Radical Joy Revealed
July 15, 2015
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Radical Joy Revealed is a weekly message of inspiration about finding and making beauty in wounded places. We hope you'll enjoy these doorways into places that are both familiar and surprising, and we welcome your suggestions, stories, and photos. Click here to subscribe.

Snowmobilers riding past bison in Yellowstone National Park. Photo by Jim Peaco
Radical Joy for Hard Times is a path and a practice centered on showing in simple, spontaneous ways that the places where we live and that we love continue to matter to us, no matter what happens to them. But how willing are we to admit that others may love a place in ways we ourselves don't necessarily agree with?  

 

I may hate the way you love my own special place. I might even convince myself that you don't love it at all and that you are ruining it for people like me. If I'm a hunter, for example, I may view animal rights activists as sentimental troublemakers. If I'm a naturalist, I may rage at the snowmobilers who streak through a national park where bison are foraging. We can get so dogmatic about being right that we become unwilling to admit that a version of genuine attachment for a place that doesn't look like ours is just plain wrong. 

 

It is by no means necessary to abandon our own views of nature and how best to take care of it and enjoy it. However, if we can make room to consider that those we disagree with love it just as much, we can learn something about them, practice compassion ourselves, and broaden our concept of what nature means.

 

To discover other stories of inspiring people, stories, photos, and ideas, subscribe to Radical Joy Revealed.

Radical Joy for Hard Times is a global community of people dedicated to finding and making beauty in wounded places. Reconnecting with these places, sharing our stories of loss and despair, and making acts of beauty there, we transform the land, reconnect people and the places that nourish them, and empower ourselves to make a difference in the way we live on Earth. 
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