Starfish Fable

Hi sister,
tonight I will begin with a fable. It is a very short fable but it explains something about me. It goes like this:
A grandpa and his granddaughter were walking along the beach. On the beach there were many starfish on the sand. The girl knew that if the starfish had been washed too high on to the beach, they would be left to dry on the next low tide and they would die. So, she was tossing the starfish into the water. Her grandpa said "silly girl, you'll never be able to save all those starfish." She picked up the next one and threw it with all her might toward the ocean and said "Well, I saved that one."
How does this apply to me? Well, I do some things that seem like they might not be having the effect that I want them to because they seem like very small gestures in terms of the big picture. Like, I will take every possible opportunity to not drive a car that I can. I will try to find a way to accoomplish the trip by walking or biking. That's because I feel that we need to do whatever we can to reduce our production of greenhouse gases and air pollution, and to conserve fossil fuels. These are things you will probably learn about later. Hopefully, by the time you learn about this the rest of the world will have taken part in this too, and the planet will have slowed it's pace of warming.
Another thing I've been doing lately has to do with politics. This you will learn about eventually, too. Here's what's going on. There will be a national election in about a week, and it is the most critical election that has happened since I've been alive. A congress that is dominated by Republicans for the last 12 years has been allowing our Republican president to get his way, and some of that has included invading countries that have done nothing to us, and taking away some of the rights granted to us in our constitution. If enough Democrats can get elected next week, the majority of the Congress will be Democratic and they can call for investigations of the Presidents actions, some of which might be illegal. What I've been doing is making a lot of phone calls to other parts of the country, encouraging people to vote Democratic. I'm calling other areas because where we live, most of the races are not going to be very close. In Oregon, we have 4 democratic congressmen, and they should win their elections easily. The lone Republican will probably win his race easily, too. So, I'm putting my energy where I think it can count the most. But, the point of the starfish story is that I know I can't save them all at once, but I will take being able to talk to one voter at a time.
There are a lot of times that it seems like what you are doing won't make much of a difference. However, it will make a difference to that one starfish, so the act is worth it. I remember another quote: "Brick by brick, my citizens, brick by brick." It means that you can't finish something that you don't start, and by taking the first step, you might lead others to follow you.
Ok, that might seem kind of boring, but it is a little of an explanation of why I do some of the things that I do.
Love, aba....