When the World Is on Fire

I glance at the outsized news headlines as I go about the small tasks of my day.

Bombs are being dropped 6,000 miles away.

I hear a skirmish in the playroom and try to negotiate a peace treaty over Lego territory.

Another city is filled with tear gas and bullets.

We gather the neighbor kids for an impromptu art class, painting on big pieces of paper (and hands and faces).

Wildfires are burning, clogging the air with smoke even thousands of miles away.

We dig in the dirt at the home of an elderly friend, planting geraniums.

An act of violence has claimed more innocent victims.

I whisper a prayer, trying to string words together but ultimately dissolving into “Lord, have mercy.”

Does any of it matter? I wonder.

When the world is on fire, how can one small life make a difference? Do these unremarkable acts even matter?

When the world is on fire, does it make any sense to paint or plant or create or nurture or make peace or pray?

Then again, maybe fires aren’t put out in one big, heroic moment. Maybe flames can be doused with small buckets carried by many ordinary hands. By people who stubbornly continue to choose life and beauty and goodness and kindness in the face of darkness and mayhem.

Maybe the best we can do is choose a small act of life each day.

Say “I’m sorry.”

Forgive someone.

Speak the truth in love.

Plant a garden.

Create something.

Mail a card.

Breathe out a prayer.

Do it even if the world is on fire. Do it especially if the world is on fire.

If you ever took truly to heart the ultimate goodness and joy of things, even at their bleakest, the need to praise someone or something for it would be so great that you might even have to go out and speak of it to the birds of the air.
Frederick Buechner, The Sacred Journey