little things with great love

i think its interesting that us christians feel that we need to go away somewhere to preach the gospel when we can live out our lives like Christ in everyday life wherever we are. now of course i am not condemning to go overseas to share the love of Christ, i think that’s awesome, but if you can’t afford to go on a missions trip why not do something in your own neighborhood to share Jesus with others. better yet, save your money that would be spent on travel and do something in the community you live in. social justice advocate catherine doherty once said,

“The duty of the moment is what you should be doing at any given time, in whatever place God has put you. You may not have Christ in a homeless person at your door, but you may have a little child. If you have a child, your duty of the moment may be to change a dirty diaper. So you do it. But you don't just change that diaper, you change it to the best of your ability, with great love for both God and that child.... There are all kinds of good Catholic things you can do, but whatever they are, you have to realize that there is always the duty of the moment to be done. And it must be done, because the duty of the moment is the duty of God”.

do what you can where you are. carry out a small act of justice in your hometown, speak out for the oppressed and ignored in your neighborhood. love your neighbor, literally. but here a problem arises. you see, us humans never really seem to want to do what is right. philip k. dick, that author that wrote about the nature of reality, made a statement related to this in his article,

“The authentic human being is one of us who instinctively knows what he should not do, and, in addition, he will balk at doing it. He will refuse to do it, even if this brings down dread consequences to him and to those whom he loves. This, to me, is the ultimately heroic trait of ordinary people; they say no to the tyrant and they calmly take the consequences of this resistance. Their deeds may be small, and almost always unnoticed, unmarked by history. Their names are not remembered, nor did these authentic humans expect their names to be remembered. I see their authenticity in an odd way: not in their willingness to perform great heroic deeds but in their quiet refusals. In essence, they cannot be compelled to be what they are not.”

lets change the world in the name of Christ by doing little things with great love.