Be a part of the change!

"There are opportunities to change and we are part of that change."

Dr Lori Cramer - OSU Professor and Sociologist

This quote was taken from a video interview presented to my Social Problems class last term. The week was on environmental problems and Dr. Lori Cramer is an environmental and natural resource sociologist who also teaches at Oregon State University. Here is the interview if you are interested in watching it.

Despite this quote being taken from an interview addressing environmental problems, it can be applied to many different areas of life and society. Ghandi actually had a similar quote that has almost become cliche in our society:

"Be the change that you wish to see in the world."

Both of these things are basically saying the same thing, take responsibility for change. It is up to each one of us to do something to make a difference in the world. It is up to each one of us to take a step towards improvement in our society. 

There are a lot of things that are going wrong in today's society from gun violence to poverty to racism and inequality. If you're on social media you have surely heard people complaining about each one of these things. In the midst of that complaining you have people complaining about one group's way of responding, then that group is complaining about the other side. There is a lot of complaining but how much action is there?

In Mark 6 we find the story of the feeding of the 5000. Jesus is teaching the multitudes out in the wilderness and his disciples come to him to let him know that it's getting late and the crowd is getting hungry. They tell Jesus that he needed to send them away to get some food. Jesus's response I believe was not only a challenge to them but also to us:

"You give them something to eat."

Mark 6:37

The disciples were bringing attention to a problem but were dictating the answer of the problem on someone else. Jesus is basically saying, "since you see the problem, do something to fix it." Of course, their eyes were limited and were not able to see how to bring a solution to the problem but the principle is an important one. 

What problems are sticking out to you in society? 

What are you passionate about? 

It is probably the Holy Spirit pointing those things out to you and saying, "You give them something to eat!", "You do something about it!"