The Sixth Day of Lent

I went to a climate change rally/protest in Washington DC on Sunday. I was kind of along for the ride, having managed to grow up in the 1960s and 70s without ever attending a rally, sit-in or protest of any kind.
Why would I talk about this during Lent? It wasn't a spiritual experience for me, but I think it was an act of social justice, sort of.
I wasn't arrested, and I didn't experience any kind of epiphany or anything like that. There were 45,000 or 50,000 people there, depending on whose estimate you believe. But either way, that's a lot of people. While there was visible anger and impatience at the government's failure to act on climate change and at those who deny it's happening, the people there were quite congenial to each other. At one point, one of the too-many speakers before the march said we should all hug each other. There were total strangers turning around and hugging each other. It reminded me of the sign of peace during Mass, when we turn to those around us in the pews and shake hands or hug, and say "Peace be with you" or "The peace of Christ" or just "peace."
But the social justice part? Well, there's a lot of talk about leaving our children too much debt, and certainly it seems reasonable to want to leave our children as debt-free a world as possible, but at the same time, why would we think it's OK to leave them a debt-free but dead planet? If we owe our children and grandchildren a fighting chance at a decent life, they need a place to live that life in and on. That place, at its most basic level, has to be the planet Earth.
So any effort to avoid leaving them a planet that's toxic, that won't support human life as we know it, that lacks blue skies, green grass, clean healthy water, and both air and a food supply that won't make them sick or give them cancer, is an effort to achieve social justice.
So I attended Saturday evening Mass and sacrificed my Sunday to advocate for a cleaner world.