October 11, 2007 -And How Are The Children?
The traditional greeting that passes between African Masai Warriors is- And How Are The Children? Kasserian Ingera? And the response, regardless if or not the warriors have children is - All The Children Are Well! So we ask you today--- And How Are The Children? (PAUSE FOR A MOMENT AND REFLECT) This is a particularly good question to think about this week as we try to understand how we can have unlimited amounts of money to fight war and not enough money to ensure that our children have basic health coverage? Furthermore--why are we paying for this war by letting our children pay for it in the future? .... One recent comedian recently suggested that we should start running Nascar type elections where all candidates have to wear jackets with patches of all their major finacial sponsors. What do you think?
Ethical Wills
Our board member and estate planning attorney Milt Smith has written on one aspect of this issue on our website which deals with Ethical Wills. The section includes an article on what is an ethical will, an exercise on writing one for your self and a sample of Milt's own ethical will. This can all be found at http://www.forthegrandchildren.org/node/114. Here is the opening paragraph of Milt's article...Traditional wills transfer worldly possessions. An ethical will bequeaths values, ideas, and personal reflections to family members and other loved ones. Ethical wills have been characterized as windows into the souls of those who write them, making these wills cherished by family members from generation to generation . Reinforcing the fact that one does not have to be wealthy to leave a legacy, an ethical will allows the writer to convey to family members and close friends values, ideas and personal reflections, including significant events during the author 's lifetime. We recommend that you take a look at this work and begin your own process of writing an ethical will. We believe that it will help you grow.
Great Responses
We got a few great responses and replies to our Cranky Environmentalists column from last week. Check it out at http://www.forthegrandchildren.org/blog/23. I recieved directly a few more responses and I wrote back to people suggesting that if they respond on the website then more people can see their brilliance. We are trying to create an online conversation here. Please help. This is one way you can make a difference.
SOME GREAT EVENTS
Green October This month in Seattle is considered Green October with many events being planned to highlight the need to fix our fragile environment. One of our favorites is the Cascadia Convergence,http://sustainablecascadia.org/events.php. This event happens on October 26th and 27th and includes a keynote by one of our favorites- Severin Suzuki's father, David Suzuki. David Suzuki is a wonderful story teller and you will love hearing him. And if you want to know more about his daughter Severin-- go to http://www.forthegrandchildren.org/node/51. Cascadia Convergence 2007 is an event that begins a 5 year initiative to catalyze collaboration aimed at achieving sustainability across our bioregion, Cascadia.
Building Community The NW Intentional Community Association presents Diane Leaf Christian author of Finding Community this weekend at the Greenwood Senior Center. People from a new community coming together at Songai will be there to answer questions about their new community. For more information go to the NICA website at http://www.ic.org/nica/.
This is Volume/issue 1.10. We have archived prior issues of this newsletter under Resources/A Joyful Future at www.forthegrandchildren.org. You can always unsubscribe to these emails by replying to them with unsubscribe in the subject line- but we hope you don't as we have big hopes for this work. Special request: Please notify us if this weekly letter is difficult to read and why, and also what your browser and operating system is? You could also give us feedback about the format and how we could be doing it better. Thank you.
ForTheGrandchildren
Editor: Victor Bremson