Watching the young student survivors of the Valentine’s Day massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas HS speaking out over the past 2 months since loosing their classmates to gun violence, has been remarkable to witness.  Watching them change the national conversation about gun violence and create the momentum to organize a very moving nationwide and world-wide “March for Our Lives” protest movement in that short period of time, while still overcoming their own grief, is beyond words!  They are wise, compassionate, inclusive, empathetic of all victims of gun violence and powerful beyond their years!  They see the big picture, and they understand that, in a democracy, their voice and their vote is what is needed to effect a change in our culture.   Their generation – Generation Z – have spent their entire lives witnessing massacres in schools, in places of worship, in entertainment centers and events (theatres, clubs, concerts), in political venues, etc.  They were born in the time when the world watched on television and the internet as the US was attacked on its own soil, and they have lived in a nation that has been at war with the Middle East for their entire lives!  Everywhere they go, they are confronted by violence – and they recognize that some members of society (people of color, women, sexual minorities, etc.) have had to endure this far longer and with far more intensity than others.  They understand that they have far more in common with military war veterans and those who suffer from PTSD (and many veterans agree with this), than they do with many of the adults in their lives, and certainly, than they do with most politicians.  And despite their experiences as survivors, and their grief over the loss of people they love, and their love of country, and their desire to take responsibility for fixing a very serious societal problem that they will soon inherit, they have been attacked by radicals as having no right to an opinion about gun violence and for being too young to have their voices taken seriously.  But they, more than most of us, have a greater right to speak out because of their personal, real-life experiences.  They have a greater understanding of what a society in a constant state of violence looks like, and they have a vision for how they want to change that.  Their voices are exactly the voices we need to be listening to right now!  They are the future, and we need to listen to them and support them!

At the end of 2016, after the unexpected “win” of Donald Trump as President of the US, I fell into a state of despair.  On the surface, it had appeared for many years as if darkness was taking hold in the US, and the Trump victory seemed almost a validation that the darkness had won.   But something important began to occur to me……we can’t see things hidden in darkness……if something is revealed, it is because a light is shining on it.  Our country was not filled with masses of people who had given into the dark (even with massive media manipulation, foreign influence, and voter suppression, Trump still lost the popular vote by more than 3 million people).  Rather, millions of people began releasing their light into the world in a coordinated manner….so much so, that what had been hidden was being revealed, and is still being revealed.  We are witnessing a huge influx of light into our country!  We can more clearly see and be offended by enormous corruption and the horrible treatment of people by many in positions of power, because our collective light is exposing what they are doing and continues to expose them.  And who has been holding this light the longest?  People of Color……Women……Children……… 

Years ago, I maintained that the solutions for problems we could not figure out how to fix as a country, would come from those whose voices had been silenced……from those who had been the most vulnerable and the most victimized.  I think we are beginning to see that those who can help us, are now finding their voice.  We need to listen to them and support them and honor them!