by Elizabeth Webb…

It’s overwhelming. I read the headlines in the news today and it’s overwhelming. Even in prosperous parts of the world like the U.S. and Europe, poverty, violence, kidnapping, child exploitation and the evil of selfishness thrive. It angers and frustrates me.

How can this world ever change? And yet, how can I, with my limited capabilities, do anything about any of this? I am an artist. In my short life I have been a ballerina, a fashion designer, an actor, a writer, a founding member of a theatre company and an amateur filmmaker. I am not famous. I am not rich. I am simply a creative person among all the other kinds of people on this earth. So, how can any of this that I am doing in my life help the world?

When I read the headlines in the morning I feel helpless. Better to give it all up, join the Peace Corp., found a non-profit or get into social work in order to make a difference, right? But what if the Peace Corp. is way out of my league? What if I wouldn’t know the first thing about starting a non-profit? What can I, little me, add to the sea of non-profitdom? And what about today? Right now? Things need to change RIGHT NOW.

I do not have much money to give, I do not have much time to give and my “art” is certainly not receiving much attention or I would be selling t-shirts that stated “Enough already world, stop killing yourself!” or doing public service announcements about something or other that needs awareness. But am I really still helpless if it is not in my power to do these things?

Or would it be possible to imagine that, simply by being myself and living my life immersed in this world, really participating in it, while resisting the urge to only be consumed with my own personal needs and desires, by simply creating what I am compelled to create, that this alone could be enough to cause a ripple of effect on the world around me to do the same? What about cause and effect? If I can live my life, as an artist or as a whatever-I-may-be, trying to remember that life is not all about me, then maybe others could be inspired to do the same.

I try to imagine a world where people try their best to keep their eyes lifted away from constantly staring at their own heart’s yearnings, their own life’s pleasures, and it is a very different world. To look away from yourself in order to see how someone else is doing, even for a moment, is to deny the selfishness that pervades our lives and to deny the cycle of violence remaining in it.

I am an artist but, first, I am a human being. What if it did not matter what I did with my life? Art, finance, business, law, accounting, motherhood, bartending, bus driving, anything! What if any of us could cause lasting change in this world by simply doing what we do each day and yet also practice lifting up our eyes to each other once awhile?

You never know, maybe this could give us new yearnings, new desires of things we want to do with our lives and, maybe, some of us WOULD join the Peace Corp. or found a great new non-profit, or become social workers. Or maybe we would just continue going about our daily lives doing whatever it is we each do but with hearts moving away from the selfishness that is destroying our world.

Now THAT is something I think I can do. Today. Right now. And that is a world I would like to see.

This entry was posted on Monday, August 13th, 2007 at 11:27 am and is filed under Redemptive Living. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.