Micro or Macro?

More free time than usual and two 15 hour car rides led to a good amount of reading in the last week and a half. Two books stand out as reflective of a tension I often feel. Jeffrey Sachs' "The End of Poverty;" I finally finished Jonathan's copy of it, and "Finding Calcutta," a quick read about a woman's experience wtih Mother Teresa in Calcutta and what she learned about work and service while there (a Christmas gift from a friend). While the tension is personally relevant, I believe it is one that also inhibits much collaboration and potential for good work in the world.

Jeffrey Sachs is a macro, or big picture, kind of guy. He thinks and talks in terms of systems, structures, societies, markets, and global communities. Yes, he can identify value in one-on-one interactions and even talks about how it is important for policy makers to have face-to-face encounters with the people the policies are for. Still, his mindset is always one of "big picture" work, and clearly, he is pretty great at what he does. (side note- the book was great. Agreed with most of it, and looking forward to reading his next one...ie. Jonathan, hurry up and finish it).

Mother Teresa is very different. She is a micro person. She never (and made a point not to) involve herself in politics and policies, or social systems and structures. She is known for calling herself and her work "a drop in the ocean" or a "little pencil in the hand of a writing God." Momma T writes about herself that she "doesn't agree with the big way of doing things. To us what matters is an individual. To get to love the person we must come in close contact with him. If we wait until we get the numbers, then we will be lost in the numbers. And we will never be able to show that love and respect for the person. I believe in person to person; every person is Christ for me, and since there is only one Jesus, that person is only one person in the world for me at that moment."

Politically minded intellectuals often criticized Mother Teresa for not getting involved in the politics of poverty, for speaking out against abortion and for feeding the poor directly rather than "teaching them to fish." Her response was: "If there are people who feel God wants them to change the structures of society, that is something between them and God. We must serve Him in whatever way we are called. I am called to help the individual; to love each poor person. Not to deal with institutions. I am in no position to judge...All of us are but His instruments, who do our little bit and pass by."

I don't think Jeffrey Sachs and Mother Teresa are complete opposites. They are/were clearly gifted in their respective types of work. Jeffrey Sachs does see value in the individual and reminds his readers that the market/community is made of individual people and it is their interactions, in homes, shops, fields, and street corners, that reflect the effects of policy. Similarly, Mother Teresa certainly had an impact on many people she never met. While she didn't advize any policy or network organizations, her work is known world-wide- it is quoted in speeches and books, and inspires (though often cliched and skin deep) world leaders and common folk alike.

I am tempted to ask the question: which is better? Big picture or little picture thought and work. I can make cases, even biblical cases, for both, and in the end I do think both are necessary and it is unfair to rank them. I don't think the work of big picture policy people lacks emotion, heart, and genuine care for the people they are writing policy for (though this, of course, is not universally true). And I don't think that "little picture" work always makes you more aware of real issues and genuine in heart and care.

So which am I wired for? I am not as extreme as either Jeffrey Sachs or Mother Teresa. Do I have to pick? Can I do both? Am I allowed to want to do some kind of great work in the world?*

The tension between the two brings up a fear of mine. I am afraid of forgetting the personal, intimate, and unique person-to-person value when I think/work in a "big picture" setting. And I am afriad of not having any kind of sustainable or lasting impact through my work if I work for and serve only on a person-to-person level.

The first fear seems pretty legitimate; the second, untrusting of God and prideful. I have certainly seen how very small words or actions have made large impacts on people and even whole communities and I believe that God magifies our feeblest attempts at serving others. I'm comforted by the fact that we are saved by grace through faith, and not by works, and yet I easily become frustrated when I feel like what I do or say doesn't have any or a big enough impact.

Like with so many questions and tensions, I end up with a need for greater trust and humility. Wanting me/my work to be more than a "drop in the ocean" diminishes the size of the ocean. To do justice, to love kindness, and to walk humbly, that is the call.

It is a New Year, and so these verses from Psalm 7 come to mind as I think back on the year and as I think more about what it looks like to have humility as I ponder the tension between big picture and little picture. **

3O LORD my God, if I have done this, if there is wrong in my hands,4if I have repaid my friend with evil or plundered my enemy without cause,5let the enemy pursue my soul and overtake it, and let him trample my life to the ground and lay my glory in the dust.

6Arise, O LORD, in your anger; lift yourself up against the fury of my enemies; awake for me; you have appointed a judgment.7Let the assembly of the peoples be gathered about you; over it return on high.

8The LORD judges the peoples; judge me, O LORD, according to my righteousness and according to the integrity that is in me.9Oh, let the evil of the wicked come to an end, and may you establish the righteous—you who test the minds and hearts, O righteous God!10My shield is with God, who saves the upright in heart.11God is a righteous judge, and a God who feels indignation every day.

*sorry friends, no straighforward answers to these. I do think God works through people to do great things, but it seems rarely seems to be the people you would expect, and often the 'great work' isn't what you would expect either. We are saints, not saviors.

**by little picture, I don't mean "little" as inconsequential or un-important

A Snipit from Last Year's Journal

At retreat last week, Shannon had us all spend one hour doing some sort of service. We had been talking a bit about the scene in which Jesus washes His disciples’ feet, and how had they ultimately refused for that to happen, they totally missed the point of what He was all about. Without them being able to receive that from Jesus, and receiving it both on a literal physical level and knowing what it felt like emotionally for that to happen, they wouldn’t have been able to follow the next command of continuing to wash one another’s feet. Practically speaking, it was pretty gross thing to do. But after being on the receiving end of it, they had a more real motivation to follow that command. Jesus didn’t give them this random command to go wash people’s feet, but first had his disciples receive it, so that they could go out authentically.

So following that, Shannon challenged us each to spend the next hour serving someone(s). Initially I think I was like…ummm, here? What can I possibly do in one room with 50 other Christians all trying to serve one another? So as a group we started, somewhat awkwardly, to think of ways to serve one another. Some people wrote cards, gave massages, taught others something, listened, prayed, cleaned, talked…etc. I think the list of things to do was surprisingly long, at least for me, after about 15 minutes of time doing that. But it created an interesting atmosphere, because after a while, we all realized that for the service to actually ‘work,’ people had to receive from those around them. And when there are about 50 people in a room, relatively limited in their potential acts of service due to time and place, pretty much everyone had to receive from someone else, in that hour, in addition to serving.

And it caught me off guard when my initial response to that receiving was ‘no, this is my time for serving, i’m not allowed to receive now.’ So then God was like, ‘well Stef, you missed the point too.’ It isn’t possible to serve in a room full of people not willing to receive. And it makes the service frustrating. And I feel like that might be how our relationship with God is a lot of the time. Like we’ll receive up to a certain point, and then feel like, ok, you’ve given me enough, I have to give back.

The setting for that hour was one that modeled I think how I would picture the phrase ‘heaven on earth’ lived out. The service was creative, thoughtful, communal, unifying, loving, and sometimes not how I think we typically picture ‘service.’ So what I mean by that….you know that feeling of joy you get when you give a friend a present or card or something that you’re really excited for them to open and see?

And I think I question often if that feeling belongs in acts of service…if it means I’m doing it for myself, to get those feelings. And sometimes I think that’s true for everyone- we’ve all got hidden motivations and impurities in our actions a lot of the time. But this hour was good to remind me that someone else receiving my service, and me allowing myself to be excited for them, or happy that they liked it, is often me allowing myself to receive their service to me of receiving. So…allowing them to serve me by receiving their joy that came about because I tried to serve them. I don’t know if that came out right. But let’s face it, we like to make people happy, and that isn’t a bad thing. And so following that, it is then necessary to receive from other people, to allow them to have that felling of joy so that ultimately, that receiving from others serves them. And yeah, like anything, that can and does get distorted. But in that hour, it felt right, and it was very cool to feel service and receiving come together, and see them coexist not only within the same hour, but sometimes in the same few minutes. And that’s what I think helped define friendship with God and with people for me.

And in the world of non-retreat-time, it is really easy to get overwhelmed by the needs of the people we see. Actually, it is really possible to get overwhelmed by the needs of 50 Christians in a room for an hour also. And that really clearly reminded me that that feeling of overwhelmingness (that a word?) can overpower the original reason for service- that it isn’t to meet the needs of everyone and lift them up, but to seek and follow through with ways of serving that lift up Jesus, imitate Him, and create a spirit of service that lasts when there is overwhelming need, when the service isn’t overtly fun, when it’s risky, when it’s hard, when it’s washing someone’s gross and dirty feet.