Riginslinger,

Of course turning ourselves around is a huge undertaking. But it still needs done. And it can be done. Change happens. Paradigms shift, sometimes oh...so...slowly. But shift they do. And there are so many, many small choices each of us as individuals can and do make to nudge one paradigm or another along. In human society, noticable, large scale changes may appear to some to occur rather suddenly. But that 'sudden' shift occurs only as the result of countless micro-nudges by and within individuals. Often, the first people to start nudging are long dead before most people notice any movement at all.

We are all change agents, whether we realize it or not. When we accept that, and try to be as conscious as possible of all the ways we are change agents, we are much less likely to nudge forward by one choice, and then nudge backward by another.

Last night I attended a Parent-Staff Association meeting at the Quaker school my son attends. One of the Upper School teachers spoke about several of the end-of-year service trips he had taken kids on over the years, and a key lesson most kids seem to learn from these experiences about change and the interrelationsip between the individual and the 'community' to effect change for good in the world. They learn they can only do their part, but that their part matters. All they may get done, working with the villagers, is the foundation dug out with shovels, and the footers poured one bucket of concrete at a time. They learn to have faith that others will come to help after them, the villagers will continue to work, and the building will get built. The students didn't build the building. They had to trust that others would continue to do their own parts after the students left. They learn that many people - a community of people - each doing their own part, can build a building.

Janie