These times of deep moral injury and chaos can become overwhelming. So many people have withdrawn into themselves.
I recently became aware of the website, Tending The In-Between. In these confusing times, it is a gift to discover a place that helps make sense of the conditions we find ourselves in. “The way forward is not louder reaction. It is grounded awareness.”
This grounded awareness is what we Quakers strive to attain. Yet, so many Friends are struggling to maintain this spiritual awareness. At a time when our friends and neighbors need this perspective, are we failing in our witness?
I have been led to believe that it is impossible to attain any justice as long as we continue to accept and benefit from the status quo. The term incommensurable applies. The current systems of politics and the economy are completely incompatible with alternative systems of justice.
Why aren’t more people, including Quakers, speaking out against these systems of injustice? The reasons for most people are related to the concept of the ‘economic draft.’
The Economic Draft is the modern mechanism of conscription that weaponizes survival needs to force individuals into complicity with systems of extraction and violence. Individuals are “conscripted” not by law, but by manufactured scarcity—the threat of starvation, homelessness, and the loss of healthcare.
The concept of the NewCO (new conscientious objector) demonstrates how to escape from the economic draft. The new conscientious objector responds with the concepts of Mutual Aid, LANDBACK, and replacing police and prisons with community care and safety. That is what this website is devoted to.
And the quiet refusal to normalize what is grotesque — without losing composure — is the most stabilizing force available right now.
That is sovereignty.
Tending The In-Between
When the scope of wrongdoing feels vast, systemic, and untouchable, outrage turns into helplessness. Helplessness turns into fatigue. Fatigue turns into normalization. If I can’t change it, I adapt to it.
This is how horror becomes background noise. It is also how conscience dulls — not from evil intent, but from overload.
Notice when you begin to treat the unthinkable as routine. Notice when you feel flat instead of moved. Notice when outrage gives way to resignation. Not to shame yourself. To recalibrate.
Conscience is not loud. It is steady. It does not scream. It orients.
The collapse of response does not mean humanity is gone. It means humanity is overwhelmed.
The way forward is not louder reaction. It is grounded awareness.
Hold your moral line. Regulate your nervous system. Refuse to let repetition desensitize you. Stay clear without becoming chaotic.
You do not need to adapt to horror in order to survive it.
And the quiet refusal to normalize what is grotesque — without losing composure — is the most stabilizing force available right now.
That is sovereignty.
The Economic Draft
