©iStockphoto/Michelle Milliman
It's hard not to like the color green, isn't it?
I'm not talking about the color of American money; I'm talking about the plush green grass that surrounds you while you sit under some shady green leaves. The sun is out, and along comes a cool breeze...
And that's the humming of the green movement, which has slowly brought an increasing number of people back to that place beneath the shade of the tree. Many of them had forgotten that place long ago.
If the gentle breeze of the green movement is the hum of previously inaudible voices, or the spoken word, then the shade of the tree represents the books and other reading materials, or the written word.
You see, literacy and the green movement collide under that very same tree. They go together like Romeo and Juliet.
To live without nature OR books is like living in Jeanne DuPrau's The City of Ember. Well, it is for me anyway. If I had to choose one over the other, I don't know what I'd do. But to live without both?
Without literacy, the green movement would never have been possible. Just think about it. Speaking, listening, writing, reading, yelling, singing, signing, and even just plain old thinking...these are all components of literacy. Without them, the green movement would not even have had a chance. It would have been buried, without ever seeing the light of day.
It was the shadow of literacy which brought the gentle whispers of the green movement to life. And yet, it's a cause which has been cast in the shadow of every movement that has ever existed.
As the one movement which makes all of the others possible, it is time for literacy to take its rightful place as the mother of all movements.
I love the gentle breeze and the shade, but they're so much better with a really good book!
Let's bring literacy out of the shadows. Literacy must become the new green. Like the air we breathe, our lives depend upon it.
Any ideas? Questions? Comments? Agree or disagree, but please make your voice audible!
