My four-year-old daughter has taught me this lesson:
when a child wants to derail Business As Usual—
to curb the hubris of adults who dare believe
in schedules and plans and productivity—
one fierce little body and one clear, piercing voice,
strategically applied to the right pressure point,
will change the course of the day’s events.

My comrades in organizing have taught me this lesson:
when a silenced people want to be heard—
to raise from dry bones a living, breathing dream
of new ways of moving, being, incarnating freedom—
one small, tenacious group whose hearts beat in rhythm,
rising shoulder to shoulder against the inevitable,
will bend the arc from impossibility to hope.

Our young climate leaders are teaching us this lesson:
when the grownups and the old movements are too slow—
as the sea levels rise and the hurricanes rage and
the migrants flee and the corporations profit—
one generation, both young and silenced, 
refusing to accept an inheritance of doom,
will take toward the streets and move us toward life.

Blessings upon them as they teach us,
organize us,
beckon us in
and call us out.

May their fierce urgency and uncompromising clarity
Show us the path toward healing, and freedom, and hope.

Blessed be, Ashé, and Amen.