| Making a difference in the
world
People
are often dependent on the ideals articulated by others for the possibility of
a different world in which they can participate. Yet these ideals are neither
a reliable indicator of tangible differences that can be made nor are they a reliable
source of actually achieving a difference. Making a difference in the world is
nearer than many realise, yet much rhetoric about making a difference can alienate
people from this tangible possibility. v The
world is not as it should be. This is an observation that is self-evident in Humans
are not very good at making the world what they want it to be, even if they do
a lot of talking about how they want it to be. Human self-compromise and self-deception
is inexhaustible. History keeps reminding us of this. A step forward in one place
is invariably a step backwards elsewhere. Apparent progress to new opportunities
does not account for the incompletion of previous projects or reversion to perennial
compromises. The
potential for power to corrupt is consistent in every time and place in human
life. The human factor is always unpredictable. Human freedom defies the possibility
of knowing, by hypotheses or statistics, what humans with power might do or refuse
to do next. To
ignore these realities in seeking to make a difference in the world is to diminish
the meaning of Christian faith and the variegated difficulties of human life that
are replicated across the globe. If in some places physical life is a precarious
day by day struggle, in other places psychological life is precariously close
to dissolving into nothingness. Humans
are not very good at making the world what they want it to be. In every generation,
honesty, goodness, beauty and wisdom are compromised. Such compromise can compound
with devastating incursions into the next generation. The quest to disentangle
this perennial knot is always flawed, often aggressive in assertion, further aggravating
the open wound of human compromise, which has its worst expressions in violence.
Amid
human pain and suffering, small capillaries of compassion form almost instantly
and through costly generosity begin to meet seemingly inexhaustible needs. These
capillaries of compassion rarely register in the media; they do not figure in
ideological claims and counter-claims that seek to unravel what cannot be unravelled—what
Christian testimony refers to as human sinfulness. What
begin as tiny capillaries of compassion eventually become stories of discrete
yet effective healing in lives and hope for communities, years, sometimes decades
later. Long after a hunger for the triumph of being right would be starved, and
after the need that calls forth the cost has diminished any boast in human achievement,
there is a strength that could only come from God. This courage and strength to
love is a true but pale reflection of the depth of triune love that continues
to be redemptive beyond human solutions to perennial dilemmas. v In
making a difference in the world, integral Christian response to human need must
be specific to a context, competent and costly. Contextual
and tangible responses to human need are not abstract. It is easy to cast words
at generalised issues. This is ideology. Compassion requires volition and human
engagement beyond words. Durable trust is not forged through abstractions. With
the reality of limited resources, decisions are necessarily made between many
presenting needs, belying any appeal to idealism in its generalisation of all
needs. Without
competence—to be skilled according to need and context—any tangible response lacks
credibility and can make a desperate situation worse. Competence requires personal
investment in particular competencies—medical, legal, educational, economic, scientific—applicable
to a specific need. Competence can include dedicated time and giving capacities.
It
will always cost something to make a difference. After the self-giving disclosure
of God in Christ, this is the explicit Christian character of making a difference
in the world. Laying down our lives for
our friends suggests engaging our neighbour as friend, with a cost too. This
possibility is called forth by the word of God and in grace, sustained by transformed
people and communities, without the vociferous need to vaunt what the right hand intends to do. Integral
Christian response to human need is specific as tangible, competent and costly.
Through responses that are contextual and sacrificial, people become intimately
aware of human concerns that are necessarily given competent advocacy. This is
to be distinguished from agitated, aggressive partisan voices informed by mere
clichés on selective and ever-changing social foci. Ample
opportunities exist to accuse others for the state of the world. Blame only leads
to counter-blame and a vicious cycle of enmity and inevitable violence. To identify
one nation or tribe as the source of evil is a dualistic view of reality and contrary
to Christian testimony, which relinquishes blame and counter-blame because we
all participate in the perennial compromise of human life in an anxious quest
for a place under the sun. Either directly
or indirectly, we are all implicated in human pain and difficulties. The gospel
introduces the radical possibility of the unjust being declared just in Christ,
by which unjust social consequences can also be absorbed, tangibly and competently
in costly Christian love. v It
is one thing to cite famous examples of those who made a difference in the world,
such as Wilberforce, Gandhi or Mandela. It is exceedingly difficult to emulate
such figures. It can be meaningless to keep citing meteoric examples if we are
not also informed of the cost involved in the courage they displayed. This cost
often included isolated years in prison, self-recrimination and silent grief endured
for the fragmented families that struggled to cohere around their tormented lives
and singular visions. This also included the ever-present possibility of death. In
admiration of such examples, we are usually in receipt of a succinct saying gleaned
from years of hard work with legal papers, speeches and articles or an explosive
symbolic deed in unique historic circumstances. An exemplary figure is indeclinable,
even as each in a singular way has affected the lives of many. Recitation
of heroic characters as inspiration toward making a difference in the world does
not account for pervasive ennui in the contemporary vanity of esteeming relativities—vanity
from which they did not suffer. Exemplary people might be cited and quoted with
enthusiasm but rarely emulated without caricature in attempts to straddle a variety
of positions in the name of plurality, either intentionally or by default in perspective
or lifestyle. Alternatively, the quiet example of men and women working at a specific need in a particular place over many years, even decades, is likely to have a tangible and durable impact on our sense of being neighbour in the world. Such examples are numerous. If we look carefully, we will observe that their inspiration and resources are often drawn from intentional faith in the grace and truth of Jesus Christ as they listened to the word of God and responded by deeds in which the left hand did not know what the right hand had done. |
