We who are alive today are amazingly gifted. Unlike any generation before us, we stand at the hinge of the worst and the best--both powerlessness to turn back a looming reality and the greatest of all invitations to become empowered. This empowerment is nothing that someone else endows us with but one we take on ourselves.

This "hinge" is, of course, the current unparalleled threat to the beautiful planet we live on. Earth is challenged by the almost unimaginable repercussions of climate change and by countless community problems like deforestation, mining, and development.

 

Yet each of us can play a big role in ushering forth this time of change. Some of us will choose to educate others. Some will make art. Some will plant gardens and change the way the planet eats. Some will work to end the use of fossil fuel.

 

Faced with both the tragic ailing of our beautiful blue and green planet and with the opportunity to do what some are calling "hospice work" on her behalf, we shoulder our burden willingly, bravely, creatively, and cooperatively with other people with whom, till now, we had no idea how much we have in common.

 

Radical Joy for Hard Times, as is plain by the name of our organization, is dedicated to bringing attention to the places and beings that have been neglected or lost. By going to them, finding the beauty in what they are even now, sharing our stories, and making beauty for the place, we revive our relationship with it, with one another, with ourselves, and with the Earth as a whole.

 

Thanks to Judy Todd for the inspiration for this Radical Joy Revealed.