I don't think I'm being Vulcan here

In societies where modern conditions of production prevail, all of life presents itself as an immense accumulation of spectacles. Everything that was directly lived has moved away into representation.

- Guy Debord, The Society of the Spectacle 

A video of Greta Thunberg speaking to the UN this week blew up for a few days on my Twitter and Facebook feeds. When I first started seeing them, I thought that it was because people were judging her as angry, immature, and too emotional. What I saw instead is that a lot of the people on the left that I follow were proud of her for getting angry. One climate activist that I respect tweeted that "Rage-filled Greta is actually my favorite Greta."

I'm a bit perplexed by this. Her anger and rage are fine, but that it takes her getting so emotional to make such ripples is sad to me.

I'm not trying to be Vulcan about it and saying that we shouldn't get emotional. I'm saying that we're simply not using our imagination enough if it takes a kid to get angry for us to listen. Her getting angry doesn't make her any more right (or wrong).

Like the burning CVS, I'd like to think that anger is okay if it gets people to listen, but I don't think that it gets us to listen any more than we were already. It gets us turned on to the spectacle of it, but likely no more committed to a future that works for all.

I'm amazed at her thinking and articulation and maturity. And I think it's fine that she got angry. This isn't an indictment of her self-expression. It's an indictment of the culture that turned her message and self-expression into a spectacle. I'm feeling sad that anger seems so meaningful to express, when devastated homes, hungry bellies, the 6th mass extinction, and mass migration aren't enough to call us to action.

Just because you're offended doesn't mean you're right!

- Ricky Gervais

That's how the light gets in

Anthem by Leonard Cohen
(Lyrics copied from here.)

The birds they sang
at the break of day
Start again
I heard them say
Don't dwell on what
has passed away
or what is yet to be.
Ah the wars they will
be fought again
The holy dove
She will be caught again
bought and sold
and bought again
the dove is never free.

Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack in everything
That's how the light gets in.

We asked for signs
the signs were sent:
the birth betrayed
the marriage spent
Yeah the widowhood
of every government --
signs for all to see.

I can't run no more
with that lawless crowd
while the killers in high places
say their prayers out loud.
But they've summoned, they've summoned up
a thundercloud
and they're going to hear from me.

Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack in everything
That's how the light gets in.

You can add up the parts
but you won't have the sum
You can strike up the march,
there is no drum
Every heart, every heart
to love will come
but like a refugee.

Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack, a crack in everything
That's how the light gets in.

Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack, a crack in everything
That's how the light gets in.
That's how the light gets in.
That's how the light gets in.

What being pro-life feels like

Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Therefore, whoever takes the lowly position of this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. 

- Jesus, in Matthew 18: 3-4 

What do you mean, "Why?"
Tonight at dinner, I asked the boys what I should write about for my blog. My older son said that I should write about the Bahamas [recently ravaged by a hurricane]. I asked him why, and he said, "because they were destroyed." I asked him why that matters. He said, "What do you mean?! The Bahamas were wiped out!" And why does that matter? He couldn't get why I was asking such a preposterous question - in his world, it obviously matters that people are getting hurt and will get more hurt by the impacts of climate change.

My younger son said that I should write about littering and pollution. I asked him why. "Because it's a problem." Why is it a problem? "What do you mean?! Of course it's a problem!"

The older students that I typically teach can dig deeper when I ask those questions - keep peeling back the layers of our thinking and beliefs. I like the exercise because it's fun and kinda enlightening, but I also find that it's a powerful experience for me and them to get in touch with the things that really matter to us. At some point, we say: "Because I care about it!" And there's no deeper layer, because our caring about it doesn't need a reason, it doesn't need an argument, it doesn't need a justification.

We hit that level very quickly tonight at dinner. My kids are pro-life. They care about other people and animals, automatically and unequivocally.

This is a pro-life movement

At the end of the documentary, Chasing Coral, that I watched in a couple of my classes last week in preparation for the climate strike activities, one student came up to me at the end and said, "That's so sad." I think she's pro-life, and that's why she found it sad, but I'll find out. (25% of the world's species live in coral reef ecosystems, over 1.25 billion people survive on them, and we're likely to lose all coral reefs by the end of this century.)

I'm pro-life: I want all people, animals, plants, fungi, etc. - all of it - to have a fair chance at living full-out, satisfied, and fulfilled lives. And I hope to grow in my wonder at life, its mysteries and beauties, that my kids have reinvigorated in me these last 11 years. The climate and environmental movements are pro-life movements, and I'm excited to see young people starting to fill the leadership gap.

Source: a friend took this image at the DC climate strike.

Smoke signals from a burning CVS

I likely wouldn’t have known about Freddie Gray at all, or the depth of continuing issues of U.S. racism, if that Baltimore CVS wasn’t set on fire.

At the time, I was teaching high school engineering and physics at a private school just north of Baltimore. Another teacher at school mentioned that she was going to be discussing in her classes the death of Freddie Gray and issues of police violence and systemic racism, so I decided to find a couple videos to watch in class to lead us into discussions. It wasn’t a topic I felt very comfortable discussing with students in class, but it seemed important enough to bring the conversation up, follow my values, and see where things went.

I found the following video; after watching it a couple times, something clicked for me.

My initial perspective on the Baltimore Uprising was that what happened to Freddie Gray was wrong, but destroying property was not the way to make things better. In the video, Wolf Blitzer tries to get Deray McKesson to condemn the acts of destruction. However, Deray stands focused in attempting to bring Wolf back to understanding the why behind the destruction: people are in pain, people are angry. And then it clicked for me.

Smoke signals from that burning CVS woke me up to severe well-being issues that I was ignorant of. What’s some damaged property compared with the real suffering of people?

I’m grateful for those smoke signals, because it opened me up to new levels of understanding, compassion, and commitment in my life.

I don’t want the transformation of our environmental awareness and actions to also necessitate the destruction of property, this time at the hands of the climate and damaged ecosystems. I'd rather us solve these problems without calamity.

New Orleans, Houston, Puerto Rico, the Great Barrier Reef, and others. These are smoke signals. Are we waking up yet?

What’s the smoke signal you think will get the fossil fuel industry (and the politicians on its payroll) to wake up?

How sad to think that nature speaks and mankind doesn't listen.

- Victor Hugo, 1840

A formidable question

We can’t build what we can’t imagine. We can’t build what we can’t imagine. I’ve said it again and again, but please, let it really sink in. It’s the most important fact on our planet right now: We can’t build what we can’t imagine.

- Alex Steffen, Climate Activist, in his essay Heroic  

Tonight I got to do something that I love to do - sit around a fire with people that I'm close to.

I shared with my friends a little about attending the Climate Strike in Baltimore yesterday, and a friend asked me, "Are we *screwed*?" (That's not the actual word that he used...)

Many of us ask that question, and I too wanted to know the answer to it. I haven't asked it in a while, but I feel mildly drawn to it still, or at least the portentous story that often follows. Tonight, trying to put my finger on why I've asked the question, though, I think it's because it would help guide me in how to feel. 

"Yes, we're screwed" would give me permission to indulge in grief and then resign myself to a sad, unavoidable future (or ignore the problem altogether). "No, we're not screwed" would give meaning to my actions - good, so my actions won't be for nothing!

My thoughts about the future are initially cynical. So when my friend asked me that question tonight, I said, "Yes, I think we're screwed. But I'm still going to do everything I can to build a different, better future." That's meant to be inspiring, but really it's just cynicism protecting me from feeling like I failed, or feeling like I'm fighting a losing war.

In retrospect, I wish I had thought a little bit before I spoke. 

Here's what I'd say to him now: "What kind of future do you want for yourself, for your kids, for others?"

That question is the one I mean to ask others. That question is the one we need to ask each other more often. The strategy, the game plan, can't be developed until we've created what it means to win. Otherwise, we'll just be playing the game of survival, and we know how that game goes. Us against them. Anger, fear, frustration, resignation.

I want a world of laughter and compassion and freedom and ease. Of health and well-being, of enjoyment and satisfaction. Clear oceans and thriving ecosystems. Clean, renewable energy. Games in the sunshine and naps in the shade. All of life would have an equitable, feasible, fulfilling access to the kind of life that it's drawn to.

Try it out: What future do you want? 

The follow up question, of course, if anyone is willing to ask it, is "What can we do now to get there?" But that question isn't where we need to start.

So answer that first question, to me, to a friend, to yourself: What future do you want?

If we want a thriving, prosperous, sustainable world we have to imagine it, first...

- Alex Steffen, Climate Activist, in his essay Heroic   

Sometimes it's messy

A letter to the faculty of my school on the eve of the global climate strike:

Though it usually feels like I’m doing way too little for the environmental movement, I’m committed to a future that works for all life.

The past couple weeks at school, with regard to the climate strike today, have been messy. Since [a couple students] presented to the school about the strike a couple weeks ago, to some extent we have all wondered what’s happening, how much we should assist/guide the students, and how to best support the climate movement in general. We’ve probably voiced or at least had judgments about the students, how they’re handling it, about each other, about school admin, about ourselves, and about the movement itself.

In 50 years, they won’t care how awkward or messy this planning may have felt. They won’t care whether we went to DC or Baltimore or stayed on campus. They won’t care whether we wanted to help or not, whether we really meant it or not, or how many people showed up to march.

In 50 years, they’ll care whether they have clean air, clean water, healthy food, healthy relationships, and a stable society. They’ll care whether ecosystems have the chance to live or die on their own.

No matter how messy this planning has been or how awkward or thrilling or satisfying or scary or frustrated or meh our experience at Friday's climate strike may be, it’s worth it. Building a world that works is worth all those feelings, and it’s going be messy. Revolutions are messy.

As eco-activist Derrick Jensen wrote, “Nothing matters but that we stop this culture from killing the planet.”

Thank you for participating in this movement, however you’ve chosen to join it on Friday.

P.S. I recommend that you read this excerpt from activist Derrick Jensen’s essay, “You Choose.” And I also recommend Greta Thunberg's TEDx talk, which kicked off our school movement a couple weeks ago.

What the hand is pointing to

We're pointing somewhere
I really enjoy conversations with my nieces and nephews. I like hearing about their lives and their thinking, and I like sharing stories of my experiences with them. Their creativity, thoughtfulness, passion, and care for others inspires me. I nearly always find that I could've listened more and talked less.

One of my nephews is studying to be a Catholic priest. He's clearly going to be a phenomenal priest, and I appreciate our friendship and our conversations. Though we share a similar language due to our Catholic/christian upbringing, we have different beliefs when it comes to religion, spirituality, and the meaning of it all. Regardless, our conversations seem to be stimulating to both of us on an intellectual and spiritual level.

Today we had a conversation about a human experience of God, and the conversation curved towards what effect a belief in God may have on one's moral actions. While I still don't think that a belief in God necessarily provides much support to one's quest to make the world a better place, I left the conversation clear about my nephew's commitment to others' well-being.

My nephew and I are both pointing forward to a better future for life, an improvement in well-being and fulfillment. Our conversation, however, was mostly about the hand that's pointing there.

Our hands are pointing there
His hand is the hand of a Catholic, one studying to be a Catholic authority on fulfilling on that future. Though we didn't get to the means in our conversation today, I suspect that his means of arriving at that future are different from mine, including an after-life.

My hand is the hand of an athiest, one studying to be ethically effective at fulfilling on that future in this lifetime. I think that the path to get there includes minimizing our negative impacts and maximizing our positive ones, supporting other life in getting its necessities, but also challenging myself and others to find greater depths of satisfaction, fulfillment, and enjoyment in the fundamental experiences of being alive.

It's enjoyable and stimulating to talk about the nature of our pointing hands, and I look forward to seeing more about his and mine as we move along.

What we're pointing towards
What's more important right now to me than the nature of our hands, though, is the future our hands are pointing towards. A future where life is healthy and fulfilled at all levels of its being. 

I wonder how many of us share such a vision, despite what our hands look like. (Probably many, many, many more of us than we think.)

Gratitude
I'm grateful to be surrounded by people in my life who care for others and their well-being. For the pointing hand insight, I'm grateful to Michael Neill, author and teacher (I highly recommend his Inside-Out Revolution book). And I'm grateful for your taking the time and energy to read this - thank you!

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You might be interested to read a previous post of mine, Pointing forward, that expresses my breaking through resignation at my political dissatisfaction last year - pointing my finger forward instead of pointing it at others.