Don’t ask what will happen. We are what will happen. That’s what it means to be an activist. We have a little over ten years, the best climate scientists told us this fall, before it’s too late, and that’s a warning but it’s also an invitation to go at this as passionately, fiercely, intelligently as possible. To take charge of what happens. To make those ten years heroic.
Rebecca Solnit
I founded the Center for Action and Contemplation in 1987 because I saw a deep need for the integration of both action and contemplation. Over the years, I met many social activists who were doing excellent social analysis and advocating for crucial justice issues, but they were not working from an energy of love. They were still living out of their false self with the need to win, the need to look good—attached to a superior, politically correct self-image. They might have the answer, but they are not themselves the answer. In fact, they are often part of the problem.
We too can ground our activism, social engagement, and resistance in wise compassion. We can make our activism not about what we are working against, but what we are working for. If we place our activism and relationship to the earth squarely among our deepest values and beliefs, we are more likely to turn again and again to the issue — not out of obligation, but out of genuine commitment.
…all is not lost. As the earth responds and shows us daily the folly of our ways, there is a growing movement of people who recognize that we have gone very far off course. Increasingly people are realizing that another way is not only possible but necessary for our very survival.
Jacqueline Patterson – Director, NAACP Environmental and Climate Justice Program