“Be doers of the word, not just hearers that deceive themselves” (James 1:22, Matt 7:24)

How do you effect change when you need help to do it but so many of the people who you need the help from say they are not prepared to help until the change is effected?

Australian schoolchildren took the first step this past week, they decided to opt in even though they were told that they weren’t allowed to. That’s called rebellion. And rebellion is a powerful tool to effect change.

These school children, too young to vote but chomping at the bit to .. decided that since Australia is a nominal Democracy that they would exercise the power they believe they have. And they do have that power. It’s true that the System says that it doesn’t have to listen to them, that their power doesn’t need to be recognised – it says in fact, that they don’t have the power – but as those of us with a broader understanding of history, and who have seen history operate and who choose to acknowledge that people power is the only form of power that can effect change .. recognise their power. We recognise that they do have a power, whether through the gun, or through the vote.

These children want the vote. They want the vote because they don’t want to exercise their power through the use of the gun.

Its an Australian value – the vote – and these children will get the vote soon. While the System says that the recent exercise of their power through the strike is delinquent, these children know better. They live in the age of information and have educated themselves in its use despite the system. They know that their votes are going to count, en masse, and they know that the showing of their knowledge is a warning to the System that they no longer tollerate the corruption of the ideals professed by those managing the system on their behalf.

Democracy says they have this right and they want to exercise it – they have the right to force Democracy on a System that professes it! They also know that they have a duty to each other, and to their little brothers and sisters and to all the cute little animals they have hung up as pictures on their bedroom walls.

This week their King told them that time would wait for them and that in the meantime the King and all his Merry Men would save some for them … They don’t believe the King. They’ve heared it all before and they also know that the Kings System will eventually corrupt them by sucking them into the System … Just like its sucked their Mums and Dads into it, and just like it’s in the process of sucking their older brothers and sisters in. They want to get in before the going gets too good.

“Its better to do something and make a mistake than to do nothing. If you make a mistake you can fix it. Nothing can’t be fixed.” – John Stevens.