Our fearless youth is our future
This follows on the previous post highlighting the Kenyan Embassador’s speech to UN on Ukraine — while not young at 50 he’s young by diplomatic standards — and I celebrate our youth leaders, three examples of which popped up recently. The follow-on post is about another population group as possible agents of change.
Update 1: I have since left social media, see here in my next series for why
Update2: Céline Dion’s Prayer at the end underscores points made here
Update 3: Bella ‘What’s the alternative? To give up?’ Lack interview at bottom
Update 4: Quaker Junior Meeting Epistle update at bottom
Update 5: young adults in the news at very bottom… media catching up!
Even from afar I still support Extinction Rebellion’s Project 3.5 since our youth deserve all the respect we can give. They were the leaders who told us to “wake up and smell the coffee”, be it Greta Thunberg everyone knows of or Chris Alton no-one does — see YouTube count on his Quaker lecture, and if you hear themes similar to Extinction Rebellion below, then it’s because he talked to London XR cofounder Ian Bray the summer of 2018 when the movement was founded — disclosure: I’m a Cambridge UK Quaker myself.
Here are the links to those in the banner picture and the opening tweet:
These speak for themselves, and I commit to further supporting young adults, who are our only chance to tackle the current climate breakdown. Let me close with another post to my local group while I hide under my rock.
Céline Dion — Prayer (Official Audio) (italicised excerpt in new series here)
Can we touch the soul of heaven
Can we unite a sacred lesson
Every child creates a skylight of beauty
Can you hear cathedrals falling
All the universe is calling
Cry a single cello from your heart
Since the world has lost her way
Loneliness journey endlessly
Yet the promised chance remains
Gifts of that could be
So let the children remember the sun
Let them dance let them soar
For their lives have begun
Let the children engender the rain
As the river runs through fields
Forever subsiding their pain
Prayer
Every voice along the shoreline
Standing still within time
Spinning unresolved the walking
As each season passes
Through wonderland, looking glasses
The secret garden shire beckons you
Gentle flower don’t fade away
Sweet innocent still harbors thee
In faith of garden dreams
Where one love lives eternally
Let the children remember the sun
Let them dance let them soar
For their lives have begun
Let the children engender the rain
As the river runs through fields
Forever subsiding their pain
Prayer
Bless the children for they are the light
They are truth of spirit in flight
Yes the children engender the rain as the river runs through life
Healing their pain
If you could trust with your heart one more time
Sweet angel conceived
You have forever and always believed…
Prayer
Update: read this interview, heading of the article here:
“Bella Lack, a leading voice in the next generation of environmentalists, is on a mission to redefine activism. She talks about optimism, collective responsibility and finishing her A-levels”
Every summer, Britain Yearly Meeting (aka. Quakers in Britain here) have a gathering for young people aged 13–18, this year’s theme being “Respecting all life and identities and understanding different opinions”.
Aside from the enthusiasm, depth and breadth of topics and practices covered, this quote they reported from Quaker Faith & Practice (here) struck me:
“Through conflict handled creatively we can change and grow. I am not sure real change, either political or personal, can happen without it.” Quaker Faith and Practice 20.71.
Don’t you agree this is one way our younger generations can provide leadership in confict resolution, and ultimately a better world?
‘I’m tired of the lies’: the young activists leading the way on climate action — together with the tagline below Support urgent, independent climate journalism today — show that media may have finally “woken up and smelled the coffee” to start real investigative journalism, so we no longer have to seek alt.news like, in alphabetical order, Byline Times and Double Down News or Real News Network to seek “the news behind the news”…
Note that among main.news, Al Jazeera English is great… then again it was started by the British journalist who uncovered Serbian ethnic cleansing during the Balkan War… by being the sole female journalist with access to Muslim male victims’ wives — who will only talk to foreign women… as I can attest to from my year in Kuwait — a sad statement in and of itself… never mind the fact that she had to go to Qatar to do so! [Note also that Wikipedia tells the official story — kudos to the Qatari Emirate — which also shows you only get the real story being at/near location at/near the time... a huge issue when news has moved online, as discussed further here.]
