Oh baby, baby it's a wild world.

I read a newspaper article today by my favorite columnist, Steve Duin. He writes commentaries about the world around him and his intelligent insight gives me hope for a better world. Today he writes about Jordan Wiley, an employee of Legacy Emmanuel Health Systems in Portland, Oregon who spent part of last year working with Doctors Without Borders in Port Harcourt, Nigeria. His work, although it entailed treating 6,300 patients without charge, was more about his trying than his doing. He is quoted as saying: "It is not about changing the world."
Than what is it about? I have, since I was a child, wanted to change the world.
I entered this world through a birth canal, kicking and screaming and gasping for my first breath; an entrance into a world I didn't want to enter. I hope to leave this world doing the same thing; kicking and screaming and gasping for my first breath of eternal life. I want to live a good life because I can. I would like to leave the people around me better than when I first encountered them. Is this possible?
Because Nigeria looks an awful, horrible, tragic lot like Mogadishu, Darfur and Rwanda. Does the world ever change? Can we stop history form repeating itself? Can we stop militant and sexual violence if it is serving to briefly satisfy the needs of human beings?
Jordan Wiley goes on to say, "It's doing what you can."
Yesterday I hugged someone who was crying from bad news. I am deeply in love with this person's heart. But our hearts and their humanity invite sadness. I feel privileged that I am trusted enough to recieve news, to hear other people's feelings and to see their emotions. It is something I beg to be burdened with. But where do you take it? What do you do with it? What do you do? All I can do is show them that, for right now, each other are the closest thing we have to Jesus.
We are so much. I have been running recently. It is an escape that is different from eating, drinking, or lust...pleasure. On Friday, I am going to escort my best friend onto our high school's football field because she is a member of the homecoming court. I can be her biggest fan. My art teacher passed around a sign-in sheet with this quote, the author is escapes me, but it said something along the lines of: "We would astound even ourselves if we did all the things that we are capable of doing."