Written on Easter Sunday, 2014

When Kevin Edds first contacted me by email several years ago, I was immediately struck by his seriousness as a human being. He said that he had long been a member of the World Federalist Association but was very frustrated because they were not able to find ways to engage his desire to take effective action to save humanity from the many impending disasters that we are facing in the early 21st century.

What struck me so forcefully was the sincerity and authenticity of Kevin’s desire to take meaningful action. He wanted to know if the World Constitution and Parliament Association (WCPA) had a place for effective and meaningful action on behalf of the creation of democratic world government. Indeed, we did, and it was an honor and a privilege for me to have a rare human being like Kevin join with our work. He and I immediately began talking on the phone and by email concerning our work and his part to play in it.

Kevin soon became a Trustee of the Institute on World Problems (IOWP) and a Vice-President of the WCPA. He rose to these important posts so rapidly, not because he cared about reputation or recognition, but because he immediately actively engaged in our work of promoting democratic world government under the Earth Constitution, which is the central work of these organizations. In the past several years, before his recent illness mitigated his ability to do much work, Kevin may well have been the most committed, active, and fruitful member of either of these organizations. Jus a few more people like him, and we would be able to change the world!

He was living on a subsistence stipend without extra money to do anything that had additional costs connected with it, yet he immediately began a systematic campaign of trying to raise funds for IOWP by researching on the internet names and addresses of wealthy progressive persons and sending them our brochures and letters requesting support. I would regularly mail him the stamps to do this, and he would do the rest.

Kevin understood the immense potential of the internet for inexpensively promoting our work. He discovered
places where free websites could be constructed, taught himself to work on these, and created a dozen or more webpages focusing on our work, such as http://protectplanet.webs.com/earthfederationnow.htm,
http://earthfederationmovement.webs.com, http://worldfederalism.webs.com, and efm.webs.com. For many of
these sites he designed comparative charts showing the fundamental differences between the presented failed world system and the basic features of the transformed world system under the Earth Constitution.

He also created many artistic icons – key statements about the need for the Earth Constitution or democratic world law placed within a photo or decorative frame (which he called ‘clip art’) – and posted them on many blogs, Facebook pages, his websites, or other internet venues. Kevin became a one man dynamo of promotion for our cause, which he understood very well is also the cause of humanity. He began to get wide-ranging responses to his many posts, people asking how they could help or what they could do to protect the planet. His recent illness cut short this growing recognition, but it has helped me understand what can be done and what is needed if we are to create worldwide recognition for the Earth Constitution with its potential to save humanity from our current suicidal trajectory.

I met Kevin in person in July 2012 at an IOWP seminar that we hosted at Raquette Lake, New York. He was as simple, sincere, and authentic in person as I had experienced him to be on the phone. I recall very clearly our walking along one of the wooded trails there while discussing the spiritual life and its depths, which is the life that he and I both aspired to lead. Both of us had heard Jiddu Krishnamurti, the great Indian-born sage, speak some thirty or forty years ago. We had both also read Krishnamurti’s writings, which deeply influenced our conceptions of spirituality. I admired Kevin as a person living his life in a profoundly authentic and non-traditional manner.

He was always thinking about ways to bring much needed funding to our work. He continued searching the internet for the best ways to do this. He identified the places where wealthy, progressive people were most concentrated, such as Silicon Valley, and also concluded that face to face contact was necessary to get their support. He wanted to bring energetic young people into our work as well. For the past couple of years, his plan was to move to San Francisco to be near both Silicon Valley and the many progressive students at Berkeley and the other universities of that area. WCPA would pay minimal costs for a small apartment or other living arrangements, and he would recruit young people and promote funding, through personal contact, from the wealthy progressive persons living in that area.

Humanity could not ask for any greater servants. He was willing to give up his comfortable apartment in Tucson, Arizona, and move to where he could be most effective in the service of humanity and its future. I spoke with him a number of times about this project, the last time was just a few days before his passing away. He told me what he was doing to regain his strength after his long illness, and he told me his plans for moving to San Francisco and continuing our work after regaining his strength. Like all great human beings, Kevin’s life was filled with meaning and value deriving both from the simple fact of the miracle of existence, so well articulated by Krishnamurti, and from the vision of bringing the Kingdom of God to Earth, articulated by Jesus of Nazareth and other religious visionaries of a transformed and redeemed humanity.

Kevin’s life and work give us inspiration and hope. He was a profoundly simple and humble person, living in relative poverty in a small apartment in Arizona, who rose to greatness through his depth of vision and vast commitment to the cause of humanity. We can do no better in honoring his memory than allowing his work to inspire our own commitment and dedication to bringing the kingdom of peace, justice, and freedom to the Earth and to subsequent generations forever.