Kathleen Dean Moore writes, in A Pine Island Paradox, “The most loving thing you can say to another person is ‘Look!’ And the most loving stance isn’t a close embrace, but two people standing side by side looking out on the world together. Because when we look, we begin to see, really see. And when we see, we begin to understand and understanding is our portal to the moral world.”

Since our own children were small, I have tried to carry them, as much as possible, looking outward. Of course there are times when we must gather our children to ourselves, holding on for dear life, but I always wanted the chance to explore the horizon with them.   I want to try and see what they really see when we look out on the world, to get their advice about what my brain interprets in my own sight.

Today it is harder than ever to really look. Harder to hope for futures unseen. Our daughter teaches high school math. Last spring she was going through the escape drill and talking through the procedures with her classes for what to do in case of a school shooting. She asked her students how they were feeling, that this is now what is required in our violent world. They said, “Ms. Pitney, we’ve been doing these drills since our first day of first grade. We’re used to it.” How can we not be afraid for these little ones. That this is the world to which they’re already accustomed.

A few days ago, a friend posted these contrasting pictures of some place in Western Oregon before wildfires and after. The combination of climate heating and unwise forest and range management are burning us up. In NW Oregon we have just set a new record for most days in a year over 90 degrees. My main message to people used to be that we need to do all we can to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in order to keep the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere under 350 parts per million…and global temperature rise under 1.5 degrees Centigrade. These to give life on earth a fighting chance of repair and regeneration. Well, we passed 350 years ago and then the scientists said if we keep it under 400 ppm we might still be okay and maybe keep the temp-rise at 2 degrees. Now we are approaching 410 ppm according to our readings at Mauna Loa and the scientists say there’s more than enough green house gas emissions in our holy sky to take the global temperature rise beyond 3 degrees.

As I await the questions our grandson will undoubtedly ask his grandparents, the current U.S. Administration is doing everything imaginable to accelerate the catastrophe of climate as if there were no tomorrow and I fear there’s not. I mean, we could certainly tell Jackson we’ve done everything we can. Each time he eats, sleeps and plays in his grandparent’s house, he will go way beyond Net Zero with us.   From the time he rides in a car seat in our Chevy Bolt, he will know what zero emissions feels like. But of course this kind’ve misses the point doesn’t it? It’s never just about us, right? As Wendell Berry says in the voice of Old Burley in his book Wild Birds, “The way things are we are members of each other. All of us. Everything. The difference ain’t in who’s a member and who’s not, but who knows it and who don’t.” I can only hope that we and our grandchildren everywhere come to be among those who know it. But I’m not sure I’ll really know how to answer Jackson until the time comes.

But I also refuse to be immobilized by guilt, as if it’s all my fault, alone. After all, most of us weren’t the ones who lied to the public since the 1970’s, denying that burning fossil fuel causes catastrophic climate heating, when they had seen the science. Most of us are not the ones responsible for rolling back the Clean Power Plan, doing away with MPG standards for cars and Clean Air standards for power plants. Most of us are not the ones lobbying the Oregon State Land Board to approve a 230 mile pipeline across SW Oregon to bring fracked natural gas to a proposed LNG site where it would be pressurized for shipment out of the country. We want all the grandchildren to be able to look out with us to see the futility of that world and become voting members…marching, resisting, protesting members…a membership of new prophets-who-will-not-be-silenced shaping the better world, the counter culture, the resurrected earth…the economy of hope, regeneration, justice, ferocious generosity and compassionate eternal love.