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.