How We Save the World
These are desperate times. As I sit writing, the nation is being held hostage by warring factions, conservative and progressive. It’s gotten mean. People are angry. Demagogues are ready to take advantage of the fear they’ve generated, fear that drives us to do desperate things, like give up our rights and freedoms in the name of national security.
“We can’t save the world” is a reasonable response.
Or can we?
Too many of us have bought into the myth that what we do doesn’t make a difference. The small stone of our simple acts of kindness and compassion is insignificant in confronting the Goliath of fear and hatred that pollutes our shared world pond. So why waste our effort?
Whether we’re religious or not, whether we define ourselves as Christian or not, perhaps we should revisit the Biblical parable of David and Goliath to remind us that unreasonable courage sometimes pays off when the stakes are high.
Such teaching stories are everywhere, and they have a lot to . . . well, teach us.
Here’s one of them.
One day a man said to God, “God, I would like to know what Heaven and Hell are like.”
God showed the man two doors. Inside the first one, in the middle of the room, was a large round table with a large pot of vegetable stew. It smelled delicious and made the man’s mouth water, but the people sitting around the table were thin and sickly. They appeared to be famished. They were holding spoons with very long handles and each found it possible to reach into the pot of stew and take a spoonful, but because the handle was longer than their arms, they could not get the spoons back into their mouths.
The man shuddered at the sight of their misery and suffering. God said, “You have seen Hell.”
Behind the second door, the room appeared exactly the same. There was the large round table with the large pot of wonderful vegetable stew that made the man’s mouth water. The people had the same long-handled spoons, but they were well nourished and plump, laughing and talking.
The man said, “I don’t understand.”
God smiled. “It is simple,” he said. “Love only requires one skill. These people learned early on to share and feed one another. While the greedy only think of themselves . . .”
So what are you doing with your long spoon?
Perhaps it’s time to give up the story that our small actions can’t make a difference. That’s a cop-out we can no longer afford—if, indeed, we ever could. What we can do is pick up our long spoon and “feed” the person directly across the table from us.
The family member, neighbor, or coworker we avoid and withhold our attention and regard from because their beliefs or behavior “makes me angry.”
The stranger looking lost and lonely sitting on the curb of the supermarket parking lot.
The harried young mother in line at the post office with a baby on her hip and a toddler who’s having a tantrum.
Perhaps that’s our “mission” in a world starving for acknowledgment and (dare I say it?) love. Perhaps we’re called to reach across the table with our long spoon filled with the kindness of connection, however simple, and trust it feeds the world.
Maybe it even saves it.
There comes a time when humanity is called to shift to a new level of consciousness, to reach a higher moral ground. A time when we have to shed our fear and give hope to each other.
--Wangari Maathai