160. The Trust Is Hard
It feels to me like there are so many things that need fixing—so many systems in this country and in this world that need change. There’s the prison system. There’s the educational system. There’s the church. There’s the economy and the tremendous gap between the very wealthy and the rest of us. There’s war and peace. There’s nuclear power…..And I’m sure that each of us could add ten or twenty more—the environment. healthcare, human trafficking, and on and on.
One of the frustrating things is that I can get excited about any number of these and race from issue to issue, trying to do something. A number of years ago Church and Society folks from the Northeast Jurisdiction of the United Methodist Church got together in Pennsylvania for a conference. Many of these issues came up and it almost became overwhelming.
One of our speakers for that conference was the Rev. James Lawson, a trainer in non-violence in the 60’s in Nashville and continuing today. I don’t remember that whole speech. But I have always remembered that he too talked about the number of things that need fixing and he said, “You can’t do it all. Pick one or two and work on them with all the passion that you have and trust that someone else is picking up the others.”
I continue to work on that. I continue to try to focus on one or two issues. And I have trouble trusting that someone else is picking the other issues. I keep dipping back into them and thinking that I need to work on them too. And I quickly get over-extended. So Rev. Lawson is right—I can’t do it all.
So I’ll work on the trust.
