Teresa Platin recommended the article for our fascinating Digging Deeper conversation last Tuesday. She invited us to reflect together about our experience with creativity in these uncertain and stressful times.

Flow.

We know the concept, I suspect. It’s not just artists that experience it. Athletes know it, and, writers, and the scientists who coined the phrase. We’ve all had those moments, I suspect, when we are so deeply engaged in something, when all our energy, when body, mind, and spirit are so devoted that we lose track of all time. We become one with the thing.

If you haven’t already, you may want to get to know these faces. These are neighbors of ours, young Americans predominantly from the northwest, with others scattered throughout the country. They range in age from 10 years-old to their mid-twenties. And they are suing the federal government for knowingly causing climate change and violating their constitutional rights. They are litigants of the youth climate lawsuit known as Juliana v. United States.

Their complaint asserts that, through the government’s affirmative actions that cause climate change, it has violated the youngest generation’s constitutional rights to life, liberty, and property, as well as failed to protect essential public trust resources.

The constitutional climate lawsuit was originally filed in Oregon in 2015 and has been making its way through the court system. The expectation is that the lawsuit will finally go to trial late this year, although that could change given the considerable resistance it has received from the federal government and corporate interests throughout the process.​