Making a Difference

I want to do something of great importance.  Epic.  I'd like to make a difference in this world - leave it a better place than when I arrived.  Something big, something memorable, something that people will remember...and talk about years after I'm gone.  Like Mother Teresa, or the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., or W.E.B. DuBois, or Anne Lamott.

Recently, I watched "Argo," a movie about the Iranian hostage crisis from the late 70s - early 80s.  Hopefully I won't give anything away in case you haven't seen the movie yet, but it's an amazing story.  Of courage, and creativeness, and hope, and fear, and the height of humanity's best, and the depths of our disconnection.  And it's a story about making a difference in the world.  I found myself wrapped up in this story, complete with my heart pounding, shoulders tense, and adrenalin running through me.  When the end credits rolled, it was hard to come back to today.  But I did.

I haven't done anything of great importance.  Epic.  But I'd like to think that I've made a difference in this world, and that I've made it a better place.  Simply because I'm here.  Because God created me and placed me in a particular time and place.  Sure, I've made some mistakes and some bad choices in my life.  But that doesn't take away from the big picture of life.

Life is full of variety.  Some of us will do epic things - things that will be remembered for a long time.  Some of us will make epic mistakes - mistakes that become the learning curves and slang of tomorrow.  But all of us are here on purpose.  God wants us here.  And that is pretty epic.  I don't need to seek notoriety, because I'm already known.  By the One who matters most.

And the One who matters most knows my gifts and talents, and simply asks me to participate.  To appreciate where I am, and do what I can do to make the world a better place.  And the One who matters most doesn't want me to define epic by human standards.  Because the One who matters most sees epic in the transformation of lives - when we put aside fear, hatred, segregation, and judgment.  When we stop disconnecting from ourselves, each other, and God.  When we realize that epic is found all throughout our daily lives - sunrises, breath, coffee, rain, friends, tears, seasons, potato chips.

Epic is all around us.  And God wants us to add to epic by loving ourselves, our neighbors, and God.  God wants us to add to epic by participating in daily life.  Add to epic by paying attention.  By living fully into the image after which we have been created.  By being who we are.  By being where we are.  Is this making a difference in an epic fashion?  Maybe not the way we define it.  But it's epic to the One who breathed creativity and greatness into our time and space.  We are epic creations, simply because...