The living bridges of Meghalaya, India, documented in the short video above, are part of our inspiration for developing our 250-year work-plan.  In the video, an elder man teaches his young niece how to tend to the bridge, explaining that the bridge “will grow for 500 years.  Your children will use it.  And your children’s children.”

Our work is sowing the seeds of a living movement, one that we will eventually pass on to the next generation so that they can take it one step further.  We operate on faith that as we keep tending to our portion of the living bridge, at some point future generations will be able to reach the other bank of the river: our Beloved Community.

Poverty, racism, patriarchy, religious conflicts and other forms of violence have been around for thousands of years.   Even if we are successful in building a powerful movement that fundamentally changes our institutions and policies tomorrow, violence and oppression will not end.  Those are multi-generational struggles.  We need to build strategies that span generations, not election cycles.

This is both humbling and audacious at the same time.  We need to have the courage and audacity to believe that we can build a world without war, a society where everyone’s needs are met, a future where peace is the norm and the violence of today is a thing of the past.   Yet, if we are to ever create such a world, we need to have the humility to realize that we will never get there on our own.  We need the guidance from past generations that have struggled before us, and the help of future generations to take us even further.

Together, we are the Beloved Community for which we work towards.