Taking Small Steps Toward a Better World

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A moth died in my car last Wednesday. This typically would be an unremarkable event, but I mourn because I tried my best to save it, and thereby learned a lesson for my own life.

Before seeing that moth beat its wings against the back window of my car, I went for a walk, crying out to God about the appalling state of humanity. Earlier that day a man had opened fire at a Congressional baseball practice, injuring four people; on the opposite side of the country, a man killed three people and wounded two others at a UPS facility in San Francisco. In each case the shooter then committed suicide.

These types of events are becoming so common in the United States that the deaths of the victims in San Francisco – whose names had not been released at the time I wrote this – have barely caused a blip on the national media radar. The only reason the shooting in Virginia garnered such attention is that the victims were members of the United States Congress and there are those who are trying to use the tragedy for political reasons.

That same day gunmen killed at least 17 people when they opened fire at a restaurant in Somalia, and as if our own inhumanity against each other weren’t enough there was the fire at a London apartment building in which at least 12 people died, and a landslide in Bangladesh killed at least 140 people – and those are only the tragedies that reached the headlines I read. Undoubtedly there were more that didn’t make the news. Add that to the everyday stress of work and a rocky personal life at the moment, and I was in dire need of comfort.

Shortly before I started my walk I called my older sister, because she is very good at letting me rant before putting the world into perspective. She didn’t answer the phone, so I wandered down the trail pouring my heart out to God. It was a lovely evening, but I didn’t pay too much attention to the flowers and birds and fresh spring air. Rather, I focused on my grievances. Two miles in, I finally ran out of complaints. At that point I took a deep breath and tried to listen to God.

He didn’t speak to me directly, but I noticed an empty plastic bottle along the trail, so I picked it up and carried it to the next trash can, and after I dropped it in I realized that perhaps it was a hint that I need to do more than just complain about the state of the world.

Then the question arose: What can I do in the face of the hostility that seethes in today’s world? I am no Mother Teresa or Rosa Parks, I’m just a middle-aged woman of faltering faith and no particular courage, struggling not to be drowned by negativity and trying desperately to follow the advice of Padre Pio: “Pray, hope and don’t worry. Worry is useless. God is merciful and will hear your prayer.”

Stepping back from the myopic view instilled by the depressing news of the day, I realized that there is no reason to think I need to tackle this crisis all alone. As Pope Francis says in his encyclical Laudato Si’, “We must regain the conviction that we need one another, that we have a shared responsibility for others and the world, and that being good and decent are worth it.”

I cannot solve the world’s problems, but I can make it a better place. I can pick up litter when I see it. I can call my congressional representatives about issues that I think are important: about the lack of public hearings on the health care plan they are now discussing, about immigration, about the environment. I can take light rail to work whenever my day is just a commute to the office and back. I can listen when a friend needs to talk. I can offer a stranger a helping hand. I can pray, and I can fast, and I can give alms all year round, not just during Lent. None of these are grand efforts; they are all small steps. But they will allow me to join the others who are doing the same, and together we can make great progress on the march toward the goal of peace and harmony on earth.

After resolving to all of these things, I saw the moth battering its wings against the rear window of my car. I tried to wave it out the door, but it crawled into a narrow crack. I attempted to pry it out with a piece of paper, but it wedged itself so deep I had to give up. As I closed the car door, it occurred to me that, like the moth, I often beat myself against an invisible wall, focused only on what I see beyond, unable to discern God’s helping hand. Fortunately, unlike me, God never abandons his efforts to guide me away from my fruitless fixation on the things of this world and instead shepherd me into his care.

Marie Mischel is editor of the Intermountain Catholic.