At the wedding on Sunday, Brian and I were chatting with one of the pastors from our church, Gary. Gary is just a year or two older than me so it is really easy to forget that he is supposed to be one of our spiritual leaders. To Brian and me, Gary is just a friend. I’m certainly not in awe of his M-Div from Princeton. It may not sound like a big deal now, but I’m hoping it’s a dynamic of the relationship we can maintain as he goes further into ministry because I think it will be important in keeping him grounded.
We spent a good portion of the luncheon chatting about our friend Jeff, who unfortunately had to miss the wedding. The interesting thing about Jeff is that he is very even in temperament. Good or bad, you’ll never really see or experience a big emotional outburst from him. It is really difficult to push his buttons. He could go through a horrible break up and have his heart crushed in the process and the most emotion you’d see from him would be something along the lines of “Meh, it just wasn’t working out”.
But Jeff is extremely passionate about social activism. Social activism isn’t just something Jeff does – it is an emotion and an experience for him. It can be easy to forget that Jeff could experience emotion until you hear him speak about organizations like Invisible Children or another ministry that he is involved in. It is really inspiring and humbling to hear about what he finds his passion in.
I am not a social activist. In fact, I’m really bad at social activism because I don’t feel like I can change the world, I just feel like I can get mad at it. I’m so quick to anger because of a world wide sense of entitlement and stupidity. But Jeff has this gift where he can see the world and move toward making it better.
What would this world look like if social activism was an emotion for more people? What would it look like if more young people felt the desire and overwhelming urge to help change the world when they saw injustice? What if our minds immediately went to “how can I fix this” instead of “That’s messed up”?
Sometimes I get scared about the idea of Brian and me bringing children into the world. I love kids and I desperately want to create a family with my husband. But I’m not sure it is a mature and responsible to decision to bring small lives into the world we live in now. Somehow, friends like Jeff make me think that maybe my someday babies will be safe. Maybe someday, it’ll be my babies who can change the world.
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