Body of Individuals

Can one person change the world? It's a question I'm sure every kid asks at one point. Or do they? That, I think is one of the big problems in America. Kids don't see their life as a possibility for productivity. You see, life is what you make it, you've heard that before I'm sure. Usually when you try and explain that “life's not fair” or , “I couldn't help it.” You see, if something bad happens, you have the opportunity to fight it, or not. Even if you do you best and you still don 't win, it's your fault. Because you didn't have the skill to do anything.

Now, there's a grey area that this line of thought creates, for example, is it a husbands fault because his wife died of cancer, is it his wife's fault that she died of cancer. I'm not going to answer that, because I don't think it has a very clear answer, I called it grey for a reason. What I will say though, is who's fault it is doesn't matter in a situation like that. Even justice can be a form of revenge. You see, I don't believe in most people's version of justice. Justice to me is something that is done to prevent something similar from happening again, not so the wronged party can feel better. Besides, time and experience has shown that justice does little to make an injured party feel better. Justice is only necessary because human courts are an imperfect solution to imperfection. If a judge could look at someone and know 100% whether someone had truly repented of their iniquity then there is no point in punishing them beyond making them pay back as well as they can for damage caused. Since that is impossible though, the human “court” is a necessary system.

Back to the original question though. In my opinion, the answer is no. Can one person throw the snowball that starts an avalanche? Yes. Some people would say I'm nitpicking on details, because obviously since the person started it all they get credit for it. It comes to down to the idea of a body of individuals. Everyone has their own story. Sure Lauren joined the Christian movement because she heard the famous preacher speak, but you haven't heard the details about how she was struggling as a single mom, working days and nights, and slowly being driven to her knees by the pressure of life. In comparison the preacher did very little. You see a body of individuals can only happen because each separate individual chose to join the movement, chose to raise their spear alongside yours, and work towards a common goal as a separate person.

-Joshua A. Shillingworth