“The people don’t stop!”

This morning I sat in a hotel ballroom in Washington D.C. for the third day of the Sister Giant conference. It’s been amazing! The enthusiasm of the speakers has been matched by the enthusiasm of the listeners. Ideas flying around the room. Questions bouncing in hearts and minds. The occasional bouts of singing. Almost an old-fashioned southern tent meeting and yet bigger, somehow. Bigger in the contemporary quilt of humanity gathered in that room. Bigger in the things that are required of us in these days. More, at this time, than most of us can remember.

And hopeful! According to co-leader Dr. Derrick Harkins from Union Theological Seminary–the one in New York!– “We can bring the miraculous to bear if we do the work we’re called to do.”

I suspect most, if not all of us, were wondering where to start. We got some good advice. Today, there were an awful lot of calls made from a certain hotel in Virginia to Senate offices about upcoming confirmation hearings. It’s actually making a difference! (And it’s easy!) (202) 224 – 3121

A tall, soft-spoken guy named Dave Murphy, the Executive Director of Food Democracy Now!, had an amazing suggestion about where to start. Don’t eat factory farmed meat!

Let me say that again. Don’t eat factory farmed meat!

Why?

Because we could largely solve the environmental challenges of our nation by returning to local food raised sustainably on small farms that grow grass and meat (or dairy and eggs) and vegetables, all in harmony with each other. It has a lot to do with soil and carbon and some other things I don’t remember from high school chemistry. If you want to know more, start with Dan Barber’s The Third Plate for a great explanation of the miracle.

If you’re not so into the science, go for delicious!

This is an issue I care deeply about and have for years. I want the food my girls eat to be as clean and healthy and delicious as possible. I want the same thing for your kids and everybody’s kids. I want to help heal our planet, instead of exhausting it.

Because this is an issue I care deeply about, it’s a good place for me to start. (More on this to come…)

I know. It’s hard to believe that what you decide to put on your dinner plate tomorrow can make that big a difference. It absolutely can!

(And there’s the matter of all the chemicals we wouldn’t be washing down stream! Chemicals that are now showing up in our foods and even, lately, in breast milk and breast tumors. Chemicals that are making a few people very rich. And powerful.)

According to Cenk Uygar from The Young Turks digital news network, “The reason ‘they’ tell you things are impossible is because they don’t want you to try!” That doesn’t work for me. We’re talking about the world where our kids will grow up!

There’s more to share. Much more. For now, though, I think I’ll let my 9-year old granddaughter, Kenzie, help. She said it better than I can.

Kenzie went with her mom to the Women’s March in D. C. Mostly, they stood, for about five hours because there were so many people that they couldn’t actually march.  At one point, Kelly boosted Kenz up so she could see over the crowd and asked her where the people stopped. “The people don’t stop,” replied Kenzie. “They just keep going!”

We are the people!