As I write this, I need to prepare some snacks for the Oasis Women’s shelter annual trivia fundraiser. (Last year, our team won).It set me to ponder the impact of small sites or large projects. By definition, trivia is about small nuggets of information. Place eight people around a number of tables , and it is the source of a nice bit of cash for that important program for the community. In the face of a huge problem such as family abuse, we can scoff at seeming bandages to try to staunch the flow of a gaping social wound.
This week we continued a Bible Study on the book of Nehemiah, not one that people gravitate toward, usually. Its start details the difficulties in trying to rebuild the walls of the city of Jerusalem, almost a century and a half after the Babylonians destroyed the temple and carted off the remaining elite from the city.In a way, it is a meditation on change, large and small. Yes, in a terrible catastrophic attack, Jerusalem fell.. For years, little of big action occurred. The sheer size and scope of a problem can then lead to despair. The issue that seems unmanageable. How does one even start to address it?
In time, even if it was not as grand, the temple of Jerusalem was rebuilt. Year after year, the city apparently fell into greater and greater ruin, so that its wall crumbled in many places. Nehemiah assigned teams of workers to fix areas near them. It reminds me of the wilson notion that if a seemingly small thing in a neighborhood, such as a broken window or burned out street light is not repaired, things start to decline and cascade. a small point cascades into eventual ruin.In time, one gets the devastation that marks East St Louis or its larger counterpart across the great river. we mark the 100th anniversary of the start of World War I, where an assassination in a piece of the Austro-=hungarian empire launched a concatenation of moves that resulted in one of the awful slaughter benches of history.
disasters are large-scale events. the sheer amount of wreckage challenges the human imagination and it s capacity to respond. the specter of disaster leads to dread.The definiton of hubris is the unwillingness to confront the many difficulties of large scale planning, action, and implementation. The wreckage is Iraq right now is a grim testament to such arrogance.
When I was young, i was influenced by a book by E. F. Schumacher, Small is Beautiful. He noticed that scale itself can often be the source of problems.Big projects do solve issues. They also create whole new sets of issues and problems. We are not adept at predicting such changes, hence phrases such as unanticipated or unforeseen consequences. Nehemiah faced concerted opposition. he planned and organized resources for his work. He made what seemed to be an enormous project to be manageable, and the walls of Jerusalem, smaller, yes, were rebuilt.
In Jesus Christ, God took the small route. the god of splitting the Red Sea was fully present in one person from a small town in the north of Israel. as the song says in Jesus Christ superstar, why did you pick such a backward time in such a strange land?... Israel in 4BC had no mass communication.” Throughout Scripture, large events are mediated thorugh individuals and a small remnant of a nation within the great big world.
gIven human frailty perhaps small scale answers fit our fallible nature. Perhaps, Alton can look at small scale changes that cna add up to an improvement in its doleful economic climate. Perhaps, a focus on project sthat can be accomplished within our resources, instead of a doleful look to its industrial past could be the doorway to a new futre.
No comments:
Post a Comment