Want To Change the World? Congratulations, You Just Did! --OR-- Butterflies and Best Intentions
Eugene Cho has another one of his trademark, soul-searching questions on his site to stir discussion. The question?
Big question. Got me thinking. Cho's questions always do.
Have you ever read or heard of The Sound of Thunder, a short story by Ray Bradbury, author of Fahrenheit 451? It's a story about a guy who goes back in time and accidentally steps on a prehistoric butterfly. When he returns to the present, he finds that English language spelling has been altered, and the guy who had just gotten elected president before he left has actually lost. I think the story is where the phrase "butterfly effect" comes from, but I'm not sure.
And I'm also not sure about the scientific accuracy of the concept. But one thing of which I have become convinced of late, from Scripture, prayer, meditation and generally viewing the world, is this:
Everything you do changes the world!
Everything.
Dream about that for a bit. Try to incorporate it into your understanding of what it means to be a disciple of Jesus Christ in the world.
Cho's question, and our surface-level contemplation on the subject, usually presupposes that the act of "changing the world" is somehow unusual, unique, something that rarely happens, and when it does, requires the expenditure of a lifetime of effort and an ocean of energy. And it also presupposes that it is the vocation of a privileged few, the spiritually elite. JFK changed the world. MLK changed the world. And if we're also factoring in that the world can be changed for the worse (a point we often ignore), Hitler changed the world, too.
But I think we're wrong in that surface-level contemplation of the question. I think we change the world with every action we take, with every word we speak, with every moment of love or fear, compassion or selfishness. Maybe not by stepping or not stepping on a butterfly. But maybe.
Maybe it really is a mustard-seed kind of thing. I mean really, a mustard seed is a really small thing. Jesus could have said "seed." He often did. But when He spoke directly about what the Kingdom of God was like, he used the "mustard" qualifier.
When I look back at the major sins that built up to almost destroy my life, I can usually isolate their origin to one small, barely-contemplated moral decision. And that's a pretty patent example. I'm talking about the stuff that we would probably never look back on again in our lives once we've done them. I'm talking about stepping on or not stepping on a butterfly.
You think a mustard farmer ever looks back and ponders an individual seed?
How are you dreaming of changing the world?
What are you gonna do in the next 10 seconds?
Me. I'm going to take a shower. Or should I...
Grace and Peace,
Raffi
However small or large, simple or complex, organic or organizational, local or global, how are you dreaming to change the world?
Big question. Got me thinking. Cho's questions always do.
Have you ever read or heard of The Sound of Thunder, a short story by Ray Bradbury, author of Fahrenheit 451? It's a story about a guy who goes back in time and accidentally steps on a prehistoric butterfly. When he returns to the present, he finds that English language spelling has been altered, and the guy who had just gotten elected president before he left has actually lost. I think the story is where the phrase "butterfly effect" comes from, but I'm not sure.
And I'm also not sure about the scientific accuracy of the concept. But one thing of which I have become convinced of late, from Scripture, prayer, meditation and generally viewing the world, is this:
Everything you do changes the world!
Everything.
Dream about that for a bit. Try to incorporate it into your understanding of what it means to be a disciple of Jesus Christ in the world.
Cho's question, and our surface-level contemplation on the subject, usually presupposes that the act of "changing the world" is somehow unusual, unique, something that rarely happens, and when it does, requires the expenditure of a lifetime of effort and an ocean of energy. And it also presupposes that it is the vocation of a privileged few, the spiritually elite. JFK changed the world. MLK changed the world. And if we're also factoring in that the world can be changed for the worse (a point we often ignore), Hitler changed the world, too.
But I think we're wrong in that surface-level contemplation of the question. I think we change the world with every action we take, with every word we speak, with every moment of love or fear, compassion or selfishness. Maybe not by stepping or not stepping on a butterfly. But maybe.
Maybe it really is a mustard-seed kind of thing. I mean really, a mustard seed is a really small thing. Jesus could have said "seed." He often did. But when He spoke directly about what the Kingdom of God was like, he used the "mustard" qualifier.
When I look back at the major sins that built up to almost destroy my life, I can usually isolate their origin to one small, barely-contemplated moral decision. And that's a pretty patent example. I'm talking about the stuff that we would probably never look back on again in our lives once we've done them. I'm talking about stepping on or not stepping on a butterfly.
You think a mustard farmer ever looks back and ponders an individual seed?
How are you dreaming of changing the world?
What are you gonna do in the next 10 seconds?
Me. I'm going to take a shower. Or should I...
Grace and Peace,
Raffi
raffi: good stuff man. good stuff. and yes, i agree. i think we change the world on many layers.