foreclosure.  Just one of many stories.  Several folks brought signs with their own stories.

A carload of supplies were collected for Occupy Chicago and will be driven down there later this week.  I saw canned goods, lots of warm clothing, paper goods, and other items from their list of needs.

This morning we got excellent coverage in the local daily, the Northwest Herald.  We were featured with a photo on Page 1 and the front page of the Community section including a great photo of Carrie MacDonald and her three month old daughter Annika.  It includes very nice video was posted on the Herald web page, which features far too much of me. 

Lorrie Burns's young 'uns guard some of the donated supplies on the Church steps.

Lisa and Tom Jacobsen center, Waddel son and father on the left.  In background between Lisa and Tom is Frank McClatchy, a Democratic candidate for Congress.  If he wins the primary, he will challenge Rep. Joe Walsh.