This morning I saw an email from Debbie Cowden of the Buckeye Forest Council addressed "To My Fellow Warriors." The Buckeye Forest Council is an environmental group fighting fracking, hydraulic fracturing, and they are advocates for the rights of Ohio citizens to clean air and water. Certainly fracking is one of the most urgent threats to a clean environment in Ohio (and in many other places across our land). I was taken aback by the idea of us being called "fellow warriors," but I gradually began to feel she used exactly the right term. Some of the people I have met in the past year or two are indeed brave warriors. I'm thinking of KF, KH, the members of Frack-Free Geauga. There's also KW, Mr and Mrs. W, DP, and KP. These are brave fighters, using their wills, intelligence, creativity--all their resources--to fight for something they believe in. Putting the "stubborn ounces of their weight," in the words of Bonaro Overstreet, into this struggle.
I remember many years ago when Chuck Matthei would point out that there were people in the military putting in long days and long careers doing the opposite of what Chuck and his fellow Peacemakers were trying to do. Chuck didn't think of peacemaking as a part-time avocation. For him it was the central focus of his life. Maybe some of my new friends and acquaintances have this calling--full-time warriors for the environment.
I would like to be thought of as a warrior, but there is a lot of work to be done before I could earn that title. Do I have the will, the energy, the courage, the persistence? Do I have the love in me to continue fighting for what I think is right?
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