A Birthday Reflection on Life and Death

Today is my birthday. On this day I celebrate the amazing gift of life. I celebrate my parents, my sister, my husband, my extended family, my community and my God. On this day I am thankful for my life and the amazing support network that allows me to live with deep purpose and conviction.

On this day I also mourn. I mourn the death of Kareem Burey who was killed on this day in 2005. When I met Kareem I instantly felt the warmth, charisma and passion that he had. His life was taken before he was able to demonstrate the fullness of what God placed within him. Today I remember Kareem and I remain committed to supporting the young people that God has placed in my life. I pray that neither racism nor sexism nor homophobia nor trauma nor depression nor insecurity nor any of the ills that snuff out the lives of young people, will take the lives of any more young people.

My birthday comes just as young people are getting out of school and the summer is heating up. I have often dreaded the youth violence that often comes with the summer months. For the past two years the end of June has also come with a mass shooting, last year in Charleston, this year in Orlando. The warming season that should be about trips to the beach, cookouts and family reunions has become increasingly associated with death.

Around the globe, particularly in the warmest parts of the world, the onset of summer is also associated with death from heat waves. In Syria the summer heat meant a lack of rain and the death of crops. Hungry people fled to the cities increasingly destabilizing an already weak economy and increasing the conflict between resistance groups and the government. Syrians became the world's most visible climate refugees.

In Pakistan the heat wave from last summer was so bad that it killed more than 1,300 people. The young, the elderly, the sick and the poor were most vulnerable and many perished. This year one cemetary started digging mass graves in advance of heat waves. This is the reality of summer as climate change becomes more common in our world.

On the day when I celebrate the gift of my life, my only desire is for a world that honors and protects all life. I want for us to care about the lives of little Black girls in Roxbury whose asthma keeps them from trying out for sports teams and men who are languishing in the prisons because a lack of opportunity led to a life of addiction. I want to live in a world where the indigenous people of the Amazon are allowed to protect the land of their ancestors and where children in India are not forced to beg on the street because of economic inequality. I want to live in a world where Congolese bonobos are no longer endangered and where the water in Flint Michigan is not a source of danger.

I am the hope and the dream of people who were stolen from their land and not even considered human. Their prayers and their sacrifices made my life possible and I must do the same from the next generation. For years I worked on issues of youth development, education and criminal justice. Now folks see me active on climate change and it seems like I have changed my focus. I actually see my work now as deeply connected to what I was doing before. Right now I am trying to save the lives of future generations of poor people, people of color, indigenous communities. I am also trying to do that in a way that transitions us to an economy that is not about sucking up all the resources for the benefit of a small group of people.

As the temperature continues to rise I am also committing to turn up the heat on my organizing. I refuse to believe that we cannot turn this situation around and I am willing to marshall all of my resources of human development, creativity, strategic thinking, and spiritual discipline to work for a transition away from the broken economic, political and social system that we have to one that values the life of all of God's creation and that sets us on a path to honor the lives of every human being. This blog will be a place where I share my journey and challenge you to join me in this quest to save our species.

On this my birthday I ask you to consider taking 3 actions -

1. Subscribe to my blog so that you can follow my journey and find more ways to get involved. On the right side of the blog screen there is a space to "Follow By Email."

2. Watch the movie - How to Let Go of the World and Love All the Things Climate Can't Change. If you have access to HBO you can get it On Demand or with HBO Go. If you don't have HBO stay tuned because I will be organizing a screening. For those of you who feel you need to know more about climate change it will give you a crash course. For those of you who work on climate change it will give you hope for the future.

3. Learn more about a dangerous methane (natural gas) pipeline that is being built in the Boston neighborhood of West Roxbury and which is 2 miles from my church. It puts my church and many of our members in danger and I want to sound the alarm about this. You will definitely hear more from me about this, because it is one of the ways that I will be stepping up to fight climate change. To learn more visit Resist the Pipeline.

Thank you for taking the time to read this. It is one of the best birthday gifts you could have given me!