What Moves You?

Spring 2006 in New Orleans. Months after Katrina, little rebuilding had begun.

I often wonder -- why does one news story move me to tears or to action, and another, which intellectually I know is important, does not move me the same way? Why might the story of a family fleeing a hurricane wrench my heart when the news is full of other families equally deserving of my sympathy and help? I used to judge myself for all those things I did not feel fully, but now I wonder, maybe it’s okay that I am moved by just a few things, just those things I perhaps am called to see, to feel, to change. 

Sometimes people argue about which things we should all be doing to make the world a better place. Perhaps you are seeing some of these discussions on social media right now, or at your own dinner table. Our world is deeply in need of healing, where do we begin? Perhaps the answer is different for each of us. The Christian scriptures use the metaphor of the body: “For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, … If the whole body were an eye, where would the hearing be? If the whole body were hearing, where would the sense of smell be? But as it is, God arranged the members in the body, each one of them, as God chose. If all were a single member, where would the body be?” (1 Corinthians 12)

When that story on the news, or one your friend tells you on the phone moves you to tears, moves you to say “what can we do about that?” -- what if that is a kind of calling? Just as soundwaves awaken the ear to hear, and perhaps the feet to tap, but have little impact on the eyes, just as digesting a meal involves a complex array of organs, but not the ears, I believe that we are all differently called. 

2007 Yellowstone regrows after devastating fire

I happen to be a person who is moved by trees. The site of a clear-cut forest wrings my heart. Lots of folks don’t really notice trees, and have other worries that wring their hearts. Someone once asked me “how can we worry about the environment when there are these other more urgent issues?” I pondered that for a while until finally I discerned that it was good for one person in the community to remember about trees, to notice the trees, and speak of their importance and needs whenever decisions are being made in our community. There are so many of us, and so many things that need our attention. What if our community, our world is like a body that needs all of us to function, and needs us not to do exactly the same thing, but to do that thing which we are most suited or situated to do? You know that neighbor that can feed 200 hungry people at the drop of the hat? That friend that seems to understand how laws moves through the legislature? That parent at the grocery store who seems to have infinite patience for the challenges of his 2 year old? The body of community needs them, and it needs you too, whatever your unique gifts and resources might be. So I encourage you to notice what stories grab your heart, what news makes you feel restless, what need in your community stir your heart, that each may discern how the spirit is calling to each.

My son Nick, moved with delight as he touches a towering old growth tree in Yosemite.