MakeBeliefs 2 Help U Smile & Lift Your Spirits:
Can You Come Up With Some Joyous Lyrics for a New Song?
Here’s the latest installment in our new Make Beliefs Series, ''MakeBeliefs 2 Help U Smile & Feel J_Y.'' They are created to provide comfort and hope to young and old who are feeling distressed and anxious in our too fast-changing and sometimes unforgiving world. It’s our way of making things better by helping you imagine! I created these MakeBeliefs as a way of finding hope.
You know there’s always music and song within you waiting to emerge. Now’s the chance to put any darkness at bay and let all the joy and happiness in you come out as you write some opening lyrics to a new song you have wanted to create for some time. Your song celebrates what is good in your life and the people and things you love. It’s time to let it all out and reap some pleasure from your musical talent. (Yes, everyone has music in them waiting to surface, even in a croaking voice like mine.) Now, write with joy!
Teens Express Their Upset and Anger and Fears About School Shootings
This comic strip, created on MakeBeliefsComix, uses the words of students who wrote to The New York Times about their worries related to school shootings. All the text in the talk balloons were taken from their statements published June 14. You can make your own comic strips about your feelings on this important subject, too, at MakeBeliefsComix.com. Please share your comics and thoughts with us. It is so important that young people express their thoughts about their concerns- you must be heard!
Youths Act to Change Things and Make the World Better
Columnist Ezra Klein, in a recent essay in The New York Times, wrote about the importance of our NOT seeing young people ‘’as passive consumers rather than agents of change.’’ It is young people like 19-year-old Swedish environmental activist Greta Thunberg, he said, who have transformed climate politics and brought attention to the importance of fighting global warming. And increasingly, we see the power of youths to make their voices heard by marching and protesting and campaigning for change of legislators who do not reflect or respect their interests.
Take last week’s ‘’March for Our Lives’’ rally where thousands of people of all ages, including the three youngsters shown in this Washington Post photo, converged on the National Mall in Washington and other cities across the United States to rally against gun violence. It came after the massacre in Uvalde, Texas, where 19 children were killed.
"If our government can't do anything to stop 19 kids from being killed and slaughtered in their own school, and decapitated, it's time to change who is in government," said David Hogg, a survivor of the 2018 shooting that killed 17 students and staff at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. He is also co-founder of the March for Our Lives organization that was created after the shooting, "This time is different," Hogg said, leading the crowd to repeat after him. He later led the crowd in chants of "Vote them out." Those young people who can’t vote yet can write to their legislators or campaign for those who will make change – they can also persuade their elders to vote to end gun violence.
Young people also have power to make their voices heard in supporting political dissidents in other countries who have been put in prison because of their beliefs about human rights. You can keep track of such people by visiting the Amnesty International site at https://www.amnesty.org/en/who-we-are/ . The human rights group encourages people to petition countries to release such dissidents and to write letters of support to those unfairly imprisoned.
Such letters are very important to prisoners who often are isolated from others. One former prisoner said that the letters he received -- most of them hand-written -- stopped him from ‘’breaking down.’’ He recalled having an hour a day under strict surveillance to read the letters. "It was always a moment of joy," he says. "It allowed me to preserve the freedom inside me that they tried to take away."
And writing such letters or sending messages on social media also signals to governments that people elsewhere in the world are watching and aware of what a country does to its people.
What Action Will You Take to Mend Our World?
Click above to make yours or click on the comment button below to tell us!
Send A Digital Free Greeting Card from MakeBeliefsComix for Father’s Day on Sunday!
Remember the father or father figure you love by sending an e-message card from MakeBeliefsComix. It’s a nice way of reaching out and thrilling to receive– so different from other kinds of email.. Go to: https://makebeliefscomix.com/greeting-cards/ Or, you might want to send a loving digital e-HUG comic message from our site at: https://makebeliefscomix.com/send-e-hug/
Take Some Deep Breaths as You Watch These Waterfalls and Are Amazed
Nothing like water to soothe the soul in a stressful world. Imagine being present at these waterfalls and feeling their spray, hearing the sound of the water flowing. It will ease your day.
If you have a favorite YouTube selection to help you decompress, please send the link along to us. Thank you. Now breathe, slowly and deeply.
We Welcome Your Thoughts and Support
You are always welcome to submit comments or questions to our Substack newsletter’s Comments section or to send them directly to the editor, Bill Zimmerman, at billz@makebeliefscomix.com
If you are an educator, feel free to use the newsletter’s content in your efforts to help young people express their deepest ideas and thoughts. You have our permission to do so and you will NOT be violating copyright in using them or their pages for your students. If you decide to print some pages, please credit MakeBeliefsComix.com. You also have permission to make copies for use at school, at home, and in the office, but not for sale.
Please do share our newsletter with your colleagues, friends and family.
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If you enjoy what you see in our newsletter and would like to support us by becoming a paid subscriber, you will receive a FREE copy of a MakeBeliefsComix book mailed to your home to keep! When you become a Paid Subscriber, you also gain the ability to discuss posts by email with Bill Zimmerman, editor, and answer questions about how creating comic strips can be used to encourage writing and thinking.
Perhaps, most importantly, your support keeps this project sustainable, and allows us to do even more. We build a community of questioning, creative people together. You can view excerpts from some of our books at www.billztreasurechest.com and download our other free e-books at https://makebeliefscomix.com/journaling-e-books/
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