Recently, Jen Savage (one of my favorite fellow bloggers and writers) wrote a guest post for The Humboldt Herald in response to BP’s horrific oil spill.  In it, she called for everyone “to create a new image… an image of a united demand for new clean energy instead of the same old dependence on oil. Join ….Hands Across The Sand …[which] takes place nationwide. Join the call for clean energy on the North Coast.”

The response in the online world was often ugly.  The comments ranged from crazed to cruel to coldly practical.—”Driving, or sharing rides, to the beach to protest offshore oil seems a bit counter to the cause.

What about a day of not consuming oil/gas?”

I have to confess that the later comment made sense to me.  In fact, driving to a beach to stop oil drilling seemed counter productive to a lot of people, a lot of good people.

But the reality is that there is a force when humans gather together that can be used to create new realities-Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr. are only two of the leaders who understood this method as one of their best strategies for achieving incredible societal changes.

Tom Sebourn explained this event and another he attended many years ago this way, “The world didn’t change because of people holding hands. People changed because of the world holding hands.” These same people could have driven to the grocery store, the mall or the movies but instead they came together on beautiful beaches worldwide hoping to raise awareness of a critical need for a change in energy policies.  They did it out of hope.

My theory is that whatever people do to combat despair, whatever they do to build community, if it works for them, even if it doesn’t work for me, I should support it.  There is enough apathy and discouragement in the world.  I don’t intend to be part of the suffocating blanket covering up the first breath of what may grow to be a vital response.

So I may not drive hours to hold hands, I may not even be convinced that the event alone will solve anything, but I do believe that people who care, who join with others who care, can do a hell of a lot in this world.  Protests and marches have changed the course of history. I hope that from this beginning will come world changing action.

I hope so for my sons’ sake.  Someday they’ll want to hold hands with their children on a beach.