Ripples

At some point, most of us feel a little like George Bailey on edge of that bridge. You know scene from Frank Capra’s “It’s a Wonderful Life.” Bailey thinks he’s a worthless failure and that the world would be better off without o him. He is so convinced of that fact that he contemplates jumping off the bridge. Of course, that’s when he meets Clarence, his guardian angel. Clarence’s miracle shows Bailey what life would be like if it there were no George Bailey—and it was a bleak picture indeed. All the people he had helped were now helpless. The life he had saved was lost… and wasn’t there to save others. The world was much different and much darker because there was no George Bailey. So he understands that his was a wonderful life because his life had touched other, who touch others, who touched others.

John Donne was right, “No man is an island, entire to himself.” We are all pieces of the continent and parts of the main. Our lives impact other lives, and we are in turn impacted by others. In small ways and in big was, we touch other people are touched. And like George Bailey, we will never know the depth of the influence that we are having on people and on the world right now.

A certain major department store chain which shall be nameless (but it may start with a “W” and end with “all-Mart”) chain wanted to expand its store in an area, going from a store to a superstore. There was great opposition from smaller retailers who feared a hostile take over of the whole area. But the store argued that the economy of the entire area would be touched by the expansion. That claim was denied by the opposition. So one month the store paid its employees in silver dollars. It was not long before those silver dollars began to show everywhere– in the theater, in gas stations, at the grocery stores… everywhere. The store made its point—its influence was felt across the area.

And so is yours. The impact that you have on the people around you is tremendous. In large and small ways, the world around you is never quite the same because you are there. Like a pebble thrown into a pond produces ripples that change the entire surface, so does the ripple of our life change the world around us. Now, the local merchants in the example could argue, “But is the influence of the department stare good or bad?” And that’s the question for you and I, right? Are the ripples from the peddle that is our life that goes out to touch the world making it better or not.