48 years ago today Barbara and Ivan were married. Tonight, in my apartment, we had the kickoff meeting for the Bay Area Steering Committee of the Human Family Movement.
While I have been working on starting this non-profit for months, tonight was a key turning point. There were 6 of us here, and every one of us shared a common understanding and vision, and will be participating in making this happen. For the first time it is clear to me, and at least 5 others, that this can be done, it is a worthwhile endeavor, that I'm not just a crackpot.
The mission of the Human Family Movement is to create a world in which everyone has enough and we all take care of each other. This is my experience of famliy, of the family that started 48 years ago today. My vision is that humanity as a whole can reach a point where we actually operate as a healthy family. Where no one is left out, no one is abandoned, and all are lovingly assisted to fully develop their gifts.
The basic method of the Human Family Movement will be to build a movement of people who take responsibility for the world, and donate money that we channel to effective non-profits who are solving the most urgent problems on the planet. By dramatically increasing the funding for effective non-profits around the world we will transform the condition of being human.
After the meeting we had wine and we all toasted Bobbi and Ivan and the Human Family Movement.
We have a draft of the statement, the pledge that each person who joins the Human Family Movement will make:
I am committed to humanity and the Earth having a long, bright future, surviving and thriving for thousands of years.
This is something important that I see missing in the world. There is no individual or group or institution that has taken this stand. We have global problems. No one has been responsible for them. We in the Human Family Movement are changing that.
I realize this may not make a lot of sense to you yet. It is still early in this conversation, which we are starting now and will take place throughout the world for at least the next decade or two. It will be several years before it is easy to understand. But the important thing is that we've started, and that really what made this possible is what started 48 years ago today.
I have often wanted to be able to give to others the gift I was given of two wonderful parents. This organization is a way of creating for humanity the experience I have had of family.
Every child born on this Earth deserves as much as I to have the quality of family that I have had. That is why I am doing this. And that is why what started 48 years ago is far from over, for you two, for all of us, and for all of humanity.
HAPPY ANNIVERSARY MOM AND DAD. Love, Barry