We will look back on our time here and ask, “What did I do?”

And maybe more appropriately, “What did all of us do when we knew that it was our honor to ensure your future was better than our own. That you had a future at all.”

Most days, I suspect, most of us were trapped on the ever accelerating Ferris wheel of consumption and fear and striving dominating life in 21st century America. Whipped around until our senses were a blur. Yet you might have glimpsed the start of something different, a continuation of every generation’s birthright: people moving back to cities instead of plowing new suburbs, lives lived more humbly, teenagers buying experiences instead of cars. Even as the society’s loudest voices were moving to further extremes in response, the counter current was strengthening. Our collective unconscious sweeping us in a different direction.

Every era must eventually own its moral blindness: one of colonization, slavery, women’s rights, or that generations’ preferred oppression. Ours will be the destruction of our own home. We move through this world as if things were always this way. When in fact it never was: today is only the manifestation of countless generations’ struggles and defeats through brought us here.

The precipice today is just beyond our toes. The ledge is crumbling. And those of us who stare down into the abyss wonder how will we ever get people to step back. Do we start removing ourselves from the system? What is our protest? Maybe it’s time to stop. That nothing else will matter if we work on the margins. Others want to try to change the system. And most only want to buy what they’ve been told is the definition of a happy life.

I wish I had more hope to give you. I just read a great quote that you might enjoy. Hope is Methadone for New Age people…”Here’s how hope works on people: It’s for the future. It’s addicted to possibility and utterly unattached to now. People can’t know that they are dying and still be hopeful. Either you’re well-informed and you let your days be guided by that wisdom, or you’re hopeful. But I am not going to traffic in hopelessness either. I’m not depressed. I’m not despairing. I’m just trying to be a faithful witness to the story.” -Stephen Jenkinson in The Sun.

I’m going to live with that one for a while. If we truly live our present moment, maybe you’ll have a future.

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More Messages to the Future

Dear Tomorrow,

I promise to sign up for 100% renewable energy.

Dear Rowan and Anaka,

If we could talk, I would not be able to bear your gaze as you ask: How could you, the people in a position to change the course of climate change, fail to act?

To the generation after mine,

But when you encounter that resistance–and you will, regularly–know that you must respond just how we have had to these past 50 years. With love, and sternness, and most of all, courage. Because that is what the resistance fears the most. We who came before you promise that we will do the same while we wait for you. Know that you will never be alone.

To my children,

I am working with 350.org on shutting down the coal and unconventional gas industries in our country because I cannot think of a more direct way to protect you, the food, water and biodiversity we all love and rely on.

Dear Nolan, Patrick, Cullen and Gabriel,

This Mother’s Day I am again thinking of my grandsons future and what I am doing to change the world if only by a small fraction.

To my daughters,

In order for you two be happy and healthy, we all need to work hard to prevent climate change.

Dear Samuel, Willa, and Ben,

To the core of my being, and only through the power of community, I will honor the voices of the youth who are pleading, “Don’t burn my future.” Samuel, Willa, and Ben, your little voices I know, will join that chorus soon enough.

Dear Rosie,

But when you are reading this years from now, by the light of a solar powered lamp, know that your dad, mom and millions of others who burned brightly with love for our kids did what we could, when we knew the stakes.

Greetings 2050 earthling,

Starting in 2015 I committed my life to sustainability.

Dear Me,

Today, I promise to keep my spaces clean and my environment cleaner.

Dear Future Today,

Here in California we’re starting to recognize our climate changing the natural world around us.

Dearest Gray,

When I asked you why the purple Violet called to you, you told me it was “magic”. I hope that you can still find the magic of life. I hope, despite everything, it is still in abundance.

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