Radical Joy Revealed
March 16, 2016
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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. 

1906 coal miners
Coal miners in West Virginia, 1906.
Our focus at Radical Joy for Hard Times is on the deep and enduring love that people have for their particular place. For that reason, we welcome all kinds of people to our events. Even though they may consider themselves on different sides of an issue, they are united in their attachment to place. On the first year of the Global Earth Exchange in 2010 (this year it takes place June 18), Christi Strickland, a grief counselor and Naropa University teacher, took a group of students and faculty to the Valmont Coal Plant in Boulder, Colorado. In her introduction to the event, Christi included a history of coal mining in the United States and in Colorado in particular. She described the hard lives of the coal miners and their families--laboring underground, breathing coal dust, living in near poverty--and reminded the group of how millions of people relied on the coal the miners dug to heat their homes and power their industries.
 
After the program was over, a man approached her. He told her he was the son, nephew, and grandson of miners from Kentucky. He had always been proud of his family and was moved by the sacrifices they had made, even as he was all too aware of the harmful impact coal-burning had on the country's carbon footprint. The two sides of his own story had always seemed in conflict. The Global Earth Exchange, he said, enabled him for the first time to embrace both sides of his life and his thinking.
 
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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 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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We love sending you Radical Joy Revealed each week and sharing inspiring stories and ideas that make a difference to people struggling to find meaning, beauty, and community in challenged places We're committed to offering this newsletter at no charge to you, our readers. Currently, our organization is experiencing a severe financial crisis. We welcome any contribution you can offer. Thank you for supporting RadJoy!
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