Extending Kinship

I’ve always sensed a certain incompleteness to the argument that we need to simply think about our children in order to care about and implement environmental change. Caring for our children is certainly a strong and compelling emotion that we can all share. But there is still something fundamentally incomplete about the idea that this can be enough. No, it’s not just about loving our children, it's about feeling love for nature and planet directly. It's is about expanding a similar kind of love we feel for our children to the larger community of living things, and then, by-default, to our children, our pets, our planet and ourselves. This is a fuller expression of gratitude that can transcend the limited seeing of only our children’s well-being as important. Look around, there is a lot of damage done by people striving to take industrious care of their offspring. As far as love is concerned, this might ultimately be an all or nothing proposition.