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Last night I joined with some members of my church to do a service project.
While we were waiting for the supplies to start, one guy was telling us about talking to a friend of his in Poland who is helping to drive Ukrainian's out of their country to a (hopefully) safer place.
My heart swelled with gratitude for those how are doing what they can to help people in a terrible situation. But almost immediately after I let out a large sigh.
"That was an intense sigh," my friend said. "Everything okay?"
"Oh, just thinking I wish there was something I could do. Not get in a car and drive people, obviously [obvious because I am currently on the other side of the world], but something."
"I think you are probably already doing a lot of good where you are," was his response.
More people trickled in and the blanket supplies arrived. We started cutting and tying and chatting. The organizer thanked us for coming and said, "I didn't expect so many people!"
"Well, I think we all just want to be helping, and this is a very concrete thing we can do," I said.
Several people agreed.
Thinking back on that today I am reminded how we need to do what we can where we are. If we let the troubles of elsewhere keep us from taking action where we are now, we have lost an important opportunity.
If we become disheartened because we can't do what we feel most needs to be done, or if we think that what we can do couldn't make a big enough difference, we fail to add our part to our collective ability to make a difference.
We can't do everything, but we can all do something.
Today I feel more hopeful. Not because anything changed in the world, specifically in relation to Ukraine being invaded by Russia. But because I know there are still good people all doing even one small thing to bring peace and hope and warmth to people around them. And I know that together we can build the world we want to have.
