Dear friends,

I am waking up this morning on the birthday of a project I’ve been laboring and loving into being for several years. Today The Sandbox Revolution: Raising Kids for a Just World takes some baby steps out into the world looking for homes where it can me nurtured, challenged, and grow deeper.

This book was dreamed up in the middle of long nights as I sat rocking and nursing my beautiful babies. I was exhausted and lonely. And I was terrified about the future these children would be walking into. I had so many questions and a deep hunger for community. I wanted to gather a circle of beloveds who were not afraid to tenderly hold, engage, and live into the questions. What does it mean to be human and how do we invite children into this messy, beautiful work?

I love these woven pages that sit on my desk already dogeared with notes in the margins. I love the ways that words and wisdom from each contributor has already seeped into my own parenting in one way or another. I love the stories that prod Erinn and I into long conversations about the discernment of our lives. I love each one of the contributors who have poured upon children so much love and imagination and a wide vision for justice. I hope that these pages honor and give gratitude to the storytellers.

I also hope that the words honor all those who pick up this book. I hope that you feel seen and heard and honored for all the remarkable work you do. This book has no intention of offering “right ways” to do things or to tell you that you are not doing enough. It is company for all those who hunger with longings for justice. May you see glimpses of yourselves and also feel stretched by the lives and words that may be unfamiliar.

I am learning each day that a book is never finished. For every contributor in this book there are another six parents/ grandparents/ godparents/ caregiver/ aunt/ uncle/ teacher I would have loved to ask to write a chapter. It is missing voices and topics. So, this book enters the world imperfect, unfinished, and human.

But it is full of love and wisdom and community. I hope that it is a gift to readers and that all of us keep writing the next chapters with our lives.

“May these pages be covered in applesauce and breast milk, sand and slime, sweat and tears. May they push us into necessary discomfort. May they inspire small shifts in our patterns- or compel us to uproot our lives and change course. May we always choose truth-telling. May we act with our lives. May we lift the beloved children in our lives onto our shoulders and together grab hold of that arc, bending it a little more toward justice in this hour and every hour.” (The Sandbox Revolution: Raising Kids for a Just World, xviii)