a new dawn

Looking out my office window at dawn this morning got me thinking about new beginnings. We tend to think of new beginnings as a positive opportunity being presented to make a new start, take new decisions, do new things. It allows for all those things of course, but as today dawns, I found myself thinking about people whose future doesn't lie within their own gift. The homeless, the refugees, the rejected, the couch surfers. Today I am speaking at a  LGBT youth event. So many young people face alienation, rejection because they have dared to "come out" (I dislike the term). Many have been rejected and even thrown out of family homes because of their sexual orientation or gender. 73% have been verbally abused and 52% have self harmed as a result of others' words and actions. Last year in this place I call home, we saw 266 homophobic incidents and 154 homophobic crimes. Today, as they observe the same dawn, I am all too aware that their new beginning is very different than mine. I am one of the "privileged ones" and I rarely reflect on this. So a new dawn coming and what can I do to make others futures more safe and  secure? (Technically, I have chosen not to make the dawn image sharp but left it less well determined, blurry - by way of representing uncertainty.)