What We Will Abide

In just a few short weeks the Stone Independent School will embark on our inaugural academic year. Two of the classes are my own creations: United States History through the lens of the economics of slavery; and the history of Israel/Palestine. I’m sharing my process for building these classes here as a means of documenting their development and ultimately charting their progress. Will I wind up d...

This story is about pain, both mental and physical, and it’s about how these two kinds of pain are very much connected, despite our culture’s insistence that they’re not. It’s also about our unwillingness to admit that we’ve made mistakes, big mistakes, even though an admission would certainly lead to and end to suffering and the beginning of healing for large numbers of people. This is Roey Shmoo...

A year ago, I started this podcast, in which I interview people providing local solutions to systemic problems. My wife Jamie Beth, who has known me for nearly two decades, sees me as an introvert. So, to her, this has always seemed like a strange project to take on. In this episode, she asks me why I did. Music by Sea Ray . Jamie Beth, writer   Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more...

I began my conversation with Christina Hartman as I always do, by telling the origin story of What We Will Abide, which involves seeing the world through despairing eyes. I was certainly surprised when she countered with a parallel story of her own that has played out along a similar timeline. Unlike hers, my story did not culminate in a stirring run for the congressional seat in the 16th district...

Mahfuz Meherzad is the president of the United Islamic Association of Lancaster County and is an adjunct Political Science professor at Chestnut Hill College and Millersville University.  Prof. Meherzad and I took part in a panel discussion back in May in which five representatives of different religious backgrounds attempted to answer the question, “Does religion lead to war?” Prof. Meherzad...

Aryeh Bernstein is a Chicagoan, an Israeli citizen, a teacher, and a seeker of social justice. He wears his Judaism on his sleeve, as well as beneath his shirt. Each day he dons a “ talit katan ” with its fringes that hang from a traditional garment he wears beneath his outer clothing. It’s one of several of his daily reminders to engage in self-reflection, to recall his heritage, and to be aware...

For a while now, I’ve frequently and ubiquitously espoused a theory derived largely from the work of Daniel Quinn which is this: Humans lived as hunter-gatherers for most of their existence on earth. Somewhere along the line, this way of life, built and maintained largely to be in harmony with the earth, took an acute turn, a turn toward agriculturalism, and ultimately what we know of (and often c...

Jeremiah Miller’s play, Guilty Parties of New Orleans , will be given a staged reading with seasoned actors this coming Friday night, April 28th, at Community Mennonite Church, as part of the Theater of the Seventh Sister Spoken Word series. It largely deals with the trial of Clay Laverne Shaw , a New Orleans businessman who was the only person ever officially prosecuted in connection with the 196...

A couple of months ago I made an amateur overture to Representative Lloyd Smucker of the 16th Congressional district of Pennsylvania to be a guest on What We Will Abide, but didn’t get a response. Perhaps I didn’t explain myself well enough the first time, so I’m giving it another go. Music by Ton-Taun . http://samschindler.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/WWWA_038_042417.mp3 DOWNL...

Jocelyn Park is originally a street punk Quaker from Delco (Delaware County, PA). She arrived in Lancaster, PA five years ago by way of Sydney, Australia, and found that starting over socially was a daunting prospect. Since then, she has launched Lancaster Transplant , a local organization designed to connect newcomers to the city by means of…pretty much whatever works. In our conversation,...

Last month, after nearly a decade as Franklin & Marshall College’s chaplain, Susan Minasian has moved on , back to her home state of Virginia, where she will serve as pastor at Sojourners United Church of Christ in Charlottesville. Her tireless work on the college campus and all across Lancaster county was renowned in both religious and secular circles. We talked about what brought her to Lanc...

The fundamental flaw in our civilization is that it’s convinced itself that it’s the best way to live. But there are cracks in the drywall. In a conversation that starts off about running, veers into politics and concludes with donkeys, Christopher McDougall and I examine the damage. Then, a visit with Paul Sherban, a recent college graduate who rode 4,500 miles on his bicycle in searc...

The real story is corruption large and small: A Conestoga Board of Supervisors chairman appropriates $69 worth of mulch and doesn’t pay for it until 5 months later; the zoning board slaps The Stand’s barn with condemnation notices, seemingly out of the blue.  What do these two events have in common? One, they were both part of the public discussion during the March 7th Conestoga Board...

In December of 2008, I interviewed my father about his experience in Vietnam. Just this past summer, I interviewed him again for What We Will Abide and it appears as Episode 16, “American Cynic.” But, back in 2008 I also interviewed my mother about how she experienced his time in the Army. After making that video recording, it sat for years, untouched. I never watched it. In the summer...

The BBC recently noted that, per capita, Lancaster, PA absorbs and resettles more refugees than any other city in the United States. In fact, it’s part of the city’s heritage. Madap Sharma was one of those refugees who came to the U.S. with his family after fleeing his home country of Bhutan. Emigrating first to Maryland in 2010, Madap ultimately resettled in Lancaster, where he served...

Dear  Congressman Lloyd Smucker , What We Will Abide is a Lancaster-based podcast which serves to tell stories about people who are providing local solutions to system ic problems. You want to solve local problems – that’s why you ran for congress. I invite you to take part in an interview for What We Will Abide so you can talk openly about your platform, policy initiatives, and to further detail...

We’re well into Trump’s first hundred days, a period of time in which the new President insisted that he would do away with President Obama’s executive order called  Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), enacted in 2012. The orders Trump has signed so far indicate that he’s going to attempt to follow through on this promise. What this will mean for 1.5 million youn...

The Atlantic Sunrise Pipeline, a Williams Partners natural gas pipeline project (they’re from Tulsa, OK), has been in the works for a while now. The planned project route, though altered now several times, still runs right through the heart of Lancaster County , Pennsylvania. The local movement Lancaster Against Pipelines  (LAP) has been at the heart of the opposition to the project for almo...

There’s a great deal of hypocrisy that permeates the conversation about immigration – but I don’t want to get into that. Instead, three separate people, all of whom I would classify as “Americans,” speak candidly about their experiences connecting with or living as immigrants in the U.S.A. Here I offer a slightly different format, in which I introduce three different...

Chris McDougall is well known for his 2009 book Born to Run , which, among many other things, tells the story of the Tarahumara (Rarámuri), the tribe who (literally) ran away from the Spanish Conquistadors in the 16th century – and never came back. The book features the stories of several colorful characters including the peripatetic runner known as Caballo Blanco, who died in 2012, the...

Social critics come in all shapes, sizes and ages. Music by Ton-Taun . http://samschindler.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/WWWA_026_121416.mp3 DOWNLOAD  this episode SUBSCRIBE to this podcast Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Jordan Capizzi’s septet Ton-Taun has, in one form or another, been around for a decade. They happily play local gigs and have produced four albums. Their most recent enterprise is an EP entitled Sorry Brian: You’re Derek Now  which will be released this weekend by means of a musical theater performance of the same name. The show runs from Dec 2-4 at Tellus360 in Lancaster. Jordan came...

These days “Millennials” take a lot of flak from older generations, but some of them are mature and attentive to the world around them – in ways I certainly never was as a teenager. Identical twins Andrew and Isaac Schlager are self-aware and zealous about matters pertaining to social justice, which they demonstrate in both word and action. As a member of that “older generation,&...

One thing that’s happening these days is that people who are distraught by the election results are banding together. They seem to be setting aside ideological differences which they now agree ultimately led to the election of a president they vehemently reject. A theme that is emerging among these coalescing groups is an urgency to protect one another – to stand up for those who are now thr...

Let’s imagine you and I are in an empty room. You approach me and ask, “What happened? What do we do now?” First, I shake my head in derisive disbelief. Then, I put my own crap aside, throw my arms open and give you a big hug and say, “let’s get to work.” http://samschindler.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/WWWA_022_110916.mp3 DOWNLOAD  this episode SUBSCRIBE to t...