Inside Out

One of may favorite parables is about Martin Luther and his tree.

In case you haven't heard this one...

One day, shortly after posting his complaints against the Catholic Church on a church door, Martin Luther was working in his garden. A small group of priests came up to him, hoping to catch him off-guard with an existential question that would lead to his recanting. One of them asked, "Brother Martin, if you knew for certain that you were going to die tomorrow and meet our Lord, what would you do?" Martin Luther was quiet for a moment as he continued to carefully fit a fruit tree sapling into the earth. As the priests waited, Martin sat back from his work and glanced up at them. In a calm, quiet voice, he said: "I would finish planting this tree."

This is a parable that is retold more for its truth than its facts. It reminds listeners to live each day fully, to live your entire being in each moment. It also reminds us that we will all die, regardless of what we do or do not.

But what if we turned this question inside out? What if I were to come up to you right now and demand, "If you knew for certain that you were going to live for two hundred more years, what would you do?"

This really turns our awareness and responsibility around. We would actually be around to experience, first hand, the world we are creating today. Also, no longer responsible for only our own, individual "salvation" we are met with the prospect of - as beautifully put by Sean Penn during his Oscar speech - potentially facing our grandchildren and great-grandchildren and great-great-grandchildren with burning shame for our short-sighted carelessness. This makes the adage about seven generations real and immediate. With the prospect of living out the consequences of today's actions, would we continue with what we are doing today?

I have kept Martin's answer to that existential question in mind for many years. Now, with my growing awareness, participation, and investment (thank you, President Obama, for reclaiming this word and sentiment), I find that doing only what I think is right/sustainable/good for me is a primer for what we are truly called to do.

Yes, keyword: We. We are in this together. There is no "away" to which we can escape the consequences of our collectively unconscious acts. If we are to live, it is we who must wake up.

And it is time to wake up; the alarm is getting louder and the snooze button will not make it stop. Wake up crabby, wake up refreshed, wake up confused, wake up ready to go - however you do it, it is time to wake up and get moving away from the distraction, sleep-walking, and "zoning out." As our president has extolled - it is time to put aside childish things; i.e., time to take responsibility for our actions beyond immediate gratification and power plays. It is time to look deeply and far into how we want to live, not just what we do to acquire phantom wealth/money.

So, how would you answer the question: If you knew you would live for two hundred more years, what would you do right now?

Martin Luther would likely give the same answer.

Can we hear the kids?

You know that little sinking feeling one gets when the kids go quiet? You just know something is not right; they're either getting in trouble or hurt. When kids are healthy and engaged, we hear them; when we hear healthy, engaged kids it signals to us that things are "right."

Well, in the circles of community development, transition, and improvement I have not heard the kids.

One recent evening I attended the latest one of these circles of people talking...and talking...and talking about what to do to bring about vital, sustainable change for our communities. When my daughter (age 12yrs) asked, "What are we actually going to DO?" she was commended for her insight and then the adults proceeded to talk about how she was right that we had to do something. The one other person under 18yrs in attendance said nothing the entire time.

The day after the meeting, my daughter and I debriefed. We thought of ways kids could be included in this work, rather than just tolerated or added to what the adults are doing. We came up with ideas for creating "pods" for the kids during meetings: when the adults are theorizing, the kids could be working in another space to brainstorm what they can do, start networking with friends, create a website, plan an event to take the theory into practice. At one point, the pod would rejoin the adults and meld what they've been working on with what the kids have brought. I asked her if she thought it would be helpful to have one adult along in the pod to guide, not rule, the process (aware of the pitfalls of distraction). Her response: "No - trust the kids." She beautifully brought me into awareness of my own projection of my frustrations with adult meetings! I then asked her what kind of age range could be encompassed by our ideas of inclusion. She undercut my guess by three years; in her opinion, everyone over the age of five could and should be a participant in shaping a nourishing world.

Two days after that meeting, she had established a group of 20 people - including four adults - who are interested in working for sustainability, particularly in the area of consumerism as it is targeted at kids and teens. My proud-Mom buttons are pinging everywhere!

This is what our efforts need - the energy, creativity, perspective, and experience of our most vital resource! Our children need to be engaged with the work of building their inheritance. We all know stories of "spoiled rich kids" who have no clue as to how to manage the enterprises that have facilitated their lives. Well-meaning parents mistakenly "protect" them from the hardships of the work they've done to secure a particular incarnation of "the good life." How much more important it is for our children to know what it takes to guarantee clean water, air, and soil for everyone! What a waste of time, energy, and resources to constantly reinvent the wheel as young adults have to learn anew, reclaim what their parents and grandparents knew and did.

The sustainability of any movement or enterprise is predicated on legacy planning - who will do this work when you don't? How long will it take someone else to be in a position to replace you when you move on to something else? So often, the answers to these questions arrive in multiples; one trailblazer or hub is replaced by many.

Beyond technology and getting things done, our kids need to learn from us how to do it together over the long-haul. As with so much in life, sustainability isn't just what we do - but how we do it.

In a 21st Century world of collaborative leadership, we need to be listening for and to our kids. Their engagement will made all the difference.