Thoughts on World-Saving

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 I think that most people, at one time or another, want to Save the World or some variation of that. Cure cancer. Solve homelessness. Fix economies. Etc. Noble goals.

Well, here I am pondering if what I do is Saving the World. Sure, I work with an under-served [hyphenated so that it is not mistaken for un-deserved] population as a day-job, and volunteer teaching children on the weekend, but I don't see that as Nobel-Prize worthy. Because it's not. I do not make a big-enough impact to merit any notice from the world. You probably won't either. And that's okay. My impact, and your impact, is going to be on a personal level. But here's the best part: the personal level is the jackpot of the whole Save the World endeavor.

If, while you are serving a fellow soul, you are thinking about the World instead of the person in front of you, you are missing a key tool in effecting change: the power of relationships. Of feeling a connection to the person in front of you.

None of the time when I am on the job reviewing the medical needs of the patients of the BH ward, am I thinking about how this job may launch me into X position where I can have greater influence in Y policies/decisions. I don't think that mainly because I don't even consider it a possibility. I think my mental health is a lot better for not framing my work as a Means to an End, which has the connotation that something about that Means is unpleasant and not worthy in its own right. 

Truthfully, sometimes some of the patients I see are unpleasant, but that doesn't make them any less deserving of medical care, because it doesn't change their need for it.

What I'm trying to convey, in this meandering sequence of thoughts, is that if Christ came to save the world, and got about it by healing and teaching and loving each individual before him, surely the way to save the world is to go about saving [ie helping, loving, serving] people, one by one.

Comments

  1. AnonymousJuly 26, 2023 at 12:19 AM

    Beautifully said, Sadie! We are each a beloved and treasured child of God. ♥️

    ReplyDelete

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