Divine Interruptions-Trajectory Changes
We have a core value at The Feast Church that is “trajectory.” It is the core value that is the least intuitive to people, in my experience. What do you mean by trajectory as a value? Trajectory is not a word we hear a lot in day to day conversation. Sports is maybe the easiest comparison. Increasingly baseball analytics experts talk about launch angle or launch trajectory. The angle a ball comes off a bat can be the difference between an easy fly out at the warning track or a grand slam. Golfers know all too well that a little mistake in the trajectory of a golf swing can change your score by several strokes! My parents are getting ready to go on a long flight to Africa. If the pilot is five degrees off in her heading, they will not land close to the appropriate destination.
All of these examples get at why we think trajectory is an important value. Little decisions have big impacts. Tiny life changes, multiplied by decades, can result in a completely different person. This gives power to the current moment. It makes every decision important, significant, and dangerous. A little choice to be more patient with those who serve you in restaurants can impact millions of lives over a life time, when you factor in that server, the people they work with, their families, the other people at the table, and so on. If you have every marveled at an 80 year old person filled with grace and kindness or recoiled at an 80 year old person who is entitled and grumpy, they may have started as the same sort of person. One just learned kindness one choice at a time for 80 years and the other learned bitterness one choice at a time for 80 years.
We talked with Alana, one of our shepherds, this Sunday about the everyday way she serves other people. To suggest that she does a lot of “little” things is right, but also very wrong. Many of her efforts in the world are simple tasks that anyone could emulate. But the impact is not little! At this point hundreds of children have learned skills like empathetic listening or sharing or responsibility in Ms. Alana’s class. Those skills, in the lives of hundreds of students, will cause thousands of people to have a better experience when in contact with those students. Those interactions then help shape the larger culture of a community. This is how true change comes into the world.
I find that people get far too excited about elections. They worry about how policy changes will affect people. And I understand that sometimes laws are devastating. But generally speaking, I think people misunderstand how the world is truly formed. In my mind, election results are the end product of the culture, not the cause. They are a report card showing how we have collectively lived over decades. Harmful policies and laws are the result of what has already grown in our hearts, not a seed that grows something new. The seeds are in far smaller places. Face to face interactions. Routines built by families. Priorities set in household budgets. Volunteer hours served or not served. Those little choices are what truly sets the trajectory of a society. May you realize the power of such things in your life and use that power well.