Ecosystems...

"For what? For what? No matter what you do, it will never amount to anything more than a single drop in limitless ocean?" "What is an ocean but a multitude of drops?" -Cloud Atlas

"After this the Lord appointed 70 others and sent them on ahead of him in pairs to every town and place where he himself intended to go." -Luke 10:1

"Can I change the world?"

That was a question I heard asked in a Q&A discussion a couple of weeks ago. It was the question of a college student for the presenter. The presenter? Rainn Wilson (a.k.a. Dwight Schrute).

It's not an uncommon question these days. Everywhere we turn we see movements and people doing big things in the world and wonder, "Why can't I do that?" And we can see all of these things because of the way our world is connected. We can see every little thing going on around us and the ways that people are actively changing the world.

It's true that the world has gotten smaller. And yet, instead of getting bigger, it feels like individuals have gotten smaller too.

When we were just connected to the people right around us, it was easy to measure our impact and know we were making a difference. Sure, we knew what was going on around the world, but it was somewhere there, and we were here. Our concern was the world right around us.

But when we're connected to everyone everywhere, suddenly the world right around us feels so much less significant. We're forced to compare ourselves to the entire world. Talk about a high standard. "Can I change the world?" takes on a little bigger tone when you're talking about the whole entire world.

A year ago I was at the ordination service for a friend at Brite, and a professor of his stood up to say a few words. "Michael," he said, "you make your ecosystem better."

It was a curious phrase, as I didn't know Michael to be a planter. But the professor continued.

"That's the thing about ecosystems. They constantly adjust to their participants. They are affected by the living organisms within them. Our goal ought to be to impact our ecosystems and force our surroundings to adjust to our presence. Michael, your presence in whichever ecosystem you are in leaves it better than it was before you got there."

That'll preach.

We can't change the world until we're to change our neighborhood, our workplaces, our schools. I imagine that if we looked at the people who have most impacted the world on a global scale, we'd find in their wake a mountain of little ecosystems that had been transformed by the power of love and hospitality and forgiveness and grace.

Kindness is a habit. Love is a habit. They are not skills enacted once. They are practiced over and over and over in smaller and smaller ways to impact the people around us.

It helps me to know Jesus didn't heal every single person who was sick. He didn't go to every city in the world. He didn't feed every single person who was hungry. But he did impact his direct ecosystem. That was his call. That was his mission.

He changed the world because he changed the ecosystems around him. You see, he changed the lives of people right around him, and they went out and the love they'd experienced forced their ecosystems to adjust. And it just went out, one ripple at a time. Don't think that the ripple of your life can't change the world. Just one ripple can cause another and another. We're just called to love our ecosystem.

Go meet your neighbors. Visit some seniors in your community. Take a trip to the hospital. Share a cup of coffee with a homeless neighbor and hear their story. The world is changed as God's love ripples through our ecosystems, forcing them to shift because love is too powerful a force to be restrained and shut out.

So may you go change the world, one ripple at a time. May your ecosystem adjust to the love you bring into it. May you learn to see your ecosystem as your world. And may you see the world changed by the love of Jesus one day at a time.

forever unfinished...