“… human societies are infinitely… complex, full of choices and mistakes, periods of glory and seasons of utter despair. Some of us make highly visible, elaborate contributions to the whole. Some of us are part of the ticking mechanics of the world, the incremental wealth of small gestures. All of it matters. All of it weaves the wider fabric that binds us.”
~ Katherine May, Wintering
Making a difference.
Serving.
Playing our part in the dance underway.
Contributing.
Doing the work that is ours to do.
Finding meaning.
Strengthening the web.
Loving louder.
As always, we want more than we have. We want to be of greater consequence. We want societal change to flow from our fingertips. Healing to pour out of us like oil. We want to make a difference.
And no matter what, I think–no matter who we are, what we’re doing, who we touch, when, where, no matter what our motives–we suffer somewhere inside from the idea that we’re not measuring up. We’re not doing enough. Our part is so small. Are we touching anyone?
We’re flooded with exemplars. Heroes. Fine and fantastic folks who show us in their somehow public way how much they’re capable of, who point to what we, too, might be capable of. They inspire us, they motivate us, they teach us, they push us.
On our better days.
On others, their same presence hits differently. On some days, these same heroes can paralyze us, they shame us, they make us small, they exhaust us.
We need them. We cannot handle them.
We revere them. We are oppressed by them.
We might as well give up.
Let’s take a different tack…
Let’s, first off, take these signposts of service out of their idealized packages. Let’s strip them of the anonymity of their separateness, and acknowledge that there is far more to them than we will ever see, whether they appear to us via the Instagram screen or over the dining room table. We cannot know them, cannot be fully in their shoes, even we share a bathroom and a bed. This is important, to give them back their humanity, which we are so quick to rob.
One step further… Let’s give them, for a minute, an imagined quality of translucence. Do you see the pain that drives them? Do you see the love that formed them? How about the love that drives them, or the pain that formed them? Can you see, in their bellies, the complex tangle of history and personality and skills and drives, their wounds and their salvations? Can you see the nature that follows them and the nurture that stalks them?
Now that we’re looking once again at a human, standing naked and shot through with the light and shadow of life, let’s acknowledge one more thing, possibly the most important… Let’s acknowledge that this person shares their humanity with us. They share every bit of what it means to be alive on this earth, with us. Their hurts and their glories are the hurts and glories of the world, as are ours, and we all share in that common well of life. But…
They are not us.
They do it their way. We do it ours. And we are both taking our place–our rightful and essential place–in the cosmic symphony.
Small and large fall apart in the face of the universal. Competition, even that unholy and unspoken competition in which we all compete as we glance sideways at one another, unravels utterly in the face of eternity.
I am not you, and do not do your work. You are not me, and cannot do mine. Together, we participate in the incremental wealth of small gestures. What a gift.
Face forward.
Love louder.
Nothing more required.
“ Grant us humility, that we would understand it is not the responsibility of the spark to light the whole sky.”
~ Cole Arthur Riley, Black Liturgies
Tucked happily into the gorgeous hills and woods of Wisconsin, I write about life, faith, and the humor that both require. 
Tales From the Nexus 
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