We thought a lot about our grandchildren this week. What else is new? By the way, we consider all of the grandchildren our grandchildren. We found meaning in the following quote: Parents are guardians of the child's personality. Grandparents are guardians of their soul. (Reb Zalman). Our question of the week has to do with what it means to be the guardian of their soul? Write us an let us know what that means to you!
The week began by a group of us previewing the DiCaprio film The 11th Hour. Having a youthful face on the global warming problem is very important. It is not an easy film to take your mature youth to see. But we hope that this will enlist more youth into this epic struggle. The film includes short presentations by many of our favorite teachers. It is part of the full-press campaign to wake us from the nightmarish dream of the modern world and let us look at what matters most. We really believe that the campaign is beginning to take hold.
ForTheGrandChildren will be collaborating with a lot of groups in order to accomplish it's mission of unleashing the power and joy of generational responsibility. This week we spent much time talking to leaders of youth organizations. It is a part of our plan to bring youth and elders together in order to share their generations' gifts in such a way as to help solve the problems of our times. It is very exciting work and both generations will grow a lot in the process. Here are a few examples:
Doug Cohen of Inspired Futures visited Seattle this week. He is working to develop a program of encouraging youth leadership around the world. We loved his definition of sustainability that includes bringing forth a flourishing interdependent culture. We might be helping Doug pull together a last minute networking party to help introduce Doug to some local leaders this Wednesday. We hope to start some major collaboration with his work.
We met with Cindy Schell and Diana Bonyhadi, adult sponsors of the group Interfaith Voices of Youth (IVY). We are working with this youth group to create a series of intergenerational dialogues built around important cultural events in the Puget Sound Area. Let us know if you have any ideas for good opportunities for this kind of event. This is a learning project for us that we hope to document and offer nationally. Lorna Chang of Antioch University is helping design the local program.
We also spent some time with Michael Miller of Let Kids be Kids. Michael was a Seattle High School Teacher who is dedicated to bringing service type projects to our students. He just spent time with a group of college students visiting New Orleans and Mississippi.
The Cranky Environmentalist-- We will be introducing a new blog on our website and in our newsletter. We are pleased to introduce Bob Scheulen as our Cranky Environmentalist. Cranky because he would rather not be an environmentalist but knows that he has to. He wants the rest of us to begin seriously changing our life style. Hopefully his crankiness will be done with a touch of humor and compassion. Bob is an individual who really walks the sustainability talk. He has built a quality green home that has been displayed in Seattle Newspapers, was a leader in the Eco-Builders Guild, rides his bike to events whenever he can, and generally tries to live a simple and meaningful life. Bob will be writing about practical ideals and non-judgmental thoughts about the sustainability movement. He will welcome your questions. We hope that this combination column/blog will be a great attractor to our site.
HELP! We are looking for inexpensive office space in the Bellevue/520/UDistrict Corridor. Please contact us with any ideas.
Last week we talked about Ethical Wills. Our board member Milt Smith has allowed us to post his Ethical Will on our website at http://www.forthegrandchildren.org/node/71. Milt is sharing his to inspire others to consider writing one of their own.
The Joyful Future is the name we have chosen for our weekly newsletter and more in-depth periodic journal. This is Volume/issue 1.3. It will include news, teachings, event notifications of a national and local interest and much more. There will often be links to our website and there will be opportunities for members to respond in the form of blogs and forums. It is our way of communicating with our friends and supporters. Our website at http://www.forthegrandchildren.org is still being upgraded. Let us know what you think and consider joining. We know that there are still bugs on the site but we are working to eliminate them. And 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.
ForTheGrandchildren
Victor Bremson