I’ve been thinking a little bit about the scope of things recently.  The question of large-scale or small-scale,  macro or micro, individual or systemic change has been a continual one for me over the past several years.  The tide has ebbed and flowed.  My heart-strings are tugged on by the individual and the specific, and my passions are set aflame by the vast possibilities of the communal, universal, and pervasive. 

Where is the balance between these two? At one of Circle of Hope’s Public Meetings this week Joshua Grace addressed this very subject.  He called up some space and time comparisons to remind us of how truly vast our world is compared to that of our ancestors, and of how much change we expect to affect.  It is no wonder that sometimes we get lost in our grandiose aspirations.  However, sharing your granola with your housemate can be as transformational as the work of ending world hunger; sharing your money with your neighbors can be as empowering as erasing third-world debt.

Not long after this talk I found myself wondering at how a friend makes his way quite happily through a really tough and thankless case management job, when I know he has bigger and bolder dreams than that.  Really I was wondering how he does it and why I can’t seem to?  He talked about being committed to his community here in Philadelphia, and that building relationships and character is paramount and his paid work is only part of that.  This is good perspective to keep, especially when I run into save-the-world mode.

No matter if I am discussing paid-jobs, 40-hour-a-week jobs, social work jobs, volunteer activism, or household peacemaking, lately I always seem to want to skip the small stuff.  I want to jump ahead into adventure, into big change, lasting change.  I think some of this translates to restlessness, which I’ve been thinking about recently.  But some of it requires me to recognize this work, the work of reconciliation and peacemaking in all areas, as long and slow work.  Maybe there are pieces of it to be done on the grand scale, but the vast majority of it will be bit by bit.