Today's guest is Seattle Pastor John Helmiere of the Valley and Mountain community

John Helmiere is a United Methodist pastor (also known as "convenor") with the Valley and Mountain spiritual community in the hillman City neighborhood in southeast Seattle. Helmiere believes strongly in uniting inner spiritual growth with outer social engagement and action. He was severely beaten by Seattle police during a 2011 Occupy protest at the Port of Seattle in solidarity with the dockworkers. He has recently filed a federal civil rights lawsuit over the incident. He was also arrested last month along with Seattle Councilmember Kshama Sawant and two air0port workers at the headquarters of Alaska Airlines over their lawsuit attempting to block the $15 an hour minimum wage passed by the City of SeaTac. He and his congregation are also very involved in an interesting experiment in social change organizing and community-building, the Hillman City Collaboratory: An Incubator for Social Change.

Links from this program:

http://valleyandmountain.org/

http://hillmancitycollaboratory.org/

Article about John's lawsuit:
http://thefreethoughtproject.com/pastor-violently-beaten-police-protest-files-federal-lawsuit/

His reflections on the police beating incident:
http://valleyandmountain.org/what-we-do/creative-liberation/johns-response-to-police-brutality/