Emma Addams: Can a Quilt Change how Congress Listens— & How you Practice Democracy at Home?

Bill Cleveland: 00:00:01

Can a quilt change how Congress listens and how you practice democracy at home?

From the center for the Study of Art and Community, this is Art Is Change, a chronicle of art and social change where activists, artists and cultural organizers share the strategies and skills they need to thrive as creative community leaders. My name is Bill Cleveland. Say if you're exhausted by food, fight politics. This episode shows a different path.

Just treat conflict as raw material and democracy as a daily, local creative practice.

Emma Petty Adams, Co Executive Director of Mormon Women for Ethical Government, explains how peacemaking starts with where you live, PTOs, churches and of course quilt ins and grows real agency, not outrage. In this episode we'll learn a practical, actionable way to practice democracy.

Spend less time doom scrolling DC and more time building trust and persuasion in your community where results happen.

We'll also follow the evolution of Quilting for the constitution from a 48 hour idea in Provo, Utah to 62 quilts delivered to 56 congressional offices in D.C. involving 5,000 plus people plus how artful collaboration turns advocacy into community building.

And we'll dig deep into Emma Adams peacemaking practice, embracing tension, collaborating across difference, and turning art, faith, and neighborly conversation into durable civic power. Part 1 MWAG and the solitude Sonata so Emma, why don't we begin with some basics which is introduce yourself and where you are right now.

Emma Addams: 00:02:12

So my name is Emma Petty Adams and I am the co Executive Director of Mormon Women for Ethical Government. It's a mouthful so we call it mwag and I currently live in Salt Lake City, Utah. Though I have lived all over the nation, Most mostly along I80.

I've lived at either end and I've lived in the middle now for the past. I lived in Omaha, Nebraska for about 12 years and now Salt Lake for the last little bit. So that is where home is at the moment.

And I can see the mountains from my front window, which is amazing.

Bill Cleveland: 00:02:40

Oh that's great. So if you were to imagine yourself as a character in a story, what would your street name be?

What would your handle be that reflects what you're up to in the world?

Emma Addams: 00:02:57

Well, I asked my husband for help with this.

We went back and forth in a little bit and I decided on Solitude Sonata and I think if it captures the essence of who I am, I like to play the piano and make music and I actually need a copious amount of alone time to recharge and be fully present for the relationships and challenges in my life. So when you combine those two things, probably my favorite place or the place where I feel the most at home or myself is at the piano by myself.

Bill Cleveland: 00:03:26

Amazing.

So, yes, given that I met you with a herd of people in Virginia and have read about all your work with all these groups across the country, the idea that solitude is your refuge and your battery charge calls up one of my little codes, which is, yeah, well, you never know, do you? You never know.

Emma Addams: 00:03:51

I am really good at hid. Hiding all this. I just have learned this about myself. I'm almost 50 years old. I'm a huge believer in growth and change and becoming better.

I think you have to recognize where your limitations are and your core self lies. And for me, solitude is a gift, and so I try to protect it when I can and utilize it as a strategy for loving people better, frankly.

Bill Cleveland: 00:04:14

Yeah. And I can't agree more.

And we just did an episode on self care, and probably the thing that was most prominent in our conversation with the artists was talking to that people who are given to service, often short shrift their ability to reflect and recharge, and that actually it is an obligation for people who are in service to pay attention to that because the service suffers if your battery's half charged.

Emma Addams: 00:04:49

Well, and I think it's actually a selfless thing to recognize that about yourself, rather than selfish. In my case, I have three boys, they're mostly older now, and I. They were one of my primary purposes in life.

And so I wanted to be the best mom that I could be to them. And that involved taking care of myself. And that required some solitude.

Bill Cleveland: 00:05:07

So another. Another question. How would you describe your work in the world?

Emma Addams: 00:05:12

So the primary purpose of the work I'm doing right now with MWEG is to empower women. And that sounds simple on the one hand, but it's highly complex on the other.

We do the hard work of cross partisan grassroots, pro democracy advocacy, but always with the goal of building peace. So we don't want to do it in a way that divides people, but in a way that brings them together.

Or to use the word peacemaking is a common phrase used among Christians.

And sometimes that looks like more traditional advocacy, like writing letters and meeting with legislators, but just as often it looks like building connections in your local community, working in the pto, your church, other nonprofits.

But it can also look like accessing and applying really good media literacy skills in your neighborhood or your family group chat, text thread when tensions are running high. So all those things are serving the purpose of reweaving the fabric of our society.

And if I'm doing my job well as a leader and if we're doing a good job as an organization, our members are just dispersing around the country, and they're doing good, and they're advocating for ethical government at every level, right at the very base kind of societal community, all the way up to the national. But they're doing it with each other, and they're peacefully urging others alongside them.

And they're not waiting for permission or waiting for an action, but they're seeing opportunities and just taking inspiration where it is and using the skills that hopefully they're learning with us and going and doing it. No permission needed. Just go and do so.

Bill Cleveland: 00:06:42

We live in a world where some people have reinforced the idea that conflict and division is an incredibly powerful way of consolidating power. So could you talk a little bit more about the peace path to the same end?

Emma Addams: 00:07:01

Well, I think it starts first with that word that you mentioned, which is the word conflict. And those of us who are aspiring peacemakers don't run away from that word or run away from conflict.

In fact, we embrace conflict or differences of opinion or experience. Ideology is an opportunity to create something new and different.

I think kind of maybe breaking down the word peacemaking helps when I think about that. So making.

When you think about making something with your hands, like creating a craft or a quilt, as I'm sure we'll talk about, or something beautiful, even a beautiful meal, you have to. You have materials to work with, right? So you have to take those things and put them together in conversations with one another or flavors of a meal.

They might clash. They might want to make them work together. They're different. Right.

A really good meal is something that has a variety of spices and different aspects of it. And peacemaking is similar to that in that it doesn't just fall down like from the dews of heaven upon us. Wouldn't that be wonderful?

It involves having some sort of raw material to work with, and that raw material is conflict.

And when we think of conflict as scary and we either try to avoid it or, or, or sometimes work around it or accommodate, we're not helping to resolve or transform conflict into something good.

And in, in the political world, in advocacy, I would argue that some of the best policies that we have, that endure, that help people, are created through conflict from those who come to the table with different experiences and are bringing, you know, that very honestly to it. And then it's not always about exact compromise, but collaboration is in some ways the highest way to resolve conflict.

Maybe there's like a different way to do this or Maybe as I think the founders did when they wrote the Constitution, maybe you actually leave some of these tensions in there so that they have to be worked out. It's kind of creating a situation where it's requiring us to come together and work on things.

And I would argue that process of engaging in conflict situations and resolving it is sometimes the point and not like a nuisance, but it's actually the pathway towards becoming better people individually and collectively.

But again, it starts with embracing it and not fearing it and recognizing that there's going to be people on the other side who are going to make you really uncomfortable. And that's okay. We don't need to run from that.

Bill Cleveland: 00:09:31

Part 2 Practicing democracy first of all, am I meant to all the things that you've just described? Recently my grandson asked me the question, say grandpa, people are talking about democracy as threatened. What is it?

And I gave a fairly pro forma response. Democracy is our particular way of working together to try and decide what's next. Something like that. And he said, but what is it that you do?

And I was not going to say you vote every four years or two years. Right. Because that's not what it is. And so my question to you is, what is the practice?

How do we practice and get good at this really challenging thing you just described that we need to do in order to thrive?

Emma Addams: 00:10:28

Yeah, I think you have to first look at the people around you in your sphere of influence and community and don't see that as separate from all of this. I think a lot of times we look to Washington D.C. and we're like, that's where the action is. That's where I need to put my time and effort.

I need to be spending my time learning about all the news and up on all the latest, this and that.

And I always tell our women, like if you have this much time, if you have a certain amount of time that you're going to spend on being a pro democracy advocate or becoming someone who can help further and advance democracy. I would recommend that the littlest bit of that is spent on like federal and national.

And then the vast majority of the rest of it is spent, I think looking around your local community.

And it's really hard to feel a sense of self efficacy or agency when you're spending all of your time thinking about federal national issues that are complex and affect people in different ways around the country. And bless those who are working on that. And we are too.

I'm not saying that there shouldn't be people work on it, but for the, for most of us, for the average American, we're going to find fulfillment, connection and meaning and efficacy. Like we'll get stuff done when we focus on the spheres of influence closest to us.

And, and so, and I would submit that you actually learn more about democracy as a whole and you feel more connected to your citizens and other parts of the country when you're doing that work locally and when you're doing it in a way that tries to persuade and not see others as people to be feared. So that's why I think it's so hard to have a definition for your grandson, is that you almost have to. It's like there's, it's an embodiment.

There's something about physically doing things, being in conversation, being places with people and interacting and pushing through hard conversations that once you're doing that, then you feel empowered and you. And it nourishes you. Right. Versus depletes you when it's yelling into the void or sending letters into the void elsewhere. Yeah.

Bill Cleveland: 00:12:38

I have a friend, Harry Boyt. He's.

Emma Addams: 00:12:40

Yes.

Bill Cleveland: 00:12:40

You know him.

Emma Addams: 00:12:41

Wonderful. Yeah.

Bill Cleveland: 00:12:42

And he reiterates what you just said. He just says, well, democracy is a practice. It's not a way, it's not a form of government. It is a practice. And citizenship is practicing democracy.

And at the most basic level, whether it's in, in a class where the teacher turns around and says, we're going to decide together what we're going to do next. Right. That is, that's a democratic practice. It's just. Is what it is. So. So Emma, this is not your first, as they say, rodeo in Utah.

And you have clearly been involved, thinking and doing this kind of work for a while. How did you come to that path? How did you get this way?

Emma Addams: 00:13:28

Yeah, I think hopefully the way I came to it helps others see themselves in this because it's not really traditional or straight lined or obvious. If I were to name my identities that I have consistently held dear at least over the past 20 plus years, I mean, musician is one.

From the moment that I was given access to a piano and some lessons and books, that has been who I am. It's my native language. Reading music and performing is my thing. I am a fierce protector and lover of my children and my family. I have three boys.

They are extraordinary. They're each so, so, so different. And I learn to advocate through being their mom. Right. I just really spent a lot of time learning how to do that.

So those are kind of identities that maybe you wouldn't see as Being someone who is now like in D.C. like talking to senators and leading a group, historically a registered Republican. The day I turned 18, I grew up in the San Francisco Bay area. So I was kind of a lonely Republican or a lonely conservative.

I had this really amazing US history teacher my junior year, Mr. Dwyer, at Hayward High School down on the East Bay.

And he just created this environment in our classroom with what he asked us to do, the conversations, the discussions we had, and the papers he asked us to write, where I just really honed skills of persuasion and really learned to take pushback and feedback because again, I oftentimes felt like I was the lone conservative in the room at that point, and then again when I was at Stanford.

But what I learned from both those experiences was I learned to just really respect and appreciate the opinions of my classmates and my teachers who came from different perspectives. And I think I never felt like they were condescending, even when I could tell they disagreed with me politically.

And I would take up issues one after another that were maybe considered more conservative, but they forced me to make my arguments in a way that was not relying upon emotion or, or platitudes, but that like used facts and persuasion.

And so I just really appreciated that over time, especially with my work with EM Wake, you know, I still have a bit of a conservative core, like personality wise and temperament wise and like new ideas, I'm taking a little time to warm up to them.

I always think about unintended consequences, but it's really been tempered by a sense that we need principled citizens to play a little bit on what Harry Boyd has talked about. You can still have a political identity. We're not asking you to walk away from liberal or conservative or Democrat or Republican.

But what if we all took those identities and we subsumed them to a higher identity as a principled citizen?

What if we acknowledge that the others might have good ideas and what if we focused on protecting the how and what of the Constitution more than our particular policy aim and thought beyond what is my personal policy preference and what's going to help me and my people and what's going to be good for the greater group? And I would submit that's gonna, that's better for all of us. Right?

And so I, that's kind of where I got to what I do now, because Emway, the group that I run, it's cross partisan. I've got 40 Republican and 34 Democrat and a third, at least independent. And they all more identify probably more along the middle of the spectrum.

But have a variety of opinions.

And so that means that it takes us longer to come up with statements and calls to action and content, because we aren't all just, boom, we're right there together. Like, we do the hard work behind the scenes of grappling with it and wrestling with each other's ideas.

And I have found such fulfillment in the grappling and the wrestling, which is so ironic. Being an introvert, right?

Bill Cleveland: 00:17:14

Yes.

Emma Addams: 00:17:15

That I would run from that. And I do have to conserve my energy, But I just think it's so powerful.

Like, we do a lot of collaborative writing, and someone will do the first draft, and someone else will come in and someone else. And before you know it, like, you've got something beautiful that represents the collective at the end. And when we do it well, it just.

It just really shines, and it just elevates one individual's ideas. And I want that for everyone. I want them to have that experience, because I think it's a human one.

Bill Cleveland: 00:17:45

So if you think about that, most people don't think of politics as being a transcendent path, but I think what you just described is. And it's not necessarily just the position that you come to.

It is being with other humans and caring about them enough to listen and the miracle of finding some place that you can occupy together that then has the power and force of the collective. This is way beyond just winning the debate.

Emma Addams: 00:18:22

That is such a beautiful way to describe it. I always say I'm not interested in being a part of an endeavor that doesn't make me and others who are part of it better people.

And so let's be clear, I had some periods of time this year in particular, where I took a hard look in the mirror and I said, what you have done and said over the past couple months, by and large, has not moved you in that direction. You've allowed resentment to creep into your soul. And it's.

And I would submit that when you resent a politician, you don't know, it's almost impossible not to allow that resentment to creep in for others that you do.

Bill Cleveland: 00:18:56

Yeah.

Emma Addams: 00:18:57

And so I had to take some time hiking and thinking and reading and writing, and I had to really take a hard look at myself and say, either your time is done and you need to move on, or you need to change how you're approaching this, because this is not currently in its state making you better. And what is the point of being here on this earth, if not that making each of us better and connecting? It's not making you better.

And it's isolating you and cutting off connections with people you need to be with. And so I don't want any part of that.

Bill Cleveland: 00:19:25

And I would also say that we live in a society that often tilts us in the direction of that simple path, which is, I will demonize these people, and these people will be my friend. And that feels comforting, to live in a world that is that predictable and creates the bubble that. That we're trying to. To burst.

Part 3 the quilted constitution so when I first met you and you told me the story of your quilt journey, I was knocked out by it, to be honest, and inspired. And I'm even more inspired now because it has more miles on its odometer. And why don't you tell that story?

I asked what project personifies the work that you aspire to, and I'm assuming this is right at the center of it.

Emma Addams: 00:20:17

This is definitely one of them.

And the coolest thing about this project is if I tell you about how it started, it really represents the values that we, as an organization, try to hold.

And the whole campaign, which has now grown to thousands of women across the US Majority of them not members of our church or connected to our church in any way. So it's women who've taken this on. It started with one of our members, and her name is Jessica Preece, and she lives in Provo, Utah.

And she was feeling some despair.

And specifically in her case, she had held deep belief about the importance of foreign aid and global health and had watched kind of those programs be defunded, pulled away, and derided, frankly, and felt a bit helpless and wanted to figure out some sort of act of protest in some ways, because she felt like her senators were sitting by and watching it happen. But she had a couple of ideas. None of them were right. And then, frankly, and she tells the story this way, she.

She prayed, and she got this inspiration. And the way she describes it is that she was inspired to do what women have done for generations. Go quilt.

Bill Cleveland: 00:21:23

Yes. Yes.

Emma Addams: 00:21:24

And so she posted something in one of our spaces in Utah and said, hey, I'm gonna do this quilt in, and we're going to quilt for the Constitution in Provo, Utah, on this date. It was in 48 hours. And so I'll have squares, and I hope you come, and we'll make a quilt together here in the public square.

And so we kind of saw that, and we're like, we want to help out with this. We asked her, do you want some help, or do you want to just Keep doing it. And she's like, yes, please. So.

And so we got together, and within 48 hours, we had gathered over 100 people. And they made these two quilts. And each. Each quilt is American flag, those two original quilts.

And each square has a handwritten message from a constituent to the two senators here in Utah, Senator Curtis and Senator Lee. And the message is about protecting the Constitution, is about Article 1, the responsibilities of Congress.

So you get this little civics lesson in there, because you got to kind of look it up and remember, okay, what are the responsibilities of Congress? Well, to represent us. Right. They are the most powerful branch for a reason, because it's we the people.

Bill Cleveland: 00:22:19

In this local news report, Jessica Priest shares a bit of her story.

Emma Addams: 00:22:24

Women are stitching and sewing quilts as a way to protest. I'm Maya Constantino in Salt Lake City, and they're taking those quilts to D.C. your activism can come out of your everyday life.

Quilts have been around for centuries. Quilts have long been used to communicate messages.

In the 60s, a very poor rural community of black women started the Freedom Quilting Bee as a way to raise money for their community that had been sort of felt a lot of persecution because of their involvement in the civil rights movement.

Jessica Priest and other women across the US Are calling for the protection of checks and balances, respect for the rule of law, and recommitment to constitutional principles.

Jessica Preise: 00:23:11

For, this is an opportunity to stand up for the people that aren't being listened to.

The group is showing the quilts to legislators in D.C. where they will continue history.

Emma Addams: 00:23:21

We each take our small little pieces of ourselves and we put them together and we make something big and beautiful. Not all of us have to go march.

Some of us can go south in Salt Lake city.

Maya Constantino: 00:23:32

Maya Constantino, Fox 13 News, Utah.

Emma Addams: 00:23:35

And here's the thing about it, and I think you'll really appreciate this as someone who's in the arts and that intersection is that a lot of these women and was men who were there involved as well, who had been writing and calling maybe over the past couple weeks.

And this happened as this thing grew, is the act of coming together and physically creating something beautiful was like a joyful experience and an empowering one and a healing one.

And then ultimately, when those quilts were delivered, then you now have, like, a physical manifestation of your thoughts and ideas to your representative in a form that's really hard to just toss in the garbage. So there's that. But the thing is, that campaign came out because one woman had an idea and we supported her.

And then everyone else was like, me too, I want to do this. So before we knew it, we had this huge thing on our hands.

We launched it a couple about a month later, we launched, at our conference, we had 500 women in the room from 30 plus states. Everyone created a quilt square there.

And then from there there were, I think it was up to now, 48 quiltons held across homes, libraries and public spaces. We got representation from all 50 states. In D.C. we didn't have a full quilt from each state, but we had squares from each state.

And then ultimately we had 62 quilts. We delivered to 56 congressional offices in D.C. in May.

And we had a whole display just down the street from the Capitol where we came together and actually sewed backs on all these quilts and sewed them together and then hung them with this clothesline that was built very ingeniously by one of our leaders who just brought her drill in her suitcase from Arizona to Salt Lake and then bought the stuff from Home Depot and built this clothesline. And then they were all delivered. So all in.

There was about more than 5,000 people participated across the US and this was just over a six week period. That's just a little bit intense.

Bill Cleveland: 00:25:23

Absolutely. And so a question, and obviously these kinds of events have more ripples than the moment of truth in D.C. they do indeed.

So I would ask, what are you seeing? What are you feeling? What kind of impacts has it had on your constituency? Who are your representatives?

Emma Addams: 00:25:46

Well, it was interesting because those who came and attended the event, it was very emotional, like to see these quilts and see all these words.

We delivered all the quilts over the course of a day and I think it was felt a little bit probably shocking to the security at all these places in the Capitol. There's all these women coming through with these rolled up quilts with ribbons, and we're walking through the Capitol.

They were beautifully received by almost every single office. We had one or two that were like, I don't know if I can accept this. And we were like, you can. It doesn't cost any money. But we.

One example would be it's Representative Fauci, I believe, how you say her name is a Democrat from North Carolina. She's displayed it on her office wall and put on social media.

And then Blake Moore, Republican from Utah, told us that he one night after a really late night in the house, he came back and curled up on his couch and took a little nap with the quilt on him.

So there you have two Examples right there of, of two different representatives who now have the words of their constituents literally sewn into fabric. And if you think about a quilt, it's everything nurturing and loving and good.

It's something that, you know, moms make for their children when they go off to college, or grandmas make when the baby is born or. And so it has all that love sewn into it. So that's kind of a few of the stories we have. Now have many others who want to participate as well.

So we're doing an event in Nashville at the end of September.

We're looking at a couple other events and looking at kind of creating a movement and a community from here on out that's so much bigger than MWeG at this point. MWeG is just one really small part of it. We're kind of the engine in providing the volunteers and the women are keeping it going.

But it's inclusive of anyone who is comfortable gathering under that banner of women building peace.

So our goal will be to have toolkits and options and for anyone to just go to our website and download what they need to host their own and such over, over time.

And we're also expanding into postcards because we did have a couple of representatives or senators who gave like two or three quilts and there's only so quilts you can give. So what if they got a quilt and then they continued to get postcards that are beautiful and artistic that are from these, from women.

And what if we do this in such a way that we stay focused on the message of the Constitution? There's a lot in there to write about due process, rule of law, freedom of speech.

What if we, the people, collectively, successfully peacefully persuade our representatives that we want them to be our voice, we want them to stand up for the Constitution and we want them to be a check the check on power that they were designed to be. And to be fair, both Republican and Democrat institutions over the past decades have collectively contributed to the state we're in right now.

So we can genuinely come to this moment not focusing on any one party or any one person even, and just collectively say, hey, we the people, we believe that this document was created to uphold and uplift the voice of the people in protecting our democracy. So can we work together to do that?

Bill Cleveland: 00:28:45

So, and what I also hear you saying is that the energy from the quilts creation stories continuing to build and I'm assuming as all good organizers know, it's a long haul journey, that one event or another is not going to get anybody over the finish line.

Emma Addams: 00:29:07

It's not.

And I appreciate using that word create again, because I think too often I get questions from people who want me to get my people to do something as if they are ottomans. Right. And I'm like, I can't get them to do anything. I can only put forth options and co create with them ways for them to engage.

And this campaign is the perfect example of that, is that it's been co created every step of the way. It's not some sort of marketing campaign created in a vacuum that is then descended and given to people.

It has been organic, it has been meaningful, it has been exhausting, it has been messy, it has been chaotic, but ultimately beautiful. And. And as an artist, you understand that's the creative process. It's never neat and tidy. Very rarely is it a straight line.

And especially if you're going to be collaborative about it, you're going to have to expect that it's going to go different directions than you initially thought along the way.

Bill Cleveland: 00:30:08

Yeah, And I really appreciate that. What you just described as a creative process is also democracy at its core.

Emma Addams: 00:30:18

Right? So many metaphors here.

Bill Cleveland: 00:30:20

Yeah, absolutely. And I think the message from the digital universe is that pretty much everything is available instantly, anything you want in five minutes.

And of course, the real world does not operate that way. The human cooperation story has never operated that way.

And as you well know, there is such a long history of women doing what you're doing, not just to make community around the kitchen table, but also in support of things like the freedom schools and the temperance movement. And I believe even In World War I they made quilts for the Red Cross. So quilting is more than just a cute little crafting exercise.

It's a powerful thing and more metaphors than we could count.

Emma Addams: 00:31:13

It's been interesting because we've gotten reports in from women who hosted these quilt ins that it was actually a way to bring in and interact with family and friends who had different political opinions. And there was a lot of unexpected results.

I mean, one woman in Texas talked about how her mother, with whom she had a great deal of political disagreement, was just so eager to help her with this project.

It was one of the first advocacy things she had ever worked on, that her mother wanted to be involved, that one of her neighbors, who vehemently disagrees with her politically, loaned her the equipment. And then imagine them sitting around making this quilt together, discussing aspects of the Constitution to write about.

So it's a learning experience as well. It hits all of the areas. So that's the sort of stuff that's not as measurable, like change in relationship and nourishment.

It's hard to measure that, but I think we can feel when it's present and when it's happening in ourselves and others.

Bill Cleveland: 00:32:10

Well, if you think about this tradition is hand work and story.

Emma Addams: 00:32:16

Yeah, it is.

Bill Cleveland: 00:32:17

You don't have to be highly skilled. If you can sew at all, you can do it. And then the collective of people connecting and with that mixture, you cannot keep people from telling stories.

Emma Addams: 00:32:33

You can't stop them from connecting with one another. They just do it.

Bill Cleveland: 00:32:35

Part 4 picking your battles

I'm going to venture to say that this is early days for you.

So what thus far do you feel like you've learned that you would share with others who say, oh wow, this is a great path you're on. What have you learned?

Emma Addams: 00:33:00

I think the first thing would be that it's really easy to get caught up in the urgency of the moment. And that is important.

It's important to do work that defends the systems, the processes that we have and that we aspire to have so we still have access to them down the line. Right. You have to be doing that kind of short term democracy defense. And we're working on that.

But just as important is to figure out, to do something along alongside that. That is the long term, the patient work and coalition building.

I just can't think of a single example in the history of the world in which authoritarianism was not defeated by a coalition that's broad based. I mean, you can't think of a single one. Right. And so now it's like, when's the best time to plant a tree?

Well, 20 years ago, when's the best time now? It's the same thing with coalitions, Right. The best time would have been to have those coalitions.

But I think there are a lot in place and so building those. And a coalition can be small, it can be local, or it can be bigger and broader based.

But part of that is you have to know who your unlikely allies are and you have to bring them in and not through coercion or fear. Sometimes I think we want to mistake our policy preferences for the laundry list of pro democracy things. It probably needs to be slimmed down a bit.

Maybe it is that our particular policy preferences is not the center point here. And genuine persuasion and care is the only way to do this work.

That's on the long term, that's nourishing for me personally, the only way I can stay in this And I've been doing this for eight years now, and it's been intense. And then. And I've had periods of time where I felt broken down and just unable to continue on.

And the thing that's like my guiding light that just keeps bringing me back is human dignity. And especially the hard work of seeing my quote, unquote enemies as fully human is actually the most nourishing act.

It's the hardest thing, but here's the beautiful thing about it. It's also the most effective and strategic thing. So it's wonderful case where they line up.

And I can really attest to this because I've had meetings with people where I didn't come in with the right frame of mind, where I came in wanting something from them and feeling disdain. I thought I was hiding it.

And then I've also been in meetings or spent time with people who I disagreed with deeply, for whom I truly came with an openness. And in the second case, we were able to figure out ways to work together.

And I wasn't coming in to persuade them, but it turns out they were persuaded by the state of my heart versus my carefully designed arguments and words. So if you do really want to persuade people, you actually have to see them as fully human and not try to persuade them, ironically enough.

Bill Cleveland: 00:35:39

So another way of putting this is that the disagreements people have on right, left, red, blue, those policy things, for the most part, actually have a common root system that connects to the heart, to caring. I mean, when they're genuine. And this is just my soapbox, which is PowerPoint is not the quickest way to the heart and head connection.

It is making together, telling stories together, looking for resonance rather than difference. And these kinds of collective behaviors, which we don't do so much anymore, aren't just nice to have. They're actually essential.

And what you've done is you've reintroduced a kind of ritual that goes back tens of thousands of years that humans have always used to bring a common sense of purpose and connection.

Emma Addams: 00:36:38

Well, and I think sometimes it's easy to look at what you and I are talking about right now and see it as weak or ineffective or just being nice. And I just want to make sure I'm really clear here. That's not what this is.

Yeah, you can be powerful and strong and say hard things to people and make very firm statements in a way that makes it clear where you stand on certain things. I mean, just one example is I looked a senator in the eye and told him that the way that we. I Use the collective we are talking about.

And treating immigrants is unacceptable. It's not okay. It's hurting us. It's hurting all of us. And that maybe that was uncomfortable. We ended up having a really good conversation.

But I just think this doesn't mean I'm just, like, going along with people and saying, oh, what you're doing is okay.

I mean, when it comes to caring for and protecting the most vulnerable, that's where the part of me comes out that I'm just like, I gotta say hard things. But for me, the difference is I don't do that every moment in every conversation.

I try to be very thoughtful and frankly, from my faith perspective, very prayerful about when are the times and the moments where I come out with strong statements of moral certitude. And if I am constantly spewing, like, platitudes of moral certainty, then they don't mean anything.

Bill Cleveland: 00:38:06

No. And they're going to objectify you.

Emma Addams: 00:38:08

Yeah. Attaching them to every policy objective I believe in, then I'm rendered, I think, ineffective. Yeah.

But if I choose a few things, and as an institution, we've chosen a few things that were stake in the ground for us and, and we speak about, we write about them, but not in a way that is trying to shame those who are doing it, you know, to a better place.

Bill Cleveland: 00:38:31

You said it. Respect and dignity in every encounter we have. That ought to be as hard as it is the discourse that happens. Part five Sparks.

So what's really sparking you right now?

Emma Addams: 00:38:49

Yeah. Hiking. I hike a lot. I'm in the mountains of Salt Lake, so I listen to music and books while I hike, and I also listen to podcasts and things.

So I try to pair sometimes news and things I need to get done is like taking my vitamins or eating my grains with something that, like, fills my soul. So I'll go on hikes and walks. And there's a couple of different books right now. One of them is Yuval Levin's American Covenant.

It's a really beautiful explanation of how he sees the Constitution as the governing. The document that provides everything we need to know to get us out of the mess we're currently in. Not just as a what, but a kind of the how of it.

There's this beautiful book written by someone I know called, named Chad Ford, called 70 times 7.

And it's Jesus's Path to Conflict Transformation, in which he pulls out example from scripture of the ways that Christ didn't just try to, like, smooth over conflict, but actually directly addressed it. But had a whole repertoire of ways that he did that I really.

I've been a huge fan of minimalist music since college, and so this is kind of an intersection of my music and advocacy.

um, I think, that came out in: 2020

And it was a really bold document at the time, and it somehow feels even more inspiring and audacious in this moment.

Bill Cleveland: 00:40:05

Absolutely, yes.

Emma Addams: 00:40:07

And so this album has this beautiful minimalistic music that he is so masterful at, combined with Voices reading this document.

Bill Cleveland: 00:40:14

Here is Hans Richter speaking on npr.

Hans Richter: 00:40:20

We live in a time of anxiety, a troubled time, in a way, dark times. And I wanted to put something into the center of the piece which provided kind of a hopeful perspective.

And the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is this extraordinary document which comes out of another dark time, the Second World War, where the world was basically in ruins, in ashes, and yet these people came to together under Eleanor Roosevelt and wrote a blueprint for a better world. And I think that's a. A wonderful human achievement. And there's something very inspiring and hopeful.

Emma Addams: 00:41:01

About that text, and I can't listen to it without just like, weeping. And I'm not a crier, I'm not an emotional person. But this particular piece, because it just. It's. It just meets.

It just meets the beautiful expression of music which touches me with this. This deep belief I have in the. The universality of goodness and humanity in people.

Hans Richter: 00:41:29

I wanted to make the record feel as universal as possible, as democratic a space as possible. And that meant having other voices in there.

So we put how to call on social media and just asked people to send in recordings just made on their phones or whatever of them reading part of the Declaration, we had an amazing response. Hundreds of recordings flooding in in all kinds of languages. And I use those recordings to make a kind of a landscape that the music flows through.

It's natural that we look at these questions through the lens of the present moment. And it's very nice. Natural that we should see it also in those terms.

But Voices is a piece about the really fundamental questions underlying all of this, which is a basic human equality.

Emma Addams: 00:42:48

So that's one of many things that are inspiring me. But I do all my boys play piano. And so I love. I have a piano behind me right now. I have another one.

And so listening to them play at night, and even we'll open the Windows and our neighbors across the street will come out and listen. And some of them, they all have different skills and abilities and styles, and I love listening to them play. It's really fun.

Bill Cleveland: 00:43:07

So my final question really is the intersection. There's obviously many passions that drive you, one of them being music.

And you've begun describing how the music crosses into this sense of peacemaking. Can you tell, say a little bit more about how those two parts of you connect?

Emma Addams: 00:43:33

Yeah, I mean, I've always felt as though there were things I couldn't express with words that could be expressed with music. Ever since I was a young girl. I again, being an introvert too. Right. I have a limited word count per day.

Once that word count is used up, then it's kind of done. My poor family sometimes gets the out of word count. Mother, wife.

Bill Cleveland: 00:43:56

Yes.

Emma Addams: 00:43:57

But I've never felt limited in terms of music and the arts. I've never felt like it limited my expression. In fact, it amplified my expression. And I mean, as a person, as a person of faith, who.

The spiritual aspect of my life is just. Is so key and important. Music is a way to merge all of those parts of me. Right.

And I feel in a world where we struggle to see each other again as fully human, we need more arts, we need more music, we need more beautiful things. And if I just could, from a faith perspective, like God could have made the world a certain way.

And it would have been more than acceptable for us to have mediocre or mostly beautiful world, but it was made with the full spectrum of sunset and mountains and seas and desert and beauty and classical music and jazz and rock. And we as human beings are endowed with just like endless, infinite creative energy. And I think there's a purpose in that.

And I don't think that's separate from the work of defending and protecting democracy. I think it has to be a part of it. Whether you are a creator of it or an enjoyer of it or a supporter of it.

And if we all kind of take the time to incorporate it in and figure out ways to access that, that creative part of us, I think we're on our way towards good things.

Bill Cleveland: 00:45:22

Earlier you mentioned how some people think of all this as soft. And I think when you are at loss, there's no words. And the sense of meaning and depth you just described has basically taken over that power.

It's not for the faint of heart. It's a force of nature, that core of what humans use to make a caring and thriving world.

Emma Addams: 00:45:50

And maybe if I could just Add, it's also a space for grief. And so if what one is feeling is grief and sorrow, that's. It's also a place to go for that.

I remember I studied Mahler's Kindertoten Leader, which is basically Songs for Dead Children, in college. And at the time, I had not yet known grief, really. But I studied that piece as an expression of grief.

And I studied it from an intellectual perspective and looked at the way it was laid out and how. And how it demonstrated the cycle of grief. And then years later, I went back to that when I felt I knew what grief was.

The healing to have those like, profound, raw expressions of grief in this music was a key part of my recognizing and understanding it. And I don't want to use the word healing, because I don't think one ever fully heals from grief.

You're just transformed by it and look at life differently. But I think there's a lot of reasons to be sad and grief. I'm an optimist, but that doesn't mean that I don't know what grief and sadness is.

And there's a lot in our public sphere to mourn about. Yep, absolutely. And if we don't publicly and collectively mourn for it and individually do so, then I think we're missing an important step.

But arts can do that as well.

Bill Cleveland: 00:47:04

Well, I couldn't agree more. And on that profound note, Emma, I'd like to thank you for sharing your stories, your wisdom, and so much of your word quota here on the show.

Emma Addams: 00:47:20

Well, thank you. I'm so excited.

Bill Cleveland: 00:47:22

And thanks to you listeners for tuning in. Before you go, here are three things I think are worth carrying with you. First, democracy works best when it's homegrown.

Your kitchen table, school board, your congregation, long before it reaches the halls of congress. Next, art and creativity. Even something as humble as a quilt can transform advocacy from protest into connection and even healing.

And finally, peacemaking doesn't mean avoiding conflict. It means treating tension as a chance to build something, build trust, clarity, and durable change. So again, thanks for listening.

And remember, small acts of principled courage ripple further than we think. Art Is Change is a production of the center for the Study of Art and Community.

Our theme and soundscape spring forth from the head, heart and hand of the maestro, Judy Munson. Our text editing is by Andre Nebbe. Our effects come from freesound.org and our inspiration, as always, comes from the ever present spirit of OUC235.

So until next time, stay well, do good, and spread the good word. Once again, please know this episode has been 100% human.