Can I do something meaningful about Paris?

Like most I have felt the undulating emotions of shock, horror, disgust, and sadness while reading article after article about what happened in Paris.

The feelings beg a response, but what?

Painting my Facebook profile with French colors seems meaningful, but honestly, what does it do?

The words of a man, Wayne Jacobsen, who I respect a great deal, gave me a way to respond to such tragedy and to feel that I too can do something about this.  Here is what he said:

We can grieve for the people in Paris. We can pray for God’s intervention in these desperate circumstances and for the wisdom of global leaders to deal with all the chaos in our world. 

But it will help to realize that our media overwhelms us with storylines that invite our emotional responses to situations we cannot influence. And that can be crippling. We grieve for people we don’t know fear circumstances we can’t control. I don’t know how to comfort the people in Paris, or to end Islamic fundamentalist aggression in the world. 

But I do know how to love the people around me today. 

I know people going through painful circumstances and grief of their own and can comfort them. I know those who treat me with disdain and betrayal and what it means to love them is very clear. We can’t really love “the world” in any meaningful way. It’s too abstract and generalized at a macro level to make any difference, but is richly powerful in the immediate circumstances of our own life. 

Is that why Jesus asked us to, “love one another,” not to love the crowds or the whole world? 

Love is applied in the singular, not the plural. If you want to be the change in the world, get your eyes off of circumstances you don’t control and on to those people and circumstances right around you where your loving can make a difference. 

If you grieve for the people in Paris and feel powerless to help, think of someone you know going

through deep grief or challenge and find a way to encourage them today.  Instead of living in fear or frustration of ISIS, find someone who has done you wrong and ask Jesus if there is a way to love him or her today that will begin to reverse the cycle of evil that only adds pain to pain.

We overcome evil in the world not by fussing and fretting, but by loving someone in front of us.  Every act of generosity and kindness brings light into the world.  Every time you comfort a broken heart, offer kindness to a stranger, or make time for someone who is lonely you pour a bit more of the kingdom in the world.

Wherever our fear gives way to love in the immediacy of our own circumstances, the world changes a little and the power of wickedness is broken. Find someone to love, encourage, or bless today and you will have been part of something significant.  You can leave the bigger things in Father’s hands, who is well up to the challenge. 

And let me add this: Start by loving those closest to you.  Start with your husband.  Start with your wife.  Don't you wish you could bring life and love to those hurt or those now gone in Paris?  Me too.  But, that spouse of yours is gratefully still next to you in bed or in the next room or is coming home after work.  Bless him.  Bless her.  In that way, we can keep stoking the fires of love not only in our marriages, but in our children, our friends, our coworkers, our neighbors, and our world.

A few evil people can do a great deal of harm, but it takes a great many good people doing good things to bring a great deal of love to the world.