Maybe you don’t think of yourself as someone who joins a rally in the street brandishing a hand-lettered sign and shouting slogans. Me either. Whenever I get an email alerting me to a social action that requires me to actually show up, I find myself wondering if my physical presence really matters, say, at a rally with members of my congregation in support of affordable housing in my community. I question whether I really need to drive down to Senator Bill Nelson’s office when I could sign a petition on line or fax or call him. Not that those things aren’t important, too. Then I remember what Gandhi and Martin Luther King accomplished by being willing to put themselves at risk, and I feel ashamed of myself for even hesitating.
There are some things that cry out for organized, apolitical action and the BP spill and all that it represents — corporate greed and malfeasance, hubris, folly — is one. If you live anywhere near a beach, particularly in Florida, you can take a stand. Chances are excellent that someone is organizing a local Hands Across the Sands event on June 26. As the name suggests, it will be a human chain lining the beaches at noon for 15 minutes, to express opposition to offshore drilling and support of clean, renewable energy.
The movement actually started in Florida on Saturday, February 13, when thousands of Floridians representing 60 towns and cities and over 90 beaches joined hands to protest the efforts by the Florida Legislature and the US Congress to lift the ban on oil drilling in Florida’s waters. Florida’s Hands Across the Sands event was the largest gathering in the history of Florida united against oil drilling. Thousands joined hands from Jacksonville to Miami Beach and Key West to Pensacola Beach. On June 26, we’ll be at Juno Beach, wearing this DYI T-shirt.
If you’re landlocked, you can organize or get involved in a different kind of action. Here is a list of other volunteer opportunities connected with the BP spill.
Other ways to get involved in saving the world. If our generation doesn’t, who will?