Can We Make a Difference?: Spiritual Direction

Can We Make a Difference?

How do we know when we make a difference?

There are times when we reflect on our lives and wonder whether we can make a difference. Do our careers, our relationships and families, our lives matter? What effect are we having on the world around us?

Are the people we know any better because of what we do each day?

We watch the news and learn about tragedies and difficulties all around the world. Living in a time of war, famine, pestilence, and death we wonder how we can make a difference to anyone. How are we supposed to help all those people we have never met, even when we may have contributed to their problems? What can we do?

Some of us are not particularly concerned about whether we help make the world a better place. We keep our heads down, make a living, take vacations, save for retirement, avoid causing problems. Some of us like to see ourselves as steady and calm, not rocking the boat. We do not want to be bad people who do bad things, but we are not out to save the world, either.

Sometimes I envy people who can live that way. I have tried to be one of them, focused on meeting objectives and getting the job done. In my experience, though, spiritual life is all wrapped up with making a difference.

There are people who believe spiritual life is all about revealing the answers to our questions. They seem to think we will find the steps we are seeking to help make the world a better place.

I do not believe our lives have the answers printed in the back of the book.

Each of us is on a lifelong journey of discovery. The questions we ask lead us to new insights and new questions.

We Can Respond Today

Each of us makes a difference in the world each day.

Our lives are not long essays we need to write to earn credit for the entire semester. It does not matter what grand themes or theories we want to incorporate into the overall picture of our thinking.

We lives our lives from one pop quiz to the next.

When we see someone in pain or in need, how do we respond? Whether they are in our neighborhoods or our offices, or our families, or on the other side of the planet, how can we help?

I am not saying we are responsible to solve every problem everywhere in the world. We are, though, responsible to help solve some of them. How do we decide whether, and how, we will respond?

For me, spiritual life has a lot to do with reflecting and discerning how I respond to the world and the people around me.

There seem to be a large number of people who would like me to contribute to their benefit. I need to pay attention, listen, and seek wisdom as I make decisions about how to respond. I cannot give to every person who asks, nor can I refuse to give anything to anyone.

Part of my reflection and discerning is being open to the life which happens after I have already made plans.

It is important for me to take time to understand and appreciate how I relate to people. I need to spend some time listening.

We need to practice contemplative approaches to making a difference each day.

How will we decide how to respond today, or this week? Can we receive questions as opportunities rather than challenges? Where will we turn for help and guidance?

Are we making a real difference?

What Difference Does It Make?

It can be difficult for us to talk about spiritual life.

For some of us spiritual life is wrapped up in a transcendence beyond our understanding. We experience something which causes us to explore what we believe. How can we find words to describe an experience which transforms how we see our lives?

Others of us become captives of the language we hear about spiritual life. We hear theological explanations and teaching put into unfamiliar words. Many of us do not take the time to appreciate whether that language matches our own stories.

Some of us have decided the confusing, theoretical talk about spiritual life is not worth it. We ask questions and are more questioning after we hear the explanations.

If spiritual life is going to make a difference to us, we need to know difference it can make.

Spiritual life can be about the stories we hear in churches, but it is so much more. It is not merely conceptual or philosophical. It is not just a debate about what we think or how we feel.

There is more to spiritual life than church or how we feel or what we think.

Making a Real Difference

We live our lives in the shadow of death. A few of us can see death just beyond the horizon. Some of our friends and members of our families have already died. We may want to look death straight in the eye or we might want to run away from it as long as we can.

Spiritual life is about life overcoming and transforming death.

Our story is about life and death, darkness and light, friendship and betrayal, men and women. We hear about suffering and release, brutality and kindness, justice and mercy.

Spiritual life is about all the things which fill our everyday lives. It is a mirror which reflects our own struggles and our own possibilities back to us.

Many of us know what it feels like to be abandoned and alone. We know what it means to doubt we can go even one more step further.

Each of us needs to take time this week to pay attention, listen for wisdom, and discern how we can make a difference.

Why is knowing we can make a difference important to us today?

How does spiritual life make a difference for us this week?

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Greg Richardson is a spiritual director in Southern California. He is a recovering assistant district attorney and associate university professor, and is a lay Oblate with New Camaldoli Hermitage near Big Sur, California. Greg’s email address is [email protected].