Good on Paper

Here's the thing: very few of us ever do anything because it sounds good on paper. 

They do it because the persons they are in relationship are doing it. 

Your kid doesn't want to play baseball because he thinks baseball sounds fun; he wants to play baseball because his friends are playing baseball. 

Your mom doesn't go to quilting club because she likes to quilt; she goes because her friends are going to quilting club. 

What is the number one question thing someone decides to do every time they see something on paper that looks like fun? 

They ask somebody who has done it. 

Maybe you've thought about hosting a foreign exchange student. You want to talk to someone who has actually done it first to see what it's really like. 

Maybe you're thinking about joining a bowling league. You seek out someone who has played in that league before to see whether it's fun or not. 

Maybe you're considering watching a new TV show or reading a new book. You make a social media post asking if anyone has seen/read it yet and what they thought. 

The truth is that we are a social species, and we do most of what we do in community - by having folks around us who are doing/have done it, too. By making it a group activity. 

Which is why when the church decides that its primary activity is advocating for others to do something, nothing gets done. 

It's why the church is fundraising for the crisis pregnancy center quite well, but has trouble finding volunteers to work at it. 

It's why the church wants more grace for immigrants, but it doesn't open its doors to them. 

It's why the church rallies against abortion, but unwilling mothers are left on their own. 

The truth is that we do more good in this world by loving our actual neighbor than by advocating for big change...because the small change is the big change. 

Because when your neighbor sees you loving the unwilling mother, they're more likely to go out and love an unwilling mother. 

When your neighbor sees you offering respite care for a terminally ill patient, they're more like to offer respite for a caregiver themselves. 

When your neighbor sees you offer a care package to the homeless, they're more likely to put together a care package to keep in their own car. 

Kindness spreads by imitation, not by protest. Not by advocacy. Compassion, grace, mercy, and love grow in this world by being practiced by the least of these, not by being demanded by those whose greatest action was standing on a street corner. 

Want to change the world? Great. Go get your hands dirty in it...and not with poster paints.