Guest Blogger - Brit Chism - The Generative Life of LGBTQ Pinellas

The Generative Life of LGBTQ Pinellas

Cindy Lauper's "True Colors Fund" is a national pioneer in raising community awareness of homeless LGBTQ kids. Florida has 5,700 of these "throw away kids" who face homelessness after their family of origin threw them out. It is estimated that nationally 1.6 million kids sleep in the streets. Forty percent of these, a disproportionately high number at 640,000, are LGBTQ. In Pinellas County, a cooperative effort is now addressing this problem.

Christopher Clawson Rule of Breaking Rules Publishing,(www.breakingruleswritingcompetitions.com) and his husband, artist David Rule are leaning into the work by offering educational opportunities in the development of language and writing skills. It is shocking that if a child cannot read and comprehend by the time they are nine-years-old (leaving the third grade) they have little chance of success in traditional schools.

The effort, on a local level, brings together Metro Wellness and Community Centers, and Family Resources, Inc. with Prism Transitional Living to offer transitional housing, clothes, food, learning opportunities, and other services, including some basic medical care, to this vulnerable population.   

Buddhism encourages its practitioners who try to follow the Noble Eightfold Path to work for the good of others and to respect life. Erik Erikson, the developmental psychologist, calls it "generativity" when adults strive to produce and rear the next generation and to be creative in one's life and work. John Kotre, a Buddhist practitioner, and writer translate the Japanese sedai-keisho-sei that you receive something from the past, you create something out of it, and you pass it on to the future. Or, in the words of Erikson, "I am what survives me." Generativity plants an orchard or vineyard that one farmer may not live to enjoy the produce from, but generations that come after them will eat the fruit of their labor. It includes any activity that contributes to the development of others and to the life of the generations. Like Moses, who wandered and toiled in the desert, did not live to enjoy life in the promised land, but his efforts rewarded later generations.

This activity, according to Erikson, gives rise to the ego strength called, "virtue of care." If we are successful with this, we are generative, not stagnant and self-absorbed. At the end of our life when we look back and ask, "Is it OK to have been me?" we can answer, yes. We have ego integrity, and we are not in despair.

In the words of an African proverb, "The world was not left to us by our parents. It was lent to us by our children."

They need money to support the work, and they need volunteers to donate some time. Telephone numbers: Stacy Welton @ 727 521 5203, and Nicole Leslie @ 727 552 1011. More information: http://www.watermarkonline.com/?s=prism+program.