The Peace House Mission:
To promote nonviolent conflict resolution, socio-economic justice, protection of our natural resources and the inherent dignity of all people.
On August 28, 2019, sixteen-year old Swedish student Greta Thunberg and her devoted father arrived in the New York harbor, sailing past the Statue of Liberty, after having crossed the Atlantic Ocean in a one-of-a-kind solar powered sailboat. It took two weeks and was Greta’s way of refusing to burn up costly oil by flying to get here. She and her genius crew also proved that solar power can be a viable replacement for diesel fuel.
Greta has taken on the entire international corporate world, and more, challenging us all not to leave a global environmental mess for her generation. Watching the delighted, excited faces of the thousands of teens who greeted her and her crew in New York made me cry. What will they face in another five, ten or fifteen years?
While she and her father seemed a bit overwhelmed, with salt sprayed hair and straight off the boat, their enthusiastic reception by Greta’s peers included a sign: “You are our hero!” She is mine too. A possible modern-day Joan of Arc. No one else has delivered such keen analysis, with such clarity and justifiable impatience to world leaders at the United Nations, the Davos World Climate Summit.
Greta has hit on an effective form of nonviolent resistance. Her solitary, long-time Friday School Strikes from class, outside the Swedish Parliament, has ignited the imagination of hundreds of thousands, as she questions what the point of school is with the demise of the planet at the hands of less intelligent beings. She calls for the protection of nature, the home that has sustained us thus far. She calls for us to pull together despite our differences before it is too late.
Buddhist teacher Larry Ward recently said:
“The arctic isn’t supposed to melt! Nebraska is not supposed to be under water!
Children aren’t supposed to tell adults what to do…”
He asks: “What kind of ancestors are we willing to be?”
That the children are leaving school on Fridays to demonstrate for the Planet should tell us all that they have discovered a new form of nonviolent resistance; that being in resistance is the only possible way to save themselves for the years that will soon come, when we older ones are gone, leaving them with whatever legacy we can muster.
What will they say about us? That we took action? Or that we were too busy? Too uninformed? Too complacent?
It is a choice we are called to make. What kind of ancestors are we willing to be?
As part of our mission to encourage the protection of our natural resources and a culture of nonviolence, Peace House proudly supports the Global Climate Strike set for September 20, 2019.
