"Nick, tell me, why aren't we achieving our dream? You told us that we can do it, but why are there still children who have gone hungry? Why are there still a lot of poor people, corrupt government leaders-- if you consider them leaders at all? I'd been working a lot in the grassroots and I meet a lot of wonderful people doing good things, but why are we not changing the world? Why does evil still persist?"
"I need an answer, Nick. I have become impatient. I just wanted to cry for this country."
These are not lines from a telenovela nor from a movie. These are actual words of a 50-something lady who, after all her efforts in developing the grassroots and doing some nation-building acts, had become so frustrated seeing so little results. She was crying-- asking and questioning her mentor if what they had been doing really makes a difference.
After more than 30 years of working for community development, her frustration grew. She felt impatient that a lot of things they wanted to change still haven't changed-- that a lot of their dreams for the country still seem so far from what they have imagined-- at least from her perspective.
I began to feel afraid. I start questioning myself and my capacity to change the world. I felt scared that my optimism might develop into frustration. I felt afraid that I might grow old, see little results, become disappointed and stop hoping and loving this country.
I asked one of my mentors who's around 60-something, if he think we could end hunger, poverty, war and all the negative things there are in this world and if we can ever be in Utopia.
I told him about this crying lady. I asked him if he, while doing a lot of good things for others, feels the same frustration given that there are still a lot of changing-the-world that has to be done.
In response, he emailed me this poem and told me to understand it in the context of what I was asking him:
A Future Not Our Own
It helps now and then to step back and take a long view.
The Kingdom is not only beyond our efforts,
it is beyond our vision.
We accomplish in our lifetime only a fraction
of the magnificent enterprise that is God's work.
Nothing we do is complete, which is another way
of saying that the kingdom always lies beyond us.
No statement says all that could be said.
No prayer fully expresses our faith. No confession
brings perfection, no pastoral visit brings wholeness.
No program accomplishes the Church's mission.
No set of goals and objectives include everything.
This is what we are about. We plant seeds that one
day will grow. We water the seeds already planted
knowing that they hold future promise.
We lay foundations that will need further development.
We provide yeast that produces effects
far beyond our capabilities.
We cannot do everything, and there is a sense of
liberation in realizing this.
This enables us to do something, and to do it very well.
It may be incomplete, but it is a beginning,
a step along the way, an opportunity for the Lord's
grace to enter and do the rest.
We may never see the end results, but that is the
difference between the master builder and the worker.
We are workers, not master builders, ministers, not
messiahs. We are prophets of a future not our own.
-The Journey with Jesus: Poems and Prayers, Selected by Dan Clendenin
Since I started working for community development, I've always dreamed that one day I will change the world, even if it means having to sacrifice my life. I was, and I still think am, young, highly idealistic and full of zeal. Now I have come to realize that those aren't enough to achieve the dream world. Well, at least for now.
I'd thought that I am too crazy to be wanting to change the world, only to find out that I already have. By planting the seeds of goodness and hope today and for the rest of my days, I have sown plants that can grow far higher than what I can perceive-- for when I accepted my limitations, I become limitless.
This is the beauty of life and the wonder of changing the world.
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